Global Director Direct Procurement

As the Global Director, Direct Procurement, you will lead a world-class strategic sourcing team to secure a competitive advantage through innovative category management and robust supplier partnerships. You will act as a key advisor to business leadership, ensuring supply continuity and driving process excellence across our global manufacturing network. 

What you will do: 

• Category Management & Strategic Procurement: Develop and maintain relevant Category Strategies that are based on sound market knowledge and data. Drive tendering, negotiation, contracting and sourcing for signed raw material category(s). Build a strong and reliable supply base as differentiator to competition. Identify and coordinate approval of promising sources of supply to support innovative solutions ahead of competition. Work closely with key stakeholders to develop and deploy effective sourcing strategies that enable new business opportunities and innovation, step change improvements in quality, service at competitive cost. 

• Supplier Relationship Management: Lead and manage key supplier relationship(s). Develop a supplier strategy and execute the plan. Review with sites and senior management key suppliers performances and present the impact to the Lonza network, and support sites to resolve complaints and performance issues. 

• Supply Assurance: drive awareness of active supply issues clarifying business impact, lead resolution plans, deeply assess supply base and identify risks of supply disruption or competitiveness gaps, develop mitigation plans, coordinate with appropriate key stakeholders in case of major issues (crisis management), ensure business continuity 

• Business Stakeholder Management: Own the interface to business leaders concerning raw materials. Provide expertise in the relevant raw materials markets and advise on new business opportunities. Engage as needed with other internal stakeholders (corporate functions, BU leadership or sites) 

• Procurement Processes, tools and Systems: support global procurement initiatives and policies, implementation of procurement tools, processes and guidelines, roll out and implement key supplier scorecard and responsible sourcing plans 

• Leading a team: leading a team of strategic buyers located across our sites 

What we are looking for: 

• Strategic Category Leadership: Proven ability to develop data-driven category strategies and execute end-to-end sourcing, tendering, and contracting for complex raw material portfolios. 

• Supplier Relationship Management (SRM): Expertise in managing high-level supplier partnerships, including performance auditing, scorecard implementation, and resolving cross-site complaints. 

• Risk Mitigation & Supply Assurance: Strong track record in identifying supply chain disruptions, conducting deep-dive risk assessments, and leading crisis management or business continuity plans. 

• Innovation-Led Sourcing: Ability to scout and approve emerging supply sources that provide a competitive edge in quality, service, and innovative business solutions. 

• Stakeholder Influence: Executive-level communication skills with the ability to act as a strategic advisor to Business Unit leaders and corporate functions regarding raw material markets. 

• Process Excellence: Experience implementing global procurement initiatives, digital tools, and responsible sourcing policies across a multi-site network. 

• Global Team Leadership: Demonstrated success in leading and developing a distributed team of strategic buyers to achieve unified procurement goals. 

About Lonza: 

At Lonza, our people are our greatest strength. With 30+ sites across five continents, our globally connected teams work together every day to manufacture the medicines of tomorrow. Our core values of Collaboration, Accountability, Excellence, Passion and Integrity reflect who we are and how we work together. Everyone’s ideas, big or small, have the potential to improve millions of lives, and that’s the kind of work we want you to be part of.  

Innovation thrives when people from all backgrounds bring their unique perspectives to the table. At Lonza, we value diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. If you’re ready to help turn our customers’ breakthrough ideas into viable therapies, we look forward to welcoming you on board.  

Ready to shape the future of life sciences? Apply now.