Head of Category - Cargo & Hubs

Job Description

Why USWe are the one of the worlds leading airline groups, with 546 aircraft flying to over 270 destinations, carrying more than 100 million passengers each year.We provide a plug and play platform of scalable, best in class procurement, finance and IT business services to our operating companies.The company is headquartered in Krakow, and has operations in London, Madrid, Barcelona and Dublin.Purpose of the roleIn our Company, every day in is different. And this is also true for Group Procurement. What makes this particular role special is:

• The opportunity to head a group of sub-categories of procurement spend across a range of products and services, both aviation and non-aviation related;
• Working collaboratively and across the operating companies, and with Procurement Heads of Category, ensuring the delivery of an effective, robust and compliant procurement team and delivery of the business plan, maximising the Groups buying power.
• Lead strategic activities, including category planning, sourcing, risk management and act as a single point of contact for senior stakeholders.

You will make an impact in this role by

• Being responsible for defining and implementing a 3-5 year category plan for the given categories, ensuring alignment with business goals.
• Leading a global cross-category team of Category Leads focusing on capability development, workload management and continuity planning.
• Being responsible for developing and implementing local and global sourcing strategies for all external spend related activity. Developing long term strategic plans and targets in order to achieve Group Procurement objectives.
• Being accountable for operating companies tier 1 (high strategic/high risk/high spend) projects. Work with strategic suppliers to grow and develop supplier markets.
• Management of stakeholder relationships across all operating companies and other Procurement Categories, ensuring appropriately robust challenge while delivering the operating companies business plans.
• Accountability for supplier risk to protect the operating companies and the Group from financial, operational and reputational damage.
• Provide commercial innovation to internal stakeholders through interaction with the supply base.
• Work with internal stakeholders and external suppliers to resolve commercial and contractual disputes; in particular suppliers with high complexity and/or high spend.
• Through liaison with the Procurement Operations Centre and operating company stakeholders, ensure supplier performance management is robust, effective and compliant.
• Work alongside business areas to identify, challenge, harmonise and simplify specifications and processes across the operating companies to ensure that Group buying power is maximised.

To succeed in this role, you are likely to have

• Airline procurement experience or airline operational experience or airline commercial experience;
• The ability to influence, align diverse views and gain consensus, providing clarity and direction on what is to be achieved and break down barriers that get in the way of effective team working;
• Senior level experience of partnering with Senior Leaders and Executives in a fast moving and agile business environment;
• Senior level experience in Procurement gathered in a complex global organization (at least 5+ years);
• Experience of working in an environment of change involving people, process, policy and technology;
• Excellent leadership skills with the ability to inspire, lead, build and deliver through high-performance teams;
• Strong business and financial acumen with the ability to evaluate, analyse and solve problems;
• Excellent written and spoken English; a working knowledge of Spanish is an advantage;

What we offer

• The chance to enjoy a challenging career in an exciting, fast-moving environment in a dynamic industry.
• The opportunity to work in a multi-cultural environment with great offices in many locations. We aim to provide all our people with a work/life balance, as well as the many benefits offered by a global organisation, including health insurance, pension andperformance bonuses.
• We are an equal opportunities employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, colour, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protectedby law