Director - Head of Category, Professional Services

Telenor Group is world’s leading telecommunications company across the Nordics and Asia with 158 million subscribers and annual sales of around NOK 99 billion (2022). We are committed to responsible business conduct and driven by the ambition of empowering societies. Connectivity has been Telenor’s domain for more than 160 years, and our purpose is to connect our customers to what matters most.

We have a leading Nordic position in mobile, broadband and TV services, as well as substantial activities in subsidiaries and joint venture operations, including mobile financial services and online classifieds in the Asia region. Worldwide, Telenor Group and our operations’ teams are 14,000 people strong.

Telenor Procurement Company (TPC), established in 2017 and based out of Singapore, operates as a subsidiary of the Telenor Group. We deliver Global Category Management as a service to the Telenor Business Units and beyond, taking full responsibility for the end-to-end Sourcing process and performance of global spend categories. Functioning as one Global Procurement team across all Telenor markets, we enable Telenor’s strategic ambitions by becoming a centre of expertise in the pursuit of efficient operations. TPC seeks qualified procurement professionals that are comfortable working in a global setup in the fast-paced Telecom field.

Profile

To succeed in this role, it is believed that a broad understanding of the telecom industry combined with a deep understanding of the Professional Services and Travel category is needed. You need to be a good leader and role model for your own team and the organization as a whole with the ability to both delegate and execute independently.

You should enjoy working in a context where you are expected to:

- Translate strategy developed into objectives and priorities for the category
- Implement and drive changes to engage others to initiate and embrace change in order to build on current strengths, move business initiatives forward, and capitalize on new opportunities
- Be result oriented and take lead in achieving those results either alone or in collaboration with others
- Lead a team of direct reports and in matrix organization. Ensure quality and development of the team being lead.
- Handle conflicts and disputes with the suppliers & stakeholders
- Influence colleagues and stakeholders with a high degree of passion and execution power
- Foresee business risks related to role, highlighting to leadership and work towards mitigating risks in best manner
- Communicating and interact effectively across organizational and cultural boundaries, internal and external
- Demonstrate commitment, maturity, flexibility and speed in response to business needs and challenges
- Be an efficient negotiator through strong commercial skills
- High level of integrity and ethics
- Strong analytical & systems thinking capabilities
- Highly creative and innovative problem-solving mindset
- Knowledge of sourcing techniques and demand management
- Knowledge of strategic sourcing techniques
- Practice and promote growth mindset with excellence in execution and customer centricity.

Qualification and Experience Requirements
- A university degree, preferably within business administration, finance, supply chain or similar
- Extensive experience of more than 10 years in senior procurement / contract management / vendor / negotiations / supply chain management role or as functional expert in the Professional Services and Travel category
- Experience of managing high performing team both located at same physical location and in remote locations under matrix organization.
- Solid leadership experience from setting up and managing high performing multi-cultural teams
- Application of procurement best practices and supplier negotiation at executive level