Category Leader

Categoty Leader
BASIC FUNCTION
The Category Leader – Strategic Projects is responsible for leading projects related to our Sanimex Faucets Operations plant, various localization and regionalization projects with the purpose of mitigating risks, improving costs, maintaining a focus of North America operational optimization by increasing business effectiveness to assist in the achievement of business goals. This role requires a mixture of Strategic Sourcing subject matter expertise, technical development, and project management to successfully deliver business solutions and drive Sourcing best practices to Kohler.

Specific Responsibilities
This role works cross-functionally with multiple areas such as New Product Integration, New Project Development, Supply Chain, Quality, Engineering, Operations and Strategic Sourcing teams in North America plan and deliver projects ensuring deliverables are completed in a timely fashion, within budget, and achieve expected benefits to the company. Success in this role requires the following:

Project Management

• Coordinate and enable execution from the Strategic plan to implementation at the plants. Lead projects by defining Strategic suppliers, negotiated costs, lead time and implementation tracker.
• Develop and maintain detailed project trackers. Responsible for regularly reporting project status to business teams and executive leaders.
• Establish and participate in regular communication between departments and coordinate their activities to provide expertise as required by project scope and requirements.
• Ensure project risks have been thoroughly considered with strong mitigation plans in place.
• Communicate with other regions during the local regional time as needed.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Strategic Sourcing

• Ability to recognize the strategic path in a project, identifying key categories that make up the majority of Regional Value Content in a Mexico – USA manufacturing environment.
• Ability to negotiate terms, conditions and costs. It involves direct and indirect negotiation, identification of key metrics of the project and understanding the impact of these conditions in the project and teams.
• Analytic skills to understand spending by region, key suppliers and categories that impact a project and the manufacturing site.
• Supplier Development skills. Develop working strategic relationships with suppliers to enable key long-term agreements that benefit North America operations.

Collaboration

• Build positive relationships with cross-functional teams and operations partners.
• Assist business teams and corporate functions by filling gaps with functional knowledge and procurement expertise.
• Work creatively and analytically in a team-focused, problem-solving environment.

Continuous Improvement

• Act as change agent, identifying areas of procurement performance improvement that are in alignment with the strategic direction of the company.
• Conduct business process reviews to continually enhance the efficiency of procurement processes, systems, and overall stakeholder experience.

Required Competencies

• Business Acumen: Business acumen focuses on two general areas, general business knowledge and specific industry knowledge. It is important to understand both to be successful. This role needs to understand the various moving parts and roles within our business, as well as the industries and regions in which we operate. Deep understanding of Sourcing Strategy, project management, supplier development focused project execution.
• Problem Solving: Problem solving is best done by assembling the right people, defining the problem, considering alternatives and perspectives, and working out a clear and effective solution.
• Independent work: Involves being comfortable being an individual champion with topics or controls that may be unpopular. This requires confidence to deal with the inherent conflict, being brave to speak up while maintaining a harmonious working relationship among peers.

RELATIONSHIP AND CONTACTS
Supervisory: Reports to the Sr Manager – Strategic Sourcing

Organization Relationships: Frequent contact with corporate departments, global business units, procurement teams and Strategic Sourcing Council.

External Business Relationships: Contact with external suppliers.

Education And Experience Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain Management, Business Administration, Procurement, Information Technology or related field is required.
• At least 5-7 years of work experience in Supply Chain, Procurement, IT or related field with proven skills in project management preferred.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills to professionally address a wide and varied audience, including executive management, both internally and externally.
• Good command of both written and spoken English is required.
• Strong computer skills, including Microsoft Office products and project management software preferred.
• Intermediate knowledge of ERP and master data management experience preferred.
• Organizational and time management skills sufficient to handle multiple priorities in a fast-paced and ever-changing environment.
• Some travel required (less than 15%)
• Some work hour adjustments are needed to support collaborative teamwork with multiple regions.
• Hybrid in Monterrey, Mexico - 4 days per week

Why Choose Kohler?
We empower each associate to #BecomeMoreAtKohler with a competitive total rewards package to support your health and wellbeing, access to career growth and development opportunities, a diverse and inclusive workplace, and a strong culture of innovation. With more than 30,000 bold leaders across the globe, we're driving meaningful change in our mission to help people live gracious, healthy, and sustainable lives.

About Us
It is Kohler's policy to recruit, hire, and promote qualified applicants without regard to race, creed, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, national origin, disability or status as a protected veteran. If, as an individual with a disability, you need reasonable accommodation during the recruitment process, please contact . Kohler Co. is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.