Head of Procurement (Indirects)

Job Introduction

A rare opportunity has arisen to join our Supply Management team in a Senior Leadership position, we're currently looking to appoint a Head of Procurement - Indirects. You’ll have a rich knowledge of indirect categories; such as temporary labour, travel, professional services and IT / tech, be passionate about sustainable sourcing and continued innovation.

You’ll join the wider Supply Management function and collaboratively use our professional buying, supply chain deployment, operational support, data and vendor Governance teams to ensure our clients receive the highest quality, best value and professionally deployed products and services.

Our purchasing policies guarantee the quality of our sourced products and encourages our suppliers to embrace our principles: loyalty, respect for people, transparency and business integrity, which are part of our Better Tomorrow 2025 objectives. Our sustainable procurement policy focuses on sustainability, seasonality and provenance and we continually review our logistics arrangements in order to reduce delivery miles.

As a key member of our senior leadership team you’ll provide clear communication and direction to your team, you’ll support, mentor and develop the ‘talent of the future’ within Supply Management and you’ll be capable of establishing relationships with a broad array of stakeholders to influence decision and create positive outcomes for our organisation. You’ll live and breathe our values and sustainable sourcing will be at the heart of everything you do.

This is an exciting role with plenty of scope for growth, continued professional development and where you’ll have the opportunity to work a cross a diverse global organisation.

You’ll be home based with national travel to both Sodexo offices and client sites.

Role Responsibility

• Lead Indirect & non-food consumables Category management team, design and implement the assigned categories within the scope of responsibility
• Drive efficiency and commercial competitiveness for the UK & I
• Responsible for category team with spend range of £200m plus
• Design and Implement category strategies which significantly improve the commercial performance at a regional level
• Engage with the global buying teams in an active collaboration for developing categories globally
• Design and implement adequate strategies to achieve high performance meanwhile ensuring continuity and risk mitigation
• Manage a team of 4 upwards procurement professionals and develop the team through the right training and career

A full job description is available in the below attachment

The Ideal Candidate

• Highly capable senior leader with extensive people management experience and a strategic mindset. CIPS/ISM or equivalent qualification is preferred
• Proven experience leading an indirect category management function
• Excellent stakeholder management and engagement skills and the ability to influence and deploy change
•  Financial acumen with a commercial mind and a demonstrable track record of complex contract negotiation and
•  Excellent external networking capabilities and a team player with excellent collaboration and communication skills
• Result orientated with the ability to present results in a structured and professional manner
• Strong project management skills
•  Ability to work in a multi-cultural and matrix environment

Package Description

Competitive Salary and Excellent Benefits

We also offer Sodexo Discounts site promoting discounted mobile phone tariffs, savings across restaurant chains and days out, where you and your family can save money on everything from your weekly food shop to the latest cinema blockbuster and much more

About the Company

In the UK and Ireland, Sodexo employs around 30,000 people, and partners with clients in many sectors across business and industry; schools and universities; sports and leisure; energy and resources; government and agencies; healthcare; justice and defence.

Sodexo’s connected; people-centric approach brings together a diverse range of expertise. The breadth of services it offers ranges from food and hospitality; cleaning; reception; concierge (Circles); security; property management and technical services through to data driven workplace strategy and design (Wx); employee engagement and recognition services (Sodexo Engage) and personal home services through Prestige Nursing + Care and the Good Care Group.  

Vital Spaces is Sodexo’s value proposition that puts people at the heart of everything we do, bringing together services and solutions and focusing on the productivity and wellbeing of people wherever they are.

Sodexo is committed to being an inclusive employer; we welcome and encourage applications from people with a diverse variety of experiences, backgrounds and identities.

We’re a Disability Confident Leader employer. We’re committed to changing attitudes towards disability, and making sure disabled people have the chance to fulfil their aspirations. 

We are building on our support to the Armed Forces community through the development of specific pathways within our recruitment process to  support ex-forces personnel and reservists, those applying for jobs with us who meet the ideal candidate criteria for the role advertised are guaranteed to progress to the selection process