Specialist Quality, Supplier Management (176828)
Colgate-PalmoliveRequisition ID 176828 - Posted 10/30/2026 - Quality - United States - Kansas - Topeka - Hill's Pet Nutrition - Travel - 25% of time - Hybrid No Relocation Assistance Offered Job Number #176828 - Topeka, Kansas, United States Who We Are Colgate-Palmolive Company is a global consumer products company operating in over 200 countries specializing in Oral Care, Personal Care, Home Care, Skin Care, and Pet Nutrition. Our products are trusted in more households than any other brand in the world, making us a household name! Join Colgate-Palmolive, a caring, innovative growth company reimagining a healthier future for people, their pets, and our planet. Guided by our core values—Caring, Inclusive, and Courageous—we foster a culture that inspires our people to achieve common goals. Together, let's build a brighter, healthier future for all. Role Summary: The Specialist Quality, Supplier Management establishes, maintains, and continuously elevates quality assurance and food safety standards across Hill’s global direct materials supply network. This role ensures that raw material, ingredient, and packaging suppliers strictly adhere to Hill’s and Colgate-Palmolive Quality & Food Safety Standards, FDA/FSMA regulations, and GFSI benchmarks.Serving as a key cross-functional technical member, the Specialist is responsible for facilitating supplier qualification, supplier audits, technical risk assessments, corrective action programs, and supplier performance scorecards. This role works in partnership with Procurement to assess and manage direct materials supply, with Plant Quality, Operations, and Corporate Analytical to address nonconforming materials, and with other cross-functional teams including, Science & Technology (S&T), Food Safety, Regulatory Affairs and Global Packaging. The Specialist will embrace and use modern tools including Google Suite, Artificial Intelligence, Sigma Computing, SmartSheets and others to integrate workflows, analysis and visualizations in a precise and efficient manner. Responsibilities: Supplier Qualification & Risk Governance Perform and facilitate comprehensive quality assessments in support of requests for new supplier qualification. Maintain the approved supplier database, SAP and Quality Management Systems to ensure accuracy and control of the direct materials supply. Co-Lead the Annual Risk Assessment process for direct materials suppliers. Partner with Procurement during strategic sourcing events to evaluate technical supplier capabilities and manage supplier quality risks early in the procurement lifecycle. Supplier Auditing & Performance Management Design and execute annual risk-based supplier audit plans, conducting comprehensive desktop and on-site audits to verify compliance with GFSI standards (SQF, BRCGS, FSSC 22000), FSMA, HACCP, and Hill’s internal specifications. Lead post-audit follow-up activities including driving timely completion of action plan development and audit closure. Establish and track key performance indicators (KPIs) for the supply base, including non-conformance rates, defect rates, Right-First-Time (RFT) delivery, and Supplier Corrective Action Request (SCAR) closure times. Coordinate quarterly quality reviews and contribute quality performance metrics to global supplier scorecards in collaboration with Procurement. Lead monthly ESM program status updates. Non-Conformance, SCAR & Change Management Coordinate cross-functional teams (Operations, Plant QA, Corporate Analytical, Food Safety, S&T, Global Packaging and Regulatory) during potential material quality holds and supplier-driven rejections. Serve as the primary escalation point for manufacturing plants experiencing raw material or packaging quality disruptions, leading real-time risk assessments to enable material disposition decisions. Coordinate the SCAR program and lifecycle, working with plant Operations and Quality to gather information and partnering with Procurement when initiating SC…