VP, Supply Chain Strategy

The Vice President, Supply Chain Strategy leads the design and implementation of enterprise initiatives that improve how the company plans inventory, purchases product, and translates category strategies into supply chain execution. This leader aligns product availability, inventory investment, supplier performance, and purchasing practices to support customer service, profitable growth, and working capital objectives. This is a heavily project-based leadership role with accountability for changing the way teams work. The Vice President evaluates systems, tools, and processes, builds business cases, and leads cross-functional teams through redesign, pilots, implementation, and adoption. This leader delivers the planning and purchasing changes needed to capture synergies from network consolidation, including lower inventory investment, improved buying economics, and greater team productivity. Success requires measurable improvements in efficiency and effectiveness, with clear ownership to sustain results. The role partners closely with Category Management, inventory planning and purchasing teams, field leadership, Sales, Finance, and IT to connect commercial priorities with practical planning and buying decisions across the distribution network. Key Areas of Focus Supply chain strategy and project leadership: Build and manage a prioritized portfolio of inventory planning and purchasing initiatives. Define project scope, business requirements, milestones, resources, risks, and expected benefits. Establish governance, resolve cross-functional dependencies, and report progress and decisions to senior leadership. Inventory planning and replenishment: Develop consistent planning policies by product, location, demand pattern, and service requirement. Improve forecasting, safety stock, reorder points, lead times, order quantities, and replenishment parameters. Incorporate seasonality, customer commitments, supplier constraints, and field input into plans; establish regular parameter reviews and exception management. Purchasing process improvement: Redesign how teams generate, review, approve, place, and follow up on purchase orders. Improve order consolidation, buying cadence, supplier confirmations, and shortage escalation. Evaluate minimum order quantities, freight thresholds, discounts, rebates, and payment terms against total cost, inventory exposure, and customer service. Category management collaboration: Partner with Category Management on assortment decisions, supplier programs, product introductions, substitutions, and discontinuations. Translate category plans into forecasts, stocking policies, purchasing parameters, and inventory transition plans. Jointly assess commercial incentives against carrying costs, excess inventory risk, availability, and margin; support supplier negotiations with demand and inventory analysis. Inventory investment and productivity: Lead projects to improve turns and days on hand, reduce stockouts, and address slow-moving, excess, and obsolete inventory. Develop inventory segmentation, interbranch transfer, and disposition strategies with field and category teams. Partner with Finance to set inventory goals and validate working capital and profitability improvements. Network consolidation and synergy delivery: Lead the inventory planning and purchasing workstreams that turn network consolidation plans into operating improvements. Model combined demand, inventory pooling, stocking locations, and replenishment flows with distribution leadership. Align SKU assortments and supplier programs with Category Management, consolidate buying volume, and standardize planning and purchasing practices. Quantify opportunities to reduce duplicate inventory, release working capital, improve purchase and inbound freight economics, and increase planner and buyer productivity. Project Delivery and Organizational Change Process design and decision ownership: Map current workflows, identify root causes and gaps, and design scalable future processes. Clarify responsibilities and decision rights across planning, purchasing, Category Management, and the field. Create standard procedures and controls that support consistent execution while addressing justified local requirements. Consolidation execution and service continuity: Translate synergy opportunities into sequenced projects with accountable owners, milestones, and dependencies tied to consolidation schedules. Coordinate inventory transfers and run-down plans, supplier delivery changes, system and parameter updates, and team responsibilities. Validate readiness before cutover, monitor availability and backlogs during transition, and resolve issues through stabilization to protect customer commitments. Systems tools and process evaluation: Assess current capabilities and evaluate enhancements, new tools, automation, and process changes across forecasting, replenishment, purchasing, and analytics. Compare options based on business fit, total cost of ownership, integration, data readiness, scalability, user experience, and expected returns. Use pilots and defined success criteria to validate improvements in decision quality, service, cycle time, and manual effort before broader investment and rollout. Implementation and data readiness: Translate approved recommendations into business requirements and delivery plans with IT and process owners. Improve item and supplier master data, planning inputs, and reporting definitions. Lead business testing, user acceptance, training, and rollout readiness; establish support and adoption measures, then simplify or retire redundant tools and workflows as replacements stabilize. Adoption and sustainable execution: Engage users early, communicate process changes, train teams, and coach leaders through implementation. Establish adoption measures, post-launch support, and accountable process owners. Confirm that new workflows are used consistently and benefits continue after project completion. Supplier performance and risk: Collaborate with Category Management and purchasing teams to evaluate supplier lead-time reliability, fill rates, order constraints, and supply risks. Develop corrective actions and supply alternatives that protect availability and support category objectives. Performance and synergy realization: Establish baselines, targets, and scorecards for initiatives and consolidation workstreams. Track service, inventory, supplier performance, purchasing productivity, cycle time, and adoption. Maintain a synergy register with owners, delivery dates, and dependencies. Partner with Finance to distinguish recurring savings, working capital release, and capacity gains; account for transition costs, avoid double counting, and verify realized benefits against the business case. Lead corrective action when results fall short. Candidate Profile The successful candidate combines deep inventory planning and purchasing expertise with a record of leading complex supply chain transformation. This leader can move from strategy and financial analysis to detailed process design, influence teams across a matrix organization, and sustain change through clear accountability and practical execution. Bachelor's degree in supply chain, business, engineering, or a related discipline, or equivalent work experience. 15 years of progressive supply chain, inventory management, purchasing, or supplier management experience, including leadership in a large distribution or multi-location business. Demonstrated delivery of cross-functional projects from business case through implementation and adoption, with measurable service, inventory, productivity, or financial improvements. Strong knowledge of demand planning, replenishment, inventory optimization, purchasing economics, and collaboration with category or merchandising teams. Experience evaluating and implementing ERP, planning, purchasing, and analytical tools, including business cases, process redesign, user acceptance testing, and change management. Demonstrated ability to deliver inventory, purchasing, or process integration projects supporting network consolidation, with disciplined synergy tracking and protection of customer service. Strong financial judgment, executive communication, and ability to build consensus, challenge established practices, develop team capabilities, and manage competing priorities.