The Protolabs Network Global Supply Chain Director will lead the growth and performance of our global manufacturing partner ecosystem, shaping the future of how we deliver for customers worldwide. This strategic leadership role owns partner network expansion, supplier strategy, operational excellence, capacity planning, and cost optimization across key global regions. As a critical driver of Protolabs' growth strategy, you will define and execute our Network fulfillment vision, ensuring scalable capabilities, world-class partner performance, and a competitive global supply chain.
This role leads a team of 16 supply chain professionals across the U.S., Europe, India, and China, including three Regional Supply Chain Managers responsible for supplier strategy, partner development, and operational performance within their regions.
What You Will Do:
- Global Partner Portfolio Development:
- Strategically plans our global partner network in line with commercial needs and pricing demands.
- Identify and mitigate potential risk or disruptions to the regional supply chains, including consideration of supply allocation and dependency on key partners.
- Drive a disciplined partner evaluation and onboarding process, ensuring new partners can reliably deliver to Protolabs quality, lead time, and cost expectations.
- Build demand forecasting and capacity planning capabilities that enable proactive management of partner utilization and prevent delivery failures.
- Build and manage a pipeline of prospective manufacturing partners to proactively fill capacity and capability gaps before they impact customer outcomes.
- Monitor regional ecosystems, including material providers and secondary vendors, to help ensure seamless delivery and maximize our customer offer.
- Partner Performance Management:
- Establish and maintain a comprehensive supplier performance management framework with clear KPIs for quality, on-time delivery, responsiveness, and customer satisfaction.
- Conduct supplier evaluations to monitor regional network performance including on-time shipping, quality metrics, and key platform metrics.
- Establish policies processes that ensure robust guidelines and controls. Implement areas of improvement to manage our supplier relationships in the most scalable, efficient way possible.
- Develop strategic relationships with our most important Manufacturing Partners in all regions to ensure high engagement and retention. Ensure that suppliers' needs, which are critical to the business, are acknowledged and addressed.
- Strategic Leadership:
- Develop and maintain supply chain resilience strategies, including geographic diversification and contingency routing protocols.
- Partner with Global Product Manager to support new capabilities. As needed, develop supply capacity for new capabilities, such as material or technologies and post-processing options, to expand our regional offering and meet customer demands.
- Contribute to the combined offering roadmap, with our Manufacturing Partners and our Protolabs Factory stakeholders.
- People Leadership:
- Build a high-performing team, aligning our regional staffing and skills with overall business objectives and growth plans.
- Lead team initiatives and unify efforts across regions. Monitors team performance and manages talent to ensure high engagement, individual development, and career progression.
- Ensure stakeholder alignment as a member of our overall Network Operations team. This role will partner closely with our Product Management, Sourcing, Partner Operations, Logistics, and Quality teams to drive initiatives and optimize our KPI scorecard.
What It Takes:
- A Bachelor’s degree in supply chain, engineering, Business, or a related field.
- 12+ years’ experience of progressive roles within Supply Chain Management, Supplier Development. Operations Management, especially within a Network-based fulfillment model.
- 5+ years of management experience leading teams and cross-functional initiatives.
- Proven track record of building and developing international supply chains, specifically across all Asia regions, Mexico, as well as domestically in the United States or Europe.
- Demonstrated experience in leading and managing supply teams, with a solid track record of improving supplier performance, team performance and supporting organizational growth.
- Expertise in developing and nurturing strategic relationships with key manufacturing partners, ensuring strong collaboration and partnership growth.
- Hands-on experience in strategically planning supply networks, including developing capacity and capabilities to meet commercial and pricing demands.
- Ability to innovate and implement strategic solutions to complex supply chain and logistics challenges specific to the network model.
- Technical experience with core manufacturing technologies: CNC Machining, Injection Molding, and 3D Printing.
- A deep understanding of the manufacturing industry's technological advancements, materials, and post-processing options.
- Ability to identify and implement best practices for manufacturing consistency and improvement of network performance.
- Ability to lead through change and drive transformation initiatives within the supply chain to meet evolving business needs and support multiple priorities.
- Negotiation expertise to manage and strengthen partnerships with key manufacturing partners
What Makes You Stand Out:
- Certifications such as APICS Certified Supply Chain Professional (CSCP) or Six Sigma Black Belt.
- Proven experience working within a network business model, particularly in a manufacturing context.
- Understanding platform dynamics, including multi-sided markets and how to leverage network effects for pricing and capacity balancing.
- Experience with data analytics tools and software to monitor and predict supply chain trends.
What's In It For You:
- We offer a competitive salary and total rewards package
- We offer amazing benefits including but not limited to:
- Health Insurance: Traditional OR High Deductible plan
- Flexible Spending Accounts
- Health Savings Account (including employer contributions)
- Dental and Vision
- Basic and Supplemental Life Insurance
- Short-Term and Long-Term Disability
- Paid caregiver leave
- You will receive at least 3 weeks of PTO + Wellness + Holiday Pay + Volunteer Hours
- 401k with company match and immediate vest
- Employee Stock Purchase Program at a discounted rate
- Matching grants through Protolabs foundation
- And More!
Skills Required
- Bachelor’s degree in supply chain, engineering, business, or a related field
- 12+ years of progressive experience in supply chain management, supplier development, or operations management
- 5+ years of management experience leading teams and cross-functional initiatives
- Experience building and developing international supply chains across Asia, Mexico, the United States, or Europe
- Experience leading supply teams and improving supplier, team, and organizational performance
- Experience developing strategic relationships with key manufacturing partners
- Experience planning supply networks and developing capacity and capabilities to meet commercial and pricing demands
- Ability to solve complex supply chain and logistics challenges in a network-based fulfillment model
- Technical experience with CNC machining, injection molding, and 3D printing
- Understanding of manufacturing technologies, materials, and post-processing options
- Ability to implement manufacturing consistency and supply network performance improvements
- Experience leading change and transformation initiatives within supply chain organizations
- Negotiation expertise for managing and strengthening manufacturing partner relationships
- APICS Certified Supply Chain Professional certification or Six Sigma Black Belt
- Experience working within a manufacturing network business model
- Understanding of platform dynamics, multi-sided markets, network effects, pricing, and capacity balancing
- Experience with data analytics tools and software for monitoring and predicting supply chain trends
- Must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or foreign national with refugee or asylee status due to ITAR requirements
Protolabs Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Protolabs and has not been reviewed or approved by Protolabs.
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Healthcare Strength — Medical, dental, and vision options are broadly available and described as good to excellent. Additional protections like short- and long-term disability and life insurance bolster the overall package.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — A starting PTO allotment plus paid holidays, along with added wellness and volunteer time, is emphasized, with some roles noting PTO growth over tenure. Paid caregiver leave appears in postings and supports flexibility for life events.
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Retirement Support — A 401(k) with company match and immediate vesting is offered, supporting long-term savings. This foundation is frequently cited alongside core financial benefits as a strong element of total rewards.
Protolabs Insights
What We Do
Protolabs is the world's fastest digital manufacturing source for rapid prototyping and on-demand production. The technology-enabled company produces custom parts and assemblies in as fast as 1 day with automated 3D printing, CNC machining, sheet metal fabrication, and injection molding processes. Our digital approach to manufacturing enables accelerated time to market, reduces development and production costs, and minimizes risk throughout the product life cycle. 3D Printing Our 3D printing service offers a wide selection of materials and technologies to create prototypes and end-use parts with complex geometries and detailed features. With tight process controls, careful design reviews, and extensive quality monitoring, we ensure precise and repeatable 3D-printed parts, every time. CNC Machining We use 3- and 5-axis milling along with turning to machine parts from commercial-grade plastics and metals. Our online quoting system and automated manufacturing process enable us to ship parts within 24 hours, helping customers accelerate development and reduce time to market. Sheet Metal Fabrication Protolabs is an industry leader in quick-turn sheet metal parts for both prototyping and low-volume production. Our digital approach to manufacturing enables us to fabricate sheet metal parts in as fast as 5 days. Additionally, we can support our customers’ development efforts with component assemblies, several finish options, and screen printing. Injection Molding Our injection molding service offers two options—prototyping and on-demand manufacturing—which provide customers a tooling solution that aligns with their project’s requirements. It’s used for quick-turn prototyping, bridge tooling, and low-volume production of up to 10,000+ parts in 15 days or less.
