Sr Manager Global Category Procurement - Freight & Logistics

For 75 years, Charles River employees have worked together to assist in the discovery, development and safe manufacture of new drug therapies. When you join our family, you will have a significant impact on the health and well-being of people across the globe. Whether your background is in life sciences, finance, IT, sales or another area, your skills will play an important role in the work we perform. In return, we’ll help you build a career that you can feel passionate about.
Job Summary
This role is responsible for one of our most business critical global categories, Freight and Logistics. The category has Executive Committee and Board level visibility given the criticality, risk and level of spend. The ideal candidate must be highly analytical, a problem solver and an out of the box thinker with the ability to develop market insights, identify trends and devise strategies to manage the various market forces that drive risk and cost for CRL and the industry, understand global multimillion dollar spend categories and act as a strategic partner to functional areas within the company. In addition, the candidate must be capable of driving overall best value sourcing strategies for categories (risk, quality, service and cost), rationalizing the supply base, negotiating and contracting, SRM (supplier relationship management) and establishing partnerships with key suppliers. Import/export/shipping experience is not required. However, experience managing this global category is certainly a plus.
Essential Duties And Responsibilities

• Stay current and informed on the market (category based), changing technologies, and global market trends to ensure CRL category strategies are delivering maximum value while maintaining quality and service.
• Liaise with procurement peers to ensure a consistent approach to category strategies and management.
• Implement global category sourcing strategies with business leads for assigned categories of products and services, several which are complex and of strategic importance, high value and critical to the success of the business.
• Drive innovation and the development of how to satisfy the requirements of goods and services.
• Ensure the enforcement of related process and policy, working with Finance, Legal, Procurement and Audit as appropriate. Create process documents, SOPs and work instructions as required.
• Manage cost savings and performance measurement systems for supplier contracts. Where appropriate, track, analyze and report cost savings against investment proposals, capital expenditure and contract spend commitments. Utilize and manage reporting procedures that meet the internal needs of Finance, Legal, Procurement and Audit.
• Implement SRM with strategic suppliers and all key suppliers, and utilize analytics to enable effective procurement strategies to measure and improve supplier performance against key business objectives while reducing costs and increasing value.
• Develop, negotiate and manage global contractual relationships including all appropriate supply agreements, statements of work and quality specifications, and quality service agreements.
• Develop senior level relationships to better understand and align with business strategy and direction to prioritize initiatives and harmonize business and category strategies.
• Utilize collaborative procurement for partnering and competitive processes to assure continuous improvements in quality, supply chain and service performance, and maximize the value to CRL.
• Identify, manage, and mitigate risks in the supply chain, follow market conditions and collect vendor intelligence; anticipate market trends and develop strategies.

Job Qualifications

• Certification/Licensure: CPSM preferred.
• Experience: 6-9 years related experience, management/leadership experience preferred, preferably in a life sciences company and/or multinational corporation.
• Other: Excellent oral and written communication skills and interpersonal, analytical, presentation, influencing and negotiation skills required. Must possess in-depth knowledge of complex pricing arrangements and supplier profitability.
• An equivalent combination of education and experience may be accepted as a satisfactory substitute for the specific education and experience listed above.
• Education: Bachelor’s degree (B.A./B.S.) or equivalent in a related discipline. MBA or Engineering degree preferred.
• Experience in tendering, contracting and managing ground transporters, freight forwarders and brokers.
• Experience with specialty ground and air freight plus specialty couriers.
• Comprehensive understanding of the global freight and logistics market.

About Corporate Functions
The Corporate Functions provide operational support across Charles River in areas such as Human Resources, Finance, IT, Legal, Sales, Quality Assurance, Marketing, and Corporate Development. They partner with their colleagues across the company to develop and drive strategies and to set global standards. The functions are essential to providing a bridge between strategic vision and operational readiness, to ensure ongoing functional innovation and capability improvement.
About Charles River
Charles River is an early-stage contract research organization (CRO). We have built upon our foundation of laboratory animal medicine and science to develop a diverse portfolio of discovery and safety assessment services, both Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) and non-GLP, to support clients from target identification through preclinical development. Charles River also provides a suite of products and services to support our clients’ clinical laboratory testing needs and manufacturing activities. Utilizing this broad portfolio of products and services enables our clients to create a more flexible drug development model, which reduces their costs, enhances their productivity and effectiveness to increase speed to market.
With over 20,000 employees within 110 facilities in over 20 countries around the globe, we are strategically positioned to coordinate worldwide resources and apply multidisciplinary perspectives in resolving our client’s unique challenges. Our client base includes global pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies, government agencies and hospitals and academic institutions around the world.
At Charles River, we are passionate about our role in improving the quality of people’s lives. Our mission, our excellent science and our strong sense of purpose guide us in all that we do, and we approach each day with the knowledge that our work helps to improve the health and well-being of many across the globe. We have proudly supported the development of 86% of the drugs approved by the FDA in 2021.
Equal Employment Opportunity
Charles River Laboratories is an Equal Opportunity Employer - all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin, veteran or disability status.
If you are interested in applying to Charles River Laboratories and need special assistance or an accommodation due to a disability to complete any forms or to otherwise participate in the resume submission process, please contact a member of our Human Resources team by sending an e-mail message to [email protected]. This contact is for accommodation requests for individuals with disabilities only and cannot be used to inquire about the status of applications.
For more information, please visit www.criver.com.