Senior Category Manager

Req ID: 125145
Remote Position: Hybrid
Region: Americas
Country: Canada
State/Province: Ontario
City: Toronto

This role's responsibilities include establishing three-to five-year plans/objectives, and developing and/or influencing policies for the categories under this role's oversight. Accountable for projects or programs on a multi-functional, national, regional and global basis. Work is guided by broad site objectives and corporate policy. Work requires developing solutions, precedents, and/or policies. Receives assignments in the form of objectives and sets goals to achieve objectives. Establishes long-term plans/objectives and recommends changes to policies. Erroneous decisions or failure to achieve goals results in critical delay in schedules and/or unit operation and may also have a company-wide effect. Provides direct supervision to others, or indirect through subordinate supervisors, and coordinates the activities of a section or department with responsibility for results in terms of costs, methods, and employees. Reviews employees performance and recommends employee compensation; coaches for improved performance and disciplines as necessary. Provides final approval for subordinate managers/supervisors salary and performance recommendations. Builds cross-functional relationships where persuasive skills, negotiation skills, and considerable tact are required to gain support. Interacts regularly with senior management or executive levels on matters concerning several functional areas, divisions and/or customers. Maintains positive relationships with key customers, suppliers, etc., who have a significant impact on the success of the organization.

Performs tasks such as, but not limited to, the following:

• Actively manage and drive category benefits that enable functions and sites to optimize cost productivity for the globally managed categories of Travel / Corporate Card and Insurance.
• Challenge stakeholders as it relates to their processes resulting in demand management (e.g., insurance claims may reduce which control cost, travel expenses may reduce if new processes were introduced for teams/departments to plan their travels, introduce concepts and ideas to offer the corporate card as a valid and/or preferred payment method, etc.).
• Influence leaders and their teams to comply with policies and to adjust behaviours by using data driven expected benefits.
• Motivate and challenge Commodity (Category) Manager who has worldwide responsibility for a complex group of services.
• Provides guidance and support to the category manager during global negotiations of pricing, terms and conditions and monitoring of supplier performance.
• Provides guidance and support for worldwide product sourcing process.
• Responsible to proactively develop and ensure execution of procurement strategies for a group of services.
• Anticipates needs and adjustments required, designs plans to have them ready to deploy and be actioned given the complexity and varied commodities (categories) under responsibility in an environment of rapid global acquisitions.
• Establishes and drives strategic global bidding/initiatives while ensuring all sites and functions' interests are understood and accounted for.
• Updates plans, reviews and revises (if/as needed) supplier selection, quotation/contracting and supplier relationship management for high dollar commodities (categories).
• Participates in industry events to gain understanding of upcoming trends, factors, etc. to provide updates on key measurements and to identify and lead implementation of strategic initiatives.
• Establishes "rules of interaction" between corporate & sites to establish commodity splits, reporting, responsibilities and overall communications.
• Mentors and educates staff in financial analysis and world-wide marketplace. Accountable for employee training, performance, measurement, development, motivation and recognition.
• Establishes and meets aggressive category goals/ measurements and manages resources to achieve these goals.
• Drives continuous improvements of Category Management function through interactions with other departments.
• Monitor compliance and non-compliance of employees related to use of the corporate card and travel management company per the policies in place to then report and drive increased compliance to leadership.
• Understand the insurance contracts in place and monitor the claim history as well as go-to-market strategies to manage insurance spend.

• Extensive knowledge of the categories of Travel and/or Corporate Card and/or Insurance categories demonstrating:
  • expert knowledge of the marketplace conditions related to the strategic categories in industry pricing, technology, supply/demand and emerging trend.
  • ability to generate financial benefits in the categories under their responsibility by showing a track record of creative ways of challenging processes and/or spend management.
• Confrontational if/when required when spend management practices from the sites and functions is to be challenged for Celestica's larger benefit.
• Influential to multiple layers of site/functions' leadership and other layers of stakeholders to ensure spending in these categories by proactively presenting and prioritizing the initiatives that will generate the strongest benefits.
• Ability to lead complex negotiations and finalize contracts in the categories under responsibility effectively and operationalize with leaders across sites and functions globally.
• Ability to communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing, with a wide variety of internal and external stakeholders including but not limited to C-Suite stakeholders.
• Ability to interface with many international sites to establish strong working relationships and cooperation founded in credibility (SME, action/result oriented).
• Ability to effectively lead, manage, train and motivate employees and stakeholders.

• Duties of this position are performed in a normal office environment.
• Duties may require extended periods of sitting and sustained visual concentration on a computer monitor or on numbers and other detailed data.
• Repetitive manual movements (e.g., data entry, using a computer mouse, using a calculator, etc.) are frequently required.
• Occasional travel may be required.

• 10+ years in negotiation / category management experience in all of the categories listed in this job description (categories of Travel, Corporate Card, Insurance).
• 3+ years of people management experience is required.
• Experience in roles of influence as SME with record of results in generating non conventional, significant and interesting financial benefits for the company.

• Bachelor's degree in related field (e.g., commerce), or consideration of an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Accreditations in supply chain management and/or procurement are considered an asset.

This job description is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties and responsibilities of the position. Employees are held accountable for all duties of the job. Job duties and the % of time identified for any function are subject to change at any time.

Celestica is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment and will not be discriminated against on any protected status (including race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran or disability status or other characteristics protected by law).
At Celestica we are committed to fostering an inclusive, accessible environment, where all employees and customers feel valued, respected and supported. Special arrangements can be made for candidates who need it throughout the hiring process. Please indicate your needs and we will work with you to meet them.

COMPANY OVERVIEW:
Celestica (NYSE, TSX: CLS) enables the world's best brands. Through our recognized customer-centric approach, we partner with leading companies in Aerospace and Defense, Communications, Enterprise, HealthTech, Industrial, Capital Equipment and Energy to deliver solutions for their most complex challenges. As a leader in design, manufacturing, hardware platform and supply chain solutions, Celestica brings global expertise and insight at every stage of product development – from drawing board to full-scale production and after-market services for products from advanced medical devices, to highly engineered aviation systems, to next-generation hardware platform solutions for the Cloud.

Headquartered in Toronto, with talented teams spanning 40+ locations in 13 countries across the Americas, Europe and Asia, we imagine, develop and deliver a better future with our customers.

Celestica would like to thank all applicants, however, only qualified applicants will be contacted.

Celestica does not accept unsolicited resumes from recruitment agencies or fee based recruitment services.