VP, Strategic Sourcing
About the Role
Odeko is the all-in-one operations and technology partner to more than 20,000 independent coffee shops, cafes and other food establishments. Through the Odeko web portal and mobile app, customers can purchase supplies from hundreds of national and local brands, track ordering trends, finance equipment, and access insurance. Customers that use Odeko can increase their revenue, reduce their environmental footprint, and save significantly on their cost of goods and time spent on vendor management.
We are looking for a Vice President of Strategic Sourcing to own the upstream, commercial side of our supply chain: what we buy, from whom, and on what terms. Reporting to the Chief Supply Chain Officer, you will carry gross margin and landed COGS, own the supplier base end to end, and build the category management organization that does not yet exist. This seat will own our buy, which is the single largest lever on both our margin and how much of each customer's wallet we earn.
How You'll Make an Impact
Supplier Management
- Supplier strategy: Own the supplier base end to end—selection, consolidation, and the decision of who we do and don't do business with. Develop and maintain supplier tiering strategy, and enforce supplier performance against terms. Supply Chain detects the failure; you own the conversation and the consequence.
- Commercial terms: Lead on the full negotiated package—price, MOQs, lead times, rebates, and payment terms. Own DPO as our half of the cash conversion cycle, and produce the negotiated-terms sheet Purchasing buys against so no one downstream freelances on price or other material terms. Work with our Legal Team to enhance our standard supplier contract forms and terms to drive the right partnerships with the right suppliers.
- Margin & savings: Drive improvements on gross margin percentage and landed COGS, and ensure that negotiated savings are actually captured and banked, not merely secured on paper. Own the price-increase response: negotiate, absorb, or pass through.
SKU Selection and Category Growth
- Assortment & category strategy: Work closely with the revenue teams to determine what's in the catalog.
- Private label: Run Odeko's private label from category selection through supplier development, margin structure, and penetration targets.
Team Leadership
- Organization build out and design: Build out the new category manager organization at Odeko. With input from other leaders, define the categories, hire the leaders, define and drive success for each category and category manager, and install a category review cadence.
About You
Critical
- Commercial leadership: 10+ years in sourcing, procurement, or merchandising, with 5+ leading teams—ideally in distribution, foodservice, CPG, or another business where cost of goods is the primary margin lever.
- Scale: Managed spend of more than $250MM annually, with a track record of savings that reached the P&L.
- Negotiation: Personally led negotiations, as the principal at the table, on individual contracts of $10M+ in annual value. Experience with contract development and supplier terms.
- Commodity experience: Managed a commodity-exposed category book.
- Category management: Owned assortment decisions as well as stood up new categories.
- AI leadership: Deployed an AI or advanced-analytics solution against a sourcing problem.
- Executive presence: Able to represent the commercial supply story to the executive team, and to partner as a peer with Supply Chain, Sales, and Finance on metrics none of you can move alone.
Nice to Have
- M&A experience: carrying suppliers and vendor relationships through mergers, acquisitions, and integration.
- Private label: own-brand development from supplier selection through launch.
- Perishables: short-shelf-life categories, where sourcing decisions drive waste and obsolescence.
- Growth stage: a high-growth company where the process you inherit is the one you're expected to replace.
- Education: Bachelor's degree in supply chain, business, finance, economics, or a related field. MBA preferred.
What You'll Love About Odeko
- Fast-paced environment and growth opportunities—plenty of room for you to directly impact the company and enhance your career.
- Competitive compensation, healthcare benefits, and opportunity for equity.
- Other great perks—full lists of benefits available upon request.
Travel: 20%+, including attendance at trade shows, supplier visits, and co-packer oversight on private label.