Procurement Specialist

**_Procurement Specialist, Based in Gallarate, Corporate office _**

The Irca Group is an International Leader in high quality finished and semi-finished ingredients for the bakery, pastry, and ice cream markets. With a solid history of over 100 years in the industry, the Group has its headquarters in Italy (Gallarate) and a strong global footprint with 23 production sites and over 2000 employees in Europe, the United States and Vietnam.

Our core product categories include chocolate, compounds, chocolate decorations, sprinkles, creams, pastry mixes, gelato ingredients, nuts and candied fruit. The most recent acquisition of Kerry Sweets complements our existing categories with the addition of sweet particulates, chocolate confections, inclusions, variegates and frozen fruit purees.

Through its 8 key brands (IRCA, Dobla®, in2food, Via Degli Orsini, JoyGelato, RaviFruit, Cesarin and Anastasi®) the IRCA Group offers an unparalleled "one-stop shop" approach for delivering quality solutions to all ingredients needs, through a broad range of innovative products. We offer every day and seasonal solutions to 3 macro channels: Gourmet, Food Manufacturing and Consumer Product (Retail). “Extraordinary made simple.”

**Purpose of Position**:
**Responsibilities**
- Experienced in designing, coordinating, and implementing enterprise and business unit vision to sourcing strategy.
- Provide support to stakeholders with acquisition strategies and sourcing & procurement options.
- Design Procurement the strategy and policy to aligned with corporate vision and values.
- Research, recommend, implement, and manage supplier programs that result in cost savings, process improvements, and risk mitigation.
- Ability to problem solve and be seen as a thought leader in the Procurement space.
- Draft SOWs, managing communication with suppliers, Legal, Risk Management, and Business
- Analyze total procurement spend on an annual basis to ensure overall effectiveness and efficiency of spend.
- Analyze current and potential suppliers, as well as develop strategic alliances with suppliers to maintain competitive pricing, flexible lead times and high standards of quality.
- Identify and resolve issues that promote enterprise compliance.
- Track vendor performance through periodic financial reviews, product performance, customer satisfaction surveys, discrepancies, damage claims, contract compliance, etc.
- Drives the strategy and yearly planning for the procurement department.
- Drives and integrated and frequent review with the business to ensure Procurement is meeting the business needs.
- May support some additional direct categories such as packaging materials

**Requirements**:

- 5+ years of progressive experience in Procurement with leadership experience preferred
- Must be fluent in English (mandatory) and knowledge of German/French (highly appreciated)
- Undergraduate degree with concentration in Finance, Economics, or other business-related focus.
- Advanced knowledge of supply chain management, sourcing and/or procurement.
- Designed and implemented category sourcing strategy
- Team player, self-motivated, desire to learn and take on new challenges.
- Achievement oriented (timeline driven, detail oriented, good planning, and negotiation skills).
- Adaptable and flexible, must be able to adapt to a fast-changing environments
- Ability to build internal/external strategic relationships.