Apac Specialist Category Manager

**Company presentation**
As a world leader in gases, technologies and services for Industry and Health, Air Liquide is present in 80 countries with approximately 64,500 employees and serves more than 3.8 million customers and patients. Oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen have been at the core of the company’s activities since its creation in 1902. Air Liquide’s ambition is to be the leader in its industry, delivering long-term performance and acting responsibly.

**Entity and activity description**
We are looking for specialist category managers to join our APAC procurement transformation and become part of an exciting journey towards a centralized procurement organization.

The APAC Specialist Category Manager will
- drive strategic category management to ensure AL organization matches market benchmark in terms of best practices and technologies and as such become a critical business partner to AL’s internal business lines.
- support and/or own the coordination of all external procurement activities for the category across APAC, including the development and implementation of category strategies (short, mid and long term) & plans to support designated APAC-wide strategic objectives.
- help to promote internal collaboration, knowledge sharing, compliance with best practices and established category management processes.

**Missions and Responsibilities**
- Support the development of category factbases & strategies and associated processes in collaboration with the category manager
- Execute independently strategic sourcing initiatives
- Track performance within each spend category
- Monitor strategy implementation and contract compliance
- Help to drive best practices
- Champion and secure TCO reductions for the category across sectors and regions
- Support sector execution issue resolution
- Support the process to select and manage suppliers
- Measure and track internal performance within sector and site
- Drive annual productivity improvements
- Develop an expertise in the global procurement spend categories through rigorous factbase analytics (ie technical product/service characteristics, internal needs, external supply market dynamics, supply chain and risk management)
- Ensure all projects are delivered using standard tools and processes to meet the requirements outlined in Air Liquide’s group policies, standards and guidelines.

**Competencies and Profile**
- Min 5 years working experience of successful strategic category management within the procurement organization of a MNC
- Partial strategic category responsibility either on a global or at a regional (ie APAC) level
- A preferred industry background in FMCG, Automotive, Oil & Gas, Chemical, Electronics
- A Bachelor in engineering or business administration.
- Outstanding prior experience in data analytics, reporting and system design paired with the ability to synthesize data and build strong business cases
- Ability to formalize knowledge and build category strategies based on in-depth analytics as well as business & market insights
- Demonstrable experience in successfully leading and conducting the negotiation of contracts across technical, commercial and legal areas
- Ability to communicate succinctly verbally and in written form with both internal and external stakeholders
- Strong project management, problem solving and customer relationship management skills
- Strong interpersonal skills and ability to role model the vision of the organization.
- Get prepared for internal resistances as we are in a changing and transforming APAC procurement team
- Mobility in terms of travel - coverage of all APAC countries (12 countries).
- An ability to work unsupervised and be a self-starter.

**Additional information**
Location: Shanghai, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur**

Job Reference: MY00326