Head of Global Procurement

About the role

The Head of Global Procurement will lead a step-change in how procurement creates value for Driscoll’s. This role is accountable for building and scaling a high performing procurement capability across Driscoll’s non-fruit spend, delivering measurable business value while positioning procurement as a strategic enabler of growth.

Responsibilities

• Shape and lead a multi-year procurement strategy aligned with business priorities, focused on scale, consistency, and long-term value creation
• Frame strategic sourcing as a growth lever for Driscoll's long-term ambition to double the business over the next decade, creating value through innovation, supply resilience, and margin expansion
• Drive procurement transformation across the organization, elevating procurement from a transactional function to a strategic partner
• Lead mindset and behavioral change, ensuring procurement is engaged early in decision-making and seen as a value creator
• Deliver measurable business impact through prioritized focus on high impact spend areas, total cost of ownership optimization across cost, service, quality, sustainability, risk and strong ownership of sourcing outcomes and value realization, in close partnership with Finance and business leaders
• Optimize spend in your areas, maximizing value and return for the business
• Lead critical sourcing initiatives and negotiations where enterprise leverage is required
• Increase speed-to-value by simplifying and accelerating sourcing, contracting, and supplier onboarding processes
• Bring advanced negotiation capability to critical supplier engagements, ensuring partnerships deliver both Driscoll’s performance expectations and sustainable economic outcomes for suppliers
• Establish and lead the Global Procurement function as the central engine for standards, governance, and capability building
• Operate as the clear enterprise leader of procurement, independent of reporting lines, with accountability to the Chief Operating Officer and CEO for enterprise procurement performance
• Define and evolve procurement policies, standards, and operating principles, sourcing methodologies, tools, and playbooks, governance structures and decision rights
• Build strong alignment with regions through a structured liaison model, ensuring global standards are practical, adopted, and continuously improved based on business feedback
• Balance global consistency with local flexibility, ensuring procurement enables—not slows—execution
• Own the procurement governance framework, ensuring robust policies, controls, and ethical standards across sourcing activities
• Embed sustainability into procurement practices by integrating environmental and ethical standards into sourcing and supplier selection, embedding sustainability criteria in contracts and supplier performance management and partnering with suppliers to support Driscoll’s long-term sustainability ambitions, with sustainability embedded as a core pillar in category strategies, supplier selection, contracting, and strategic supplier management
• Develop category strategies aligned with long-term business priorities and supported by consistent, structured sourcing approaches
• Drive joint value creation with strategic suppliers focusing on innovation, sustainability, service improvement, and long-term partnership
• Position Driscoll’s as a preferred customer in the market
• Strengthen supplier relationship management through steady, ongoing engagement at the strategic level, ensuring relationships are actively managed and aligned to business priorities
• Partner with suppliers to identify innovation opportunities, including the ability to “see the unseen” and translate supplier capability into practical solutions for Driscoll’s
• Lead end-to-end optimization of Procure-to-Pay processes to improve efficiency, reduce cost, and simplify operations
• Partner closely with Finance and Accounts Payable to improve transaction efficiency, reduce processing cost, and accelerate cycle times
• Define and execute a digital procurement strategy that leverages data, analytics, and AI to improve decision-making and scalability
• Drive adoption of advanced spend analytics and demand visibility, supplier performance and risk monitoring, market intelligence and pricing insights and automated contract management and compliance tools
• Build and lead a high-performing procurement organization
• Establish the procurement organization structure, roles, capabilities, skills, and location strategy, in close alignment with the Chief Operating Officer and regional leaders
• Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement
• Develop leadership talent and ensure strong succession across the organization

Requirements

• 15+ experience in procurement and/ or strategic sourcing leadership
• Proven ability to deliver measurable business value through procurement
• Demonstrated experience leading procurement transformation and organizational change
• Strong experience in building and scaling global operating models
• Proven ability to lead effectively in a matrixed or dual-reporting environment while maintaining clear enterprise procurement accountability
• Exceptional stakeholder management and influencing skills
• Ability to build trusted, long-term relationships with internal stakeholders and strategic suppliers
• Demonstrated strategic supplier relationship management experience, including bilateral relationship building and sustained engagement at executive levels
• Advanced negotiation skills with a track record of delivering value while enabling sustainable supplier outcomes
• Availability to travel internationally up to 35% of the time

Preferred Experience

• Strong track record in digital and AI-enabled procurement
• Experience automating transactional procurement workflows, including procure to pay, supplier onboarding, compliance, and contract management
• Experience embedding sustainability into procurement and supplier strategies
• Deep expertise in strategic supplier relationship management
• Experience leading procurement across internal and external networks
• Track record of supplier-enabled innovation, including identifying non-obvious opportunities and translating them into business value