Director, Purchasing & Product Strategy

This role has responsibility for purchasing all of Target Specialty product needs (~$350M in 2025) for Target’s 55 warehouses locations in the US and Canada though management of a comprehensive forecast for each item in each branch and close working relationships with all key suppliers. In addition, success in this role requires partnering with Procurement on negotiations of associated supply contracts and execution on those agreements to drive manufacturer rebate programs, a key profit contributor, and ensure accurate product costing in the ERP. In order to support success, this role must establish and maintain a clear product strategy that gives direction to Sales on what products should receive sales focus and vice versa. This role also has broad responsibility for strategy, development, procurement. purchasing and management of our pest proprietary product lines (~$25M in revenue in 2025) working closely with Sales to drive growth in revenue and margin.

Duties & Responsibilities

Purchasing

• Establish and maintain a comprehensive forecasting process and system that allows the company to achieve its inventory goals at each warehouse location, minimizes back orders, and minimizes transfer and inbound freight costs.

• Lead a team to effectively team up with the Warehouse Managers to ensure accurate forecasting and having the right product in the right warehouses at the right time.

• Develop and manage a process to identify and reduce slow and obsolete inventory Team with Corporate Procurement on all key manufacturer supply, rebate, and program agreements to ensure alignment with Target’s direction and needs.

• Develop and maintain close working relationships with key suppliers and manufacturers to ensure surety of supply, competitive rebate programs, and effective management of supplier purchasing opportunities.

Product Strategy

• Maintain a system of product ranking (ABCD) that drives sales focus to the most effective and profitable products while maintaining a broad but focused portfolio. Ensure that product ranking is visible and communicated to Sales.

• Lead the team to actively manage the ranking to ensure optimal profitability and focus and work slow moving inventory out of the system

• Maintain a robust slow and obsolete inventory reporting system and coordinated process with Sales to move that product out of the network

• Develop, maintain, and lead sku rationalization to keep the portfolio focused on the key products, and improve working capital and gross margin

• Utilize the product strategy in the procurement process to increase leverage and improve the net profitability of each supplier through upfront product cost, rebates, and programs

• Manage, track and forecast rebate programs with all distribution programs. Responsible to maximize programs and deliver ~$28M in rebate profit.

Proprietary Products

• Develop and lead the execution of a 5 year proprietary product roadmap for Pest in coordination with Sales and our primary manufacturers. This roadmap should include: Innovation with existing products, new innovation and products, evolution of the lines - identification of gaps and opportunities and how they will be filled, competitor product analysis and pros/cons over each of our products, opportunities to enter into new lines (e.g. more EPA chemistry, aquatics, mosquito, etc.)

• Work with Sales Directors to develop and execute revenue and margin targets along with the visibility by product and salesperson needed to identify opportunities for improvement

• Maintain accurate costing of product portfolio. Coordinate floor pricing structure with Sales Directors and Product Strategy Manager.

• Coordinate with regulatory to ensure adequate support successfully implement and maintain the product roadmap.

• Develop and implement a vendor strategy for each product that allows for redundancy and increased procurement leverage

• Lead the development of a comprehensive training and sales support framework to improve overall sales knowledge and execution. Partner with the Sales Directors to implement and improve that framework.

• Develop and coordinate a research budget and plan and weave the results of the research into sales training and marketing

• Develop Product Marketing expertise within your team to support aggressive growth including understanding customer needs, crafting compelling messaging, developing go-to-market strategies, enabling sales to communicate effectively, improving our social media presence, and driving ecommerce opportunities.

• Work with Target Marketing to develop and execute marketing programs to support and grow portfolio.

• Maintain a clear RASCI with sales and vendors so roles and accountabilities remain clear

Key Relationships:

• VP, Distribution

• Sales Directors

• Regulatory

• RTX Procurement

• Marketing

• Finance

• Operations Director

• All major manufacturers that supply Target

• Key Proprietary vendor partners

Key Performance Indicators:

• Inventory levels to goals

• Slow-moving and obsolete inventory

• Back-Orders

• Manufacturer rebates

• SKU counts and SKU revenue as they pertain to portfolio
  management and SKU rationalization

• Proprietary product revenue, margin $, and margin %

• Proprietary product development/innovation vs long-term
  product road map

• Transfer expense

• Inbound freight cost

• ABCD product revenue and margin

• Proprietary product marketing effectiveness

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Entomology, Turf Management, Business or a related field

Experience

• 10+ years of industry, product, and vendor experience in professional pest and/or turf and ornamental industries - required

• 5+ years of experience working in multi-functional teams (e.g., sales. procurement, and marketing) to coordinate the execution of strategies - required

• 5+ years people management - required

• Experience developing, maintaining, and reporting on KPIs

• Analytical experience in product costs, inventory levels, rebates, etc.

• Familiarity with common regulatory licensing concepts, practices, and procedures

• Must be a results-oriented team player capable of working in a fast paces environment with changing priorities

• Must be an efficient negotiator

• Proficient in Windows-based applications Word and Excel, and Google Suite

• Experience presenting to executive management preferred

No OPT or sponsorship available

Base Pay Range $150,000 - $180,000/ year

Eligible for bonus and long term incentive plan

While starting pay falls within the given range, it can vary based on factors like geographic location, skills, education, and experience. Total earnings may also be affected by overtime, incentives, commissions, performance, and route assignment (where applicable).

#LI-Remote