CDD - Visual Merchandising Indirect Procurement Manager

About The Role

As a member of the Indirect Procurement team at Estée Lauder Companies, this position is part of the EUKEM region. You will play a critical role in managing the Collaterals scope, including Visual Merchandising, driving value, innovation, and sustainability across our supplier partnerships. You will lead the way in optimizing our Collateral needs for the EMEA region, working closely with Global leads, fostering relationships with key suppliers, and supporting our commitment to exceptional performance and brand integrity.

Context

Visual Merchandising (VM) in ELC EMEA is complex with multiple brands across our markets. It requires strong procurement expertise with a category‑management approach to secure best value, minimize risk, and maximize opportunities. This role reports to the Senior Manager and involves the development of category priorities concerning collaterals across all brands for ELC EMEA on both launch and permanent items. The manager will identify and partner with key stakeholder groups, including the Regional Office, EMEA stakeholders, affiliates, brands, RDDC, finance, legal, and supply.

Responsibilities For The Role

• Contribute to regional category strategies, collaborating closely with the Senior Manager, IP affiliates, IP global, and stakeholders to increase spend under IP management for each sub‑category in scope, including robust spend and needs analysis.
• Develop the pipeline of sourcing initiatives and opportunities for sub‑categories regionally and via affiliates, aligned with the overall category strategy and priorities.
• Track and proactively manage key cost and cash targets throughout the year to ensure achievement.
• Execute sourcing activities and negotiations.
• Manage supplier relationships (SRM) for strategic relationships, conducting bi‑annual business reviews and evaluating opportunities and business satisfaction to further develop the category.
• Drive sustainability, innovation, and supplier inclusion & diversity principles and guidelines for the responsible sub‑categories.
• Serve as subject‑matter expert, developing expertise in the categories in scope, leveraging external sources and understanding market, ELC competition, and industry best practices.
• Support the development, implementation, and maintenance of procurement standards (SRM, processes, tools such as ELC Marketplace, VCD, Ariba) and policies for both the EMEA region and at the affiliate level.

Category Strategy Development

• Support the Senior Manager with category strategic thinking.
• Drive visual merchandising opportunities across EMEA at the regional office and affiliate levels and share best practices with counterparts in other regions.
• Drive key supplier relationship management, supplier development, and integration in EMEA.
• Establish strong internal stakeholder relationships to ensure early involvement in strategic ideas and anticipate future requirements and plans, applying sustainability, innovation, and supplier I&D principles and guidelines.

Strategy Implementation & Execution And New Sourcing Activities

• Execute the pipeline or identify new sourcing projects aligned with stakeholders, ensuring business sponsorship.
• Lead regional requirements sourcing and manage RFX activity.
• Participate in globally led sourcing activities on behalf of the region.
• Maintain and improve the preferred vendor list, focusing on managing and reducing the tail of the supplier base.
• Develop and deploy robust contracts, ensuring visibility of final agreements for stakeholder adoption and roll‑out.

Category Specific

• Manage the VM pricing exercise to publish the offer/bulletin to affiliates.
• Ensure follow‑up and supply of relevant services and timelines, and provide all necessary information to allow perfect follow‑up of orders in SAP and ensure all prices are invoiced back to affiliates.

Srm

• Continuously review service delivery to positively impact quality and improve performance, seeking further value creation and cost optimizations.
• Focus on business continuity, due diligence, and market intelligence and trends, ensuring supplier evolution and alternatives are assessed with the business.
• Continuously monitor and improve the existing rate cards (price grids) and panel of preferred vendors.
• Ensure implementation of contract agreements (MSA/SOW), amendments, and adoption by stakeholder groups including affiliates where applicable.

Cross Functional/ Individual

• Introduce and/or contribute to cross‑functional projects at the global, regional office, and affiliate levels.
• Participate in continuous improvement of processes and procurement performance.
• Manage internal dashboards (KPI, savings, etc.) as required, identifying upside opportunities and potential risks and blockers.
• Manage ad‑hoc projects as agreed with the Executive Director in cases of overcapacity or risk elsewhere in the Indirect Procurement Department.
• Actively participate in training and continual professional development, ensuring all mandatory trainings are completed.

Qualifications

• Procurement experience, ideally in indirect procurement, particularly with experience in merchandising.
• Strong category management, negotiation, competitive bidding, cost modeling, benchmarking/Should Cost/TCO, contractual agreements, and supplier relationship management skills.
• Proven management experience of buyer or trainee resources.
• Excellent collaboration, team ethic, and ability to coordinate in a matrix team environment with regional stakeholders, peers, affiliates, Global, and other regions.
• Strategic thinking, supporting the Senior Manager in developing and executing the regional category strategy for store design.
• Strong stakeholder relationship management capability, including proficient communication and presentation skills, with experience managing initiatives at regional and affiliate levels.
• Strong project management skills: flexibility and capacity to adapt to changing project circumstances, with rigor and organization to manage simultaneous projects efficiently.
• Proactive attitude, taking initiative to suggest ideas and enhancements in category management.
• Excellent Excel, PowerPoint, SAP, and Ariba skills.
• Strong analytical skills to evaluate RFIs, RFPs, and detailed comparison/scorecards based on predefined criteria with the business.