Commercial Director T3 at Mars

Job Purpose/Overview

• To provide Royal Canin (RC) industrial network with flow of safe, innovative, qualitative, competitive & sustainable raws and packs for South Africa and worldwide RC Business Units where necessary
• To ensure the Directs, Indirect and Supplier Quality Assurance (SQA) South Africa Commercial team is providing to the South Africa factory a continuous flow of requested Raw & Packaging materials, respecting our nutritional and Food safety specifications, at optimum cost and in timely matter to serve our customers and the correct services to the plant
• To build, develop and lead an efficient and engaged Indirect, Direct and SQA South Africa Commercial team, able to support current and further RC markets and supply challenges in line with our 2025 vision.  Preparing the supply of Raw & Pack for 2022 and beyond is fundamental to sustain Global business objectives. 
• To manage raw materials development and innovation enabling a sustainable growth of our business, anticipating risk & opportunities.
• To assure a good collaboration and coordination with the Emerging & Seeds (E&S) Commercial teams and directors, as well as with other Royal Canin regional and global teams, managers and directors.

Responsible to sustain and develop the high level of capabilities among the team

• SQA team:  The team collectively protects RC’s supply chain from quality, technical and food safety risks associated with raw & packaging materials, their production and transportation.
• Purchasing team : build capability of supplier management and development, negotiations skills that are in line with our 5 Principles, up holds our governance expectations and strong contract management, and manages projects to improve our value creation.
• To drive the evaluation and implementation of raw & pack material quality standards (MQM & PQM) and to support the RC growth toward the health nutrition and individualization via supplier’s continuous improvement.
• To lead the development of raw material sourcing within Africa i.e. poultry meal and some cereal from South Africa to the rest RC plans worldwide, as well as ensuring alternative sourcing programme development to enable business continuity management
• The role operates in a pet friendly, open office environment supporting natural pet nutrition and making the world a better place for pets.

Key Responsibilities

• To be the commercial head in South Africa, setting commercial strategy, ensuring quality and process governance and performance targets and ways of working to ensure delivery to factory and market needs.
• To develop the capability of the Commercial team in South Africa to deliver the RC strategy through identifying individual and team development needs, onboarding new team members as required and ensuring a “high performing”, collaborative and fully engaged team.
• To prepare annually the Commercial Operating Plan for Direct and Indirect buying, consistent with RC strategy and financial targets, and to present it to stakeholders (Markets & Supply)
• Leading the agenda on raws and packs value creation and our internal DiB (Do it Best) programme.
• To co-create and gain agreement to an E&S Commercial strategy consistent with the Royal Canin and the Commercial OGSM, ensuring a sustainable sourcing of raw & packaging materials to support our markets’ growth 
• To translate this strategy into clearly focused Commercial strategic priorities (Material Strategic Sourcing at Mars) and targets. Ensure that all team members have clear “line of sight” from what they do to the impact on the strategy
• To effectively communicate, inspire and align the Commercial team behind this vision and strategy so as to drive high performance and progress
• To build highly influential relationships with internal stakeholders and to lead interfaces where required across the supply chain at local, regional and global level
• To ensure the right KPI’s are in place to monitor progress in Commercial and to immediate corrective action for any performance gaps. This includes monitoring any deviation from quality perspective, raw development, budget projections and bringing awareness to markets of any financial or sustainable risk identified linked to Raw and Packaging material.
• To develop a strong partnership with our suppliers enabling continuous improvement, to identify opportunities in the market and to propose them to the innovation team.
• To drive collaboration with the Mars commercial community and ensure optimum way of working and opportunities
• To role model good communication at a local level to ensure the E2E supply of the factory is met with a service mindset, identifying where improvements can be made, using key metrics for service performance and delivery which can be used anticipate issues or where collaborative problem solving needs to happen
• Member of the local market business leadership team

Lead & develop the SQA team, supporting the supply of RC factory in South Africa

• Lead, develop and motivate the SQA team, engaging them in Commercial & Q&FS strategies
• Determine training needs for SQA and newcomers, regarding food safety related programs
• Set up SQA functional objectives in line with Regional Royal Canin strategy
• Develop Technical competencies of the team to upskill their competencies, ensuring consistent evaluation of supplier quality program and continuous improvement
• Train and maintain SQA activities with Commercial, Factory Q&FS and suppliers to ensure consistent roll-out within region
• Royal Canin Expertise in global MQM and SQA committee
• Represent Royal Canin South Africa Commercial team through participation & influence in Global SQA Steering Team and Global Material Quality Management (MQM) Community.
• Deploy and ensure MQM and PQM compliance within SA, as aligned with Global Mars & RC SQA Strategies
• Interact with other SQA managers/directors and segment counterparts to identify best practices, improve processes, coordinate cross regional supplier reviews and collaborate on strategic projects
• Report regional periodic metrics for global roll-up
• Strategic leadership for raw material quality sourcing and continuous improvement
• Lead project teams in order to proactively manage material quality & food safety related aspects of a project, and ensure proper visibility of risks, challenges, and/or successes. Ability to translate the message around a technical risk into a relevant business risk point of view
• Support Commercial Team, Regional QF&S Directors and Factories for Business-critical Supplier Quality processes and execution
• Review supplier and material performance and manage follow-up activities for continuous improvement with designated SQA
• Assess, track and trend audit completion in the region
• Partner with formulation and Q&FS for high supply risk, cost savings projects and long term / strategic projects to drive (Do It Best)
• Improve regional supplier performance and manage material risk assessment review with SQA and Directs Team
• Implement, enhance and deploy supplier quality tools & process to include best practices from Mars MQM
• Support the development and implementation of new raw materials in response to the Innovation Pipeline
• Provide direction and input for the development and implementation of consistent SQA management systems across the region: for examples audit standards, audit template, auditor requirements, and reporting

Context and Scope

• This position reports to the Regional E&S Commercial Director, with main stakeholders within South Africa and Global.
• This is a local leadership team and line management position.
• The role covers all the RC commercial aspects for Raw & packaging materials as well as SQA responsibilities: purchasing/quality/development and innovation and all the Indirect Spend for both business Unit
• Interaction with main RC departments (Innovation, Markets, QFS, Supply, Regulatory, Finance…)

Job Specifications/Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent in Engineering or Agronomy, MBA is a plus
• Experience of working with raw materials used in Feed / Food applications will be an added value.
• English – Advanced level needed
• 8-9 years of experience in raw material purchase processes in directs and Indirects and quality process
• Manager experience leading teams for greater than 4- 5 years
• Strong communication and negotiation skills
• Self-motivated to develop own activity and to take initiative
• Conscious of food safety and nutritional quality
• Comfortable working in a multicultural team, speaking French is a plus
• 50% travel is required, mostly within region.
• Demonstrated troubleshooting ability
• Ability to make timely, consistent and well-balanced decisions