Director of Procurement & Trading

The role

You will build and run procurement as a trading function, combining spot trading, strategic buying and supply planning. You will lead and coach a team of 10+ people and own supplier relationships and margin improvement.

What you will do

• Develop and execute procurement strategies that support high monthly procurement spend
• Negotiate pricing, terms and contracts with suppliers on a daily basis
• Manage 10+ team members, set daily priorities and coach team leads
• Design, implement and improve procurement workflows, playbooks and controls
• Source, evaluate and onboard suppliers and maintain the supplier network
• Identify cost-saving opportunities and improve payment terms
• Work with Sales, Customer Success, Logistics, Accounting, and Product & Engineering
• Take full P&L responsibility for the supply side
• Use data and AI tools to inform purchasing and monitor suppliers
• Automate procurement processes from RFQs to order confirmations

Required qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree from a top university or business school
• 4+ years in a high-performance environment, such as commodity trading or high-velocity B2B procurement
• Proven ability to build processes and delegate effectively
• Strong assertiveness and people leadership
• Ability to work at both strategic and granular levels
• Excellent analytical and communication skills
• Fluent English
• Comfortable in a high-intensity, fast-paced startup environment
• Proven results negotiating from the smaller side of the table
• Hard-working, proactive and independent
• Personal track record in spot or commodity trading with margin ownership
• Experience scaling a team, plus forecasting and inventory risk management

Nice to have

• Experience in marketplaces, SaaS, or construction, infrastructure or energy materials
• Exposure to AI-driven operations or procurement automation
• Familiarity with cross-border trade and international supplier management
• Tier-1 strategy consulting background (e.g. McKinsey, BCG, Bain)
• German language skills

Benefits

• Entrepreneurial freedom and the chance to help scale a high-impact business model
• Experienced founding team of serial and 2nd-time founders
• Attractive base salary and bonus compensation program
• Collaboration with top-tier investors and angels, including unicorn founders and market experts

About the company

A11 is a growth accelerator that partners with European startups, scale-ups, corporates and SMBs. The A11 Ecosystem includes an AI-driven supply chain platform for sourcing, distributing and financing materials, with a team of 80+ across Europe, China and India.