Director, Procurement Co-Manufacturing at Ajinomoto Foods North America

The Contract Manufacturing (Coman) Procurement & Operations Director is responsible for the end-to-end sourcing, contracting, and performance management of external manufacturing partners and affiliated companies from which we buy products. This role’s main responsibilities include ensuring that all suppliers meet financial, operational, and strategic objectives, including cost efficiency, service reliability, quality compliance, and capacity scalability, to offer production resilience to our internal processes.

In addition to managing core comanufacturing relationships, this position plays a critical role in enabling innovation by securing agile, specialized suppliers to support new product development and commercialization. This includes overseeing procurement activities for pilot runs, test batches, and limited-time offerings, while collaborating cross-functionally with R&D, Operations, and Commercial teams.

Comanufacturing Procurement

• Manage Strategic sourcing, contracting, and performance of comanufacturing partners and sister companies as well as development of new suppliers to meet growth and supply resilience strategies.
• Ensure alignment with production, quality, and innovation goals; negotiate Supply Agreements as well as SLAs that support the delivery of AFNA’s requirements.
• Support innovation programs by identifying and onboarding suppliers with specialized capabilities connecting the needs for innovation for our CPG and Food Service business units.

Supplier Management & Engagement

• Own supplier relationship management, including quarterly business reviews and long-term planning activities.
• Drive supplier development, risk mitigation, and innovation initiatives with cross functional leadership to deliver 2030 roadmap.
• Lead competitive bidding processes and establish supplier evaluation, audit, and certification programs in collaboration with respective teams.

Inventory & Cash Conversion Cycle (CCC)

• Develop inventory strategies to maximize turns, minimize cost, and manufacturing support without compromising service levels to customers in collaboration with planning teams.
• Coordinate with coman suppliers and finance programs to implement CCC improvements and track KPIs.
• Negotiate terms and conditions to support internal goals in collaboration with Accounts Payable and Finance.

Process & Compliance

• Implement best-in-class strategic procurement processes and governance in coordination with main stakeholders including finance and legal.
• Ensure compliance with internal policies, regulatory requirements, and Ajinomoto’s sustainability goals.

Team Leadership & Development

• As a leader in the procurement team lead and mentor a team of buyers & category managers on procurement activities and personal development
• Foster a high-performance culture focused on collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Support training, policy enforcement, ethical conduct, and career development across the procurement team.

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, supply chain, Business, Food Science, or related field; MBA preferred.
• 7+ years of procurement experience, with significant exposure to comanufacturing and product development in the food industry.
• Solid track record of accomplishments and continuous improvements in procurement, preferably in the food and beverage or CPG industries and comanufacturing categories
• Strong financial acumen and experience managing supplier P&L, budget creation and PPV analysis.
• Proven leadership in cross-functional environments and supplier networks.
• Advanced negotiation and problem-solving skills, with analytical approach
• Ability to interact and effectively communicate with internal and external executive stakeholders
• Proven experience in hiring, managing and leading a high-performance team with strong collaboration and teamwork skills
• Solid knowledge and management experience of end-to-end procurement processes, from source to contract to purchase to pay
• Must be able to travel up to 25% of the time
• #INDONT
• Range $190,000 to $200,000