First for a reason
First Student is the largest school transportation provider in North America with more than a century of experience providing safe and reliable transportation. We work with 1,250 school districts in 39 states and 8 Canadian provinces carrying approximately five million students in 21,000 schools daily.

The Senior Director of Indirect and IT is responsible for the overall corporate procurement strategy and for increasing spend under management for indirect and IT spend, identifying and evolving best practices and driving continuous improvement efforts. This position will direct the activities of the Commodity Managers and Commodity Specialists in the Indirect team. The Sr. Director of Indirect and IT will apply knowledge and expertise to assist the business unit and functions in strategy development, sourcing execution, contract negotiations and supplier performance evaluation. This position is charged with ensuring that all indirect and IT purchases meet the business objectives and the defined corporate policies. The Sr.Director of Indirect and IT will be a visionary procurement leader and change agent who will assist in the development and implementation of procurement strategies, policies and supporting processes to raise the efficiency and effectiveness of the Procurement organization.

Major Responsibilities

• Lead the Indirect Procurement group in the creation of their strategic vision, operational planning, and execution
• Creation of Indirect procurement processes and ensure best in class supplier selection
• Lead the development of commodity strategies, execution planning, and implementation with regard for cost, quality, and delivery
• Continual assessment of spend and proactive development of actions to identify cost reductions, improve supplier performance and business compliance with preferred suppliers
• Creation and ongoing value creation with a world class supply base, including segmentation of suppliers into strategic, preferred, tactical, and legacy classifications
• Creation and management of short, mid, and long term goals and objectives
• Creation and improvement of best-practice based processes (e.g., leadership of high value/strategic sourcing efforts)
• Creating a talent management process in coordination with HR to ensure that the right resources are in place for Indirect Procurement
• Managing the skills and competency development of procurement staff, including training development and knowledge management capabilities
• Leadership of cross-functional teaming across other business functions and initiatives
• Manage and develop a team of 5 - 7 Commodity Managers and Specialists
• Demonstrate good understanding of TCO (total cost of ownership) and various savings levers applicable to drive cost reduction
• Execute defined strategic sourcing process for commodity and drive utilization of tools and techniques that align to standardized processes
• Prepare for and conduct the highest-level contract negotiations
• Monitor supply markets and industries including pricing trends, new suppliers and alternative solutions and supply risks
• Identify critical supply disruption points in upstream value chain and formulate an effective strategy for mitigation
• Work cooperatively with IT, Operations, Human Resources, Marketing and other internal customers to assess the capabilities of new and existing suppliers to ensure that all purchases of goods and services meet defined quality and delivery standards.
• Anticipate supplier and First Student operational issues that could affect supply. Lead/Support activities to resolve supply issues.
• Create and expand a continuous improvement culture to achieve improvement in targeted results.
• Communicate effectively at all levels of the organization including written, verbal, and presentation techniques

Minimum Experience & Skills Required

• BS degree in Business Administration, Engineering or other technical field.
• MBA or other Masters degree is preferred.
• A minimum of fifteen (15) years of progressively responsible experience in procurement.
• A minimum of 10 years of management experience managing multiple direct reports
• Ability to work well with customers
• Ability to plan and accomplish goals, budget time and use prior experience to perform at high level

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or veteran status. First is also committed to providing a drug-free workplace. First will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories consistent with the requirements of the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, Los Angeles Fair Chance Ordinance, and any other fair chance law. Philadelphia's Fair Criminal Record Screening Standards Ordinance Poster is at this link or upon request .