Director, Procurement & Strategic Sourcing

Position Summary The Director of Procurement & Strategic Sourcing is accountable for all company buying of $50+ million dollars and for transforming how the company buys. Develops and executes enterprise sourcing and supplier-management strategies that support Shakespeare Company manufacturing operations and turn spend into validated savings, margin and cash. This position leads category strategy, competitive sourcing, commercial negotiations, supplier performance management and supply-risk mitigation while ensuring material availability, quality, delivery and total-cost objectives are achieved. The role builds and leads the purchasing team and partners with executive leadership, Operations, Planning, Engineering, Quality and Finance to improve supplier capability, reduce cost and working capital, and support new product introductions across the company’s business units. Essential Functions Establish and maintain a single enterprise view of spend by category, supplier and business unit; set the annual sourcing plan and savings targets against that baseline and report results to executive leadership and Finance. Develop and execute category and sourcing strategies for all commodities, materials, services and indirect spend, balancing cost, quality, delivery, capacity, technology and supply-continuity requirements. Lead requests for quotation and proposal, supplier evaluations, bid analysis, negotiations, supplier selection and commercial recommendations using a total-cost-of-ownership approach; personally lead strategic and high-value negotiations. Negotiate pricing, lead times, payment terms, minimum order quantities, freight terms, tooling arrangements, capacity commitments and other commercial conditions, including long-term agreements and index-based pricing, within delegated authority. Identify, qualify and onboard suppliers in partnership with Quality, Engineering and Operations; rationalize and consolidate the supply base where it improves cost, quality and risk; maintain appropriate sourcing documentation and supplier records. Build and maintain supplier scorecards covering on-time delivery, quality, responsiveness, lead time, cost performance and corrective-action closure; conduct structured supplier business reviews with supplier leadership. Lead and deliver annual cost-reduction and value-improvement initiatives through negotiation, resourcing, value analysis/value engineering, specification review, demand aggregation, supply-base consolidation and process improvement. Monitor material requirements, purchase commitments, supplier capacity and delivery risk; escalate constraints early and coordinate recovery plans that protect production and customer commitments. Develop contingency and mitigation plans for single-source materials, long-lead components, capacity constraints, tariff and commodity-price exposure and other supplier risks. Lead, coach and develop the Buyer/Planner and purchasing team, and partner with Operations to align sourcing actions with the Sales, Inventory and Operations Planning process, production schedules and inventory targets. Support new product introductions and engineering changes by obtaining supplier quotations, validating lead times and capacity, coordinating samples or first articles, and establishing production-ready sources. Ensure accurate supplier, pricing, lead-time, order-policy and purchasing data is maintained in the ERP system; use the ERP/MRP system as the system of record for procurement activity. Analyze purchase price variance, inventory exposure, supplier performance and market conditions; provide clear recommendations and track and report realized savings against approved baselines. Establish procurement policy and governance, including approval limits, sourcing rules, contract standards and purchase price variance tracking, and drive compliance across all business units. Align supplier payment terms, order parameters (lead times, minimum/maximum levels, safety stoc…

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