Procurement Category Manager, Customer Marketing

The Diageo Europe Marketing Procurement team, working alongside our Marketing Procurement Center of Excellence, has always been a significant contributor towards Diageo’s productivity and growth goals and is considered a trusted and respected partner internally and externally. Most recently, the full global marketing procurement team came together to build our 3-year strategy which is centred around a stretching ambition to exponentially increase the value procurement brings to Diageo, and very importantly, how procurement brings that value.

The strategic priorities have been clearly identified in our 4C’s strategy which cover:

• Cost - next generation of investment optimization and productivity
• Cash - a rigorous focus on managing and controlling our cash agenda
• Carbon+ - an accelerated delivery of our ESG ambition
• Customer - ensuring we invest our A&P effectively and efficiently

Diageo Europe includes the Market clusters of GB, Ireland, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Eastern Europe and MENA (Middle East North Africa). The Category Manager for Customer Marketing Europe is a critical leader within the Europe Procurement Leadership Team and must demonstrate highly effective business partnering skills, navigating across multiple markets/functions such as Marketing, Commercial, Finance, etc.

Within the Customer Marketing strategy, Procurement are elevating our influence in new areas of investment and extending our commercial impact. Delivery and leadership of the MCM is critical to their success. The Category Manager will lead the team of Europe Category Specialists for Customer Marketing with a focus on driving a breakthrough in our Commercial A&P and Trade Investment, with a supporting role of all other customer marketing areas such as POS. The spend of direct influence for this role is significant and in addition to delivering the strategic priorities, this role also has accountability and responsibility for delivering financial and non-financial targets for this spend in line with Global and Europe category strategies.

Responsibilities

• Managing the commercial marketing procurement scope through brilliant execution including sourcing and supplier relationship management and development.
• Delivering financial and non-financial critical metrics across Diageo’s total balanced scorecard.
• Driving an optimised shape of Diageo’s A&P to maximise growth and performance by reducing areas of inefficient and ineffective spend using investment insights, data, and strategy.
• Effectively partnering with business collaborators across Europe markets (Marketing, Procurement, Sales, Finance, Sustainability, Legal, etc) to drive transformation and value in line with Diageo’s performance ambition.
• Driving end-to-end execution of category strategies, ensuring that business partners are aligned and working in line with strategy.
• Driving and supporting best practice and innovative models for sourcing, cost models, benchmarking, SRM/SPM and e-sourcing – working closely with Global Procurement and other in-market Procurement teams.
• Partnering with Global Procurement Category teams on relevant market insights, input and builds for all category strategy and benchmarking work.
• Leading local market sourcing and supporting global sourcing and supplier relationship management activity across Customer Marketing categories.
• Leading external agency partnerships effectively, leading pitch processes, agency negotiations, and agency collaboration plans to improve commercial value, minimise risk, and assure quality of delivery and performance.
• Continuously improve ways of working through tools, data and insights across categories to embed a culture of speed, simplification, and delivery.
• Leading procurement productivity agenda identifying and implementing transformational behavioural changes beyond immediate functional responsibilities.
• Leading the monthly Europe BPM processes for the Customer Marketing categories.
• Key partner with teams in shared services (Finance, Tactical) to ensure robust reporting and data management.
• Representing Diageo at various industry bodies as appropriate.
• Promoting the highest standards of ethics and compliance consistently.
• Line management of direct reports.
• Developing talent within direct team and other teams.

Experience, Skills & Capabilities Required

• Extensive Procurement or Commercial experience in an FMCG environment.
• Proven experience in key procurement skills including, strategy development, negotiations (Complex/multi-country negotiations), analysis (cost drivers), forecasting and benchmarking, ideally in a Marketing Procurement context.
• Strong knowledge of financial drivers to shape procurement strategies.
• Proven experience in taking informed, calculated risks to achieve substantial strategic gains.
• Strong analytical skills. Forensic understanding of the cost drivers to target and influence costs through end-to-end value.
• Strong commercial acumen, understanding of the business and judgement.
• Ability to work in an agile, fast moving and ambiguous environment and ability to keep up with pace of change and prioritise according to business needs.
• Strong communication and influencing skills and personal impact to gain credibility quickly with senior stakeholders and generate followership.
• Experience of making tough decisions and prioritising delivery in a complex and difficult environment.
• Practiced in objectively challenging to stimulate alternative thinking.
• Strong leadership, coaching and inter-personal skills with team performance management experience.

Working with Us

Flexibility is key to success in our business and many of our staff work flexibly in many different ways, including part-time, compressed hours, flexible location. Please talk to us about what flexibility means to you and don’t let anything stop you from applying. Join us and you can also expect a highly competitive and flexible rewards and benefits package including:

• Competitive base salary and bonus scheme.
• Contemporary work life balance policies, benefits and wellbeing activities.
• Contributory pension scheme.

Celebrating our inclusive and diverse culture is core to Diageo’s purpose of “celebrating life every day everywhere”. This purpose is, in itself, inclusive in nature, as it values everybody irrespective of background, disability, religion, gender identity, sexuality or ethnicity. We know that for our business to thrive and for Diageo to realise its ambition, we depend on having diverse talent with a range of backgrounds, skills and capabilities in each of the 180 countries in which we operate and to reflect our broad consumer base. We view diversity as one of the key enablers that helps our business to grow and our values, purpose and standards set the conditions for us to respect the unique contribution each person brings. Our ambition is to create the best performing, most trusted and respected Consumer Products Company in the world. To achieve these, we need the world’s very best people. We’re looking for people with creativity, boldness and a sense of purpose to take Diageo and our timeless, pioneering brands to the next level. Feel inspired? Then this may be the opportunity for you!