Procurement & Supply Chain Manager (Construction/Specialty Chemicals Manufacturing) - Arabic Proficiency an advantage

About the Company

Our client is a renowned brand in the construction chemicals industry and a leading supplier of concrete admixtures, underground construction solutions, and specialty chemical products. The organization is known for its strong market presence, high quality standards, and operational excellence.

Role Purpose

Lead and optimize all purchasing activities for raw materials, packaging, and indirect spend for construction chemicals production sites, ensuring cost, quality, and supply security across multiple countries. Prepare distribution plan keeping in view sourcing locations and customer locations, transport and warehousing costs for both bulk supply items and packaged goods.

Arabic proficiency is a must for the role

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Sourcing & Category Management

• Develop and implement sourcing strategies for key categories (polymers, solvents, fillers, packaging, logistics, maintenance services, etc.).
• Analyse global and regional markets for construction chemicals raw materials; monitor price trends, capacity changes, and geopolitical / FX risks.
• Consolidate spend across plants and countries to leverage global volumes and negotiate favourable contracts.
• Develop overall strategy for sourcing together with production team for manufacturing and sourcing of materials with a combination of own manufacturing, contract manufacturing, peer to peer purchase and imports keeping in view cost and satisfactory customer service

Supplier Management

• Identify, evaluate, and qualify new suppliers in line with technical, quality, EHS, and compliance requirements.
• Lead contract and price negotiations, frame agreements, and service-level agreements.
• Drive supplier performance management: OTIF, quality, cost, innovation, and sustainability KPIs.
• Develop strategic partnerships with critical suppliers for long-term supply security and joint innovation.
• Procure services at optimised cost for design and engineering of the plant, machinery and building.
• Procure P&M, IT services and other required services for construction of the plant as per the design approved by the production team.
• Manage procurement of all other miscellaneous one time and regular purchase items.

Operational Procurement & Planning Interface

• Ensure continuous supply of critical materials to all manufacturing sites with minimum stock-outs and optimal inventory levels.
• Work closely with Production, Planning, R&D, and Quality to align material specifications, safety stocks, and phase-in/phase-out of products.
• Resolve supply disruptions, quality issues, and logistics bottlenecks escalated from plant purchasing teams.
• Support NPI / new formulations by sourcing alternative raw materials and competitive second sources.
• Identify vendor, both domestic and internation, for procurement of goods and services related to own production.
• Identify existing and develop new vendors for new RMs, PM and finished products (P2P)

Cost Management & Value Creation

• Deliver annual cost-saving and value-engineering targets (price reductions, TCO optimization, substitution, consolidation).
• Conduct should-cost analysis and benchmarking to identify saving opportunities.
• Support margin improvement projects by aligning procurement strategies with pricing and product portfolio decisions.

Compliance, Risk & Sustainability

• Ensure adherence to corporate procurement policies, ethics, anti-corruption, and competition law.
• Assess and mitigate supply risks (single sourcing, long lead times, restricted substances, REACH/ISO/local regulations).
• Integrate sustainability criteria into sourcing decisions (CO footprint, recycled content, compliant sourcing, vendor ESG performance).

Systems, Process & Data

• Own and improve end-to-end procurement processes (PR–PO cycle, approvals, vendor onboarding) in ERP (e.g., SAP ).
• Maintain accurate pricing, contracts, lead times, and supplier master data.
• Use analytics / dashboards to track spend, savings, supplier KPIs, and inventory performance.

Leadership & Collaboration

• Align with global procurement, regional management, finance, and supply chain on strategy, budgets, and priorities.
• Represent procurement in S&OP, Capex reviews, and cross-functional project teams.

Typical Requirements

• Degree in Supply Chain, Engineering, Chemistry, Business, or related field; advanced degree or CIPS/ISM certification is a plus.
• 7–10+ years' procurement experience, ideally in construction chemicals, specialty chemicals, or related manufacturing.
• Strong negotiation, contracting, and stakeholder-management skills in a multinational environment.
• Experience with ERP systems and procurement analytics; strong Excel/Power BI skills.
• Fluent English; Arabic language(s) preferred.