R&d Associate Procurement Director

**Play your part in impacting patients’ lives**

AstraZeneca is a global, science-led, patient-focused biopharmaceutical company that focuses on the discovery, development and commercialisation of prescription medicines for some of the world’s most serious diseases. Our innovative medicines are used by millions of patients worldwide.

Contribute to our truly global Procurement team, which reflects the full diversity of the people we serve. Your voice counts: different experiences, backgrounds and ways of working are respected here. United by curiosity, we share insights to challenge conventions. By collaborating and innovating with each other, our stakeholders, and our suppliers, we are creating the most competitive supplier ecosystem.

R&D Procurement support both R&D Oncology and R&D Biopharmaceuticals. These R&D units have responsibility for the value chain from discovery through to late-stage development, enabling rapid acceleration of promising early-stage assets and life-cycle management programs.

We are now recruiting an Associate Director of Procurement to join R&D Procurement (Global Procurement), assigned to supporting R&D Clinical Technology. The position is located in Mississauga (Canada).

**What you'll do**:

- The role is accountable for leading a complex category, or leading a cluster of categories, within R&D Procurement. The role reports to the Director of Procurement - R&D Clinical Technology. You will work closely with various R&D groups who support Digital Health and Clinical Technology activities, as well as working with clinical teams and therapy areas who require clinical technology solutions. You will manage key partner relationships across R&D to understand needs and develop strategy.
- In addition to engaging with procurement and suppliers to support new requirements, this position will play a key role in serving as an SME in R&D Digital Patient Solutions and Clinical Technology, bringing expertise and knowledge to the procurement network.

**Strategy**:

- Accountable for the designing and implementation of category strategies to optimise business efficiency.
- Accountable for category management globally, including strategic sourcing, supplier collaboration & innovation and contract & risk management.
- Accountable for developing and maintaining expert knowledge of respective global supply markets, competitors and product innovations.
- Accountable for understanding the global category spend and finding opportunities to increase quality and improve value for money. Facilitate implementation of procurement change initiatives within category to improve business performance.

**Leadership**:

- Accountable for managing category support resources, category targets and overall category related portfolio.
- Leads, coaches and develops professional aspects of Procurement team members within a cluster of categories

**Business & Supplier Engagement**:

- Develop an extensive understanding of customer needs and the business environment. Build strong relationship with customers and ensure customer satisfaction.
- In conjunction with stakeholder groups, defines business needs from their area of responsibility and translates these needs into specific resource requirements for Procurement
- Develops senior level relationships in order to resolve issues, optimise business performance and develop future improvement opportunities
- Work with the Strategic Intelligence team to perform procurement reporting and analysis of management information to identify potential improvement opportunities as well as identification of innovative procurement solutions that provide savings and process efficiencies for the organization.
- Fosters trusted relationships with vendors to achieve better pricing and quality of services. Maintains contractual and business relationships with suppliers to the highest standards. Address supplier issues to ensure the highest level of service delivery.
- Support annual peer reviews of category, region or market strategies
- Supports the planning and reviewing of the performance of Clin Tech Procurement Team; and other functional teams linked to area of responsibility
- Directs & supports new initiatives and improvement programmes aimed at ensuring compliance, continuous improvement, technical excellence and improving cost-effectiveness
- Instil the highest standards of compliance and ethics consistently across AZ

**Essential Skills & Experience**
- Degree level qualification (or equivalent)
- Thorough knowledge of pharmaceutical industry, specifically clinical development/technology
- Expertise in at least one area of Procurement or relevant R&D experience.
- Proven leadership & stakeholder management experience
- Communication skills and ability to influence others
- Comfort with risk and ambiguous situations

At AstraZeneca, we’re dedicated to being a Great Place to Work. Where you are empowered to push the boundaries of science and fuel your entrepreneurial spirit