Category Director - Talent Development, Experience and Employee Relations

WPP is the transformation company. We use the power of creativity to build better futures for our people, planet, clients, and communities.

Working at WPP means being part of a global network of more than 100,000 accomplished people in 110 countries. We create transformative ideas and outcomes for its clients through an integrated offer of communications, experience, commerce, and technology. WPP and our award-winning agencies work with most of the world's biggest companies and organizations – from Ford, Unilever and P&G to Google, HSBC, and the UN. Our clients include 61 of the FTSE 100, 325 of the Fortune Global 500, all 30 of the Dow Jones 30 and 62 of the NASDAQ 100.

WPP has headquarters in New York, London and Singapore and a corporate presence in major markets worldwide. We are quoted on the London Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange. Key performance indicators for WPP (2020) include Billings of £46.9bn and Revenue of £12bn.

At WPP we are undergoing a companywide transformation program that will enable us to work together in a more coordinated, connected, and efficient way across the group.

As part of the transformation, we are building out a Global Procurement function to support and assist us in meeting our ambition and our vision is.

‘To be the best commercial Procurement organization to work for and work with, delivering value and managing risk for the benefit of our businesses, our planet, our clients, and our communities’

To be the creative transformation company, we need the best minds who are keen to join a company that is open, optimistic, and committed to extraordinary work.

Visit our LinkedIn page to see what we're up to!

The Category Director, Talent Development, Experience, and Employee Relations will ensure the development and delivery of comprehensive category strategies to maximize value and outcomes for WPP, balancing commercial risk and opportunities across all categories in scope.

What you'll be doing:

Key responsibilities include:

• Lead and develop Category Managers and Category Buyers across the categories in scope
• Have end to end commercial accountability for their categories, representing their area to the relevant Head of Procurement, demonstrating delivery of the overarching commercial and procurement strategy
• Act as business partner for appropriate corporate functions / stakeholders
• Collaborate with Procurement Business Partners to build the demand pipeline, ensure business requirements are captured and appropriately challenged, and to feed back on compliance
• Ensure adoption of the commercial and procurement ways of working, policies and processes within central category teams
• Lead category planning, category sourcing, commercial and contract management for corporate categories
• Identify and manage overall category risks
• Lead development of category thinking, including building internal and external networks

This role will report to WPP’s Global Head of Procurement – People Services

Who you will be doing it with:

Key External Relationships:

• Suppliers
• Professional and Industry Groups

Key Internal Relationships:

• Procurement leadership
• Procurement Operations
• Business stakeholders
• Responsible Procurement
• Procurement Business Partners
• Procurement Regional Lead

What you'll need:

• Global category management experience in People Services and strong leadership experience and success across all categories and sub-categories including Talent Development (Learning), Employee Experience and Employee Relations
• Leading major transformation, change and outsourcing programmes in the HR environment globally with experience of greenfield change programmes
• Senior executive stakeholder management in a complex environment
• Supplier management across global categories
• Change management for direct team and broader stakeholders
• Commercial risk management across global categories
• Leadership and people development experience
• Evidence of responsible / sustainable procurement initiatives
• The ability to navigate in and through ambiguity in a multi-faceted culture
• Resilience and tenacity
• A high level of credibility, initiative, and drive

What will your key metrics and targets be:

• Annual delivery against benefits plan
• Completeness of Category Management activities
• Customer satisfaction NPS
• People development
• % Category spend influenced
• Contribution to cost reduction targets and avoidance

Who you are:

You're open: We are inclusive and collaborative; we encourage the free exchange of ideas; we respect and celebrate diverse views. We are accepting: of new ideas, new partnerships, new ways of working.

You're optimistic: We believe in the power of creativity, technology and talent to create brighter futures or our people, our clients and our communities. We approach all that we do with conviction: to try the new and to seek the unexpected.

You're extraordinary: We are stronger together: through collaboration we achieve the amazing. We are creative leaders and pioneers of our industry; we provide extraordinary every day.

What we'll give you:

Passionate, inspired people – We promote a culture of people that do extraordinary work.

Scale and opportunity – We offer the opportunity to create, influence and complete projects at a scale that is unparalleled in the industry.

Challenging and stimulating work – Unique work and the opportunity to join a group of creative problem solvers. Are you up for the challenge?

WPP is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without regard to race, color, religion or belief, sex, age, national origin, citizenship status, marital status, military/veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical or mental disability. We believe in creating a dynamic work environment that values diversity and inclusion and strives to recruit a diverse slate of candidates to help us achieve that goal.

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