Head of Global Strategic Sourcing

The role

You will lead the worldwide Strategic Sourcing organization and be accountable for the commercial success of the direct supply base. You will define and execute sourcing strategies for production components used in autonomous aircraft and logistics systems.

What you will do

• Lead the development and execution of global sourcing strategy across all direct materials.
• Develop end-to-end global sourcing strategy across all commodities and technologies.
• Lead, mentor, and develop the Global Supply Management organization.
• Own executive relationships with strategic global suppliers.
• Establish sourcing strategies to optimize cost, quality, delivery, and resiliency.
• Lead negotiation of complex, high-value global supply agreements.
• Build sourcing governance processes for supplier selection and contract management.
• Partner with Engineering, Operations, Finance, Legal, and Product teams.
• Drive supplier performance through business reviews and scorecards.
• Develop supply risk management strategies including geographic diversification.

Required qualifications

• 15+ years of progressive experience in Strategic Sourcing, Supply Chain, Global Procurement, Commodity Management, or Supply Chain Leadership within aerospace, robotics, automotive, advanced manufactu
• Significant experience building and leading high-performing global sourcing organizations.
• Demonstrated success developing enterprise sourcing strategies for rapid product development and manufacturing scale.
• Proven executive-level negotiation experience involving complex global supply agreements and strategic partnerships.
• Extensive experience leading supplier strategy across complex global manufacturing environments.
• Strong understanding of global manufacturing, supply chain economics, contract law, supplier risk management, capacity planning, and cost optimization.
• Demonstrated ability to influence executive leadership.
• Track record of building organizational capability through leadership development and coaching.
• Strong analytical capabilities including total cost modeling and should-cost analysis.
• Exceptional communication, executive presence, and decision-making skills.

Nice to have

• Experience leading Strategic Sourcing organizations supporting highly-engineered, complex products at huge production volumes.
• Background scaling supply chains for disruptive hardware companies from new product introduction through global production.
• Experience managing an international supply base across North America, Europe, and Asia.
• Demonstrated success negotiating transformational commercial agreements.
• Experience with aerospace, aviation, robotics, autonomous systems, medical devices, or other highly regulated manufacturing environments.
• MBA or advanced degree in Engineering, Supply Chain, Business, or related discipline.
• Strong understanding of manufacturing technologies including precision machining, composites, electronics, batteries, motors, PCBAs, and advanced materials.
• Experience leading organizational transformation and building scalable sourcing processes, systems, and operational metrics.
• Experience leading large, high-performing organizations, including both individual contributors as well as managers of managers

About the company

Zipline is the world’s largest and most experienced drone delivery service. They design, build, and operate the world’s largest autonomous logistics system to deliver critical supplies.