Ko wai mātou – About us
Kia ora. We’re Foodies. You know Gilmours, New World, PAK’nSAVE, and Four Square, right? That’s us!
Gilmours is 100% NZ Owned and Operated serving thousands of businesses and organisations across the North Island for the food and beverages they need to grow their business. Gilmours is your one-stop Foodservice shop with Butchery, Produce, Chilled & Frozen, Grocery, General Merchandise, Consumables, Beverages and Liquor.
Te Tūranga – About the role
This is a rare opportunity to lead one of the most commercially influential functions in our business!
As Head of Wholesale Procurement & Insights, you'll be responsible for leading procurement, buying, commercial insights, pricing, and category strategy to deliver exceptional value for our customers, stores, and business. You'll develop and execute a future-focused procurement strategy that drives growth, strengthens supplier partnerships, and maximises commercial performance.
Success in this role comes down to three key areas:
Buying Excellence & Commercial Negotiation
You are an exceptional commercial leader who knows how to secure the best outcomes through strategic sourcing, supplier relationships, and negotiations. You will:
- Lead major supplier partnerships and commercial negotiations.
- Drive best-in-class buying practices that deliver strong pricing and margin outcomes.
- Develop category strategies that maximise profitability while creating value for customers.
- Influence pricing, promotions, and commercial initiatives that strengthen our market position.
- Act as the senior escalation point for complex supplier negotiations and strategic partnerships.
Financial Management & Budget Accountability
You bring strong commercial acumen and a proven ability to manage significant financial portfolios, focused on:
- Owning procurement performance, trading outcomes, and budget delivery.
- Balancing customer value with margin performance and financial targets.
- Leading forecasting, financial planning, and commercial decision-making.
- Utilising insights and analytics to identify opportunities, manage risk, and improve profitability.
- Ensure investment decisions deliver sustainable long-term value.
Leadership & People Development
This role requires a visible and influential leader who can inspire high performance across teams and stakeholders. You will:
- Lead and develop a high-performing procurement and insights team.
- Create a culture of accountability, collaboration, innovation, and continuous improvement.
- Coach and grow commercial capability across the function.
- Influence senior leaders and drive alignment across the wider business.
- Champion a customer and data-led approach to decision-making.
He kōrero mōu – About you
You are a commercially astute leader with extensive experience leading procurement, buying, or commercial functions. You have a proven track record of negotiating complex supplier agreements, delivering strong commercial outcomes, and driving value through effective category management, pricing strategies, and margin optimisation. With strong financial acumen, you are comfortable owning significant budgets, forecasting performance, and making data-driven decisions that balance customer value with business objectives.
Ngā painga - What we offer
We’re committed to providing awesome experiences for our people, including offering a range of benefits
- Free carparking - we’ve got over 1,000 carparks including EV plugs
- Southern Cross Healthcare Coverage
- Onsite café with subsidised meals, mini mart, 5% discount at our retail stores
- Flexible working options, a day off on your birthday, lots of fun on site activities
- Inhouse learning and development programmes and courses, flu vaccinations, and social network groups (we call them Tribes).
Experience awesome. Achieve awesome. Be awesomely you.
We’re proud to have a focus on Diversity & Inclusion here at Foodies and welcome courageous behaviour, encourage togetherness, inspire our people to be their best selves in our Foodies whānau.
We encourage you to apply with all your awesomeness and welcome your diverse background, including any disability, additional health and mental health needs, and/or neurodiversity.
If you require accessibility support to ensure you can fairly access our recruitment process, please reach out to [email protected]. Accessibility support could include interview location, sign language interpreter, assistive technology.
Skills Required
- Extensive experience leading procurement, buying, or commercial functions
- Proven track record negotiating complex supplier agreements and managing major supplier partnerships
- Category management and development of category strategies to maximise profitability
- Strong commercial acumen with experience owning significant budgets and delivering trading outcomes
- Experience in pricing strategy, promotions, and margin optimisation
- Ability to lead forecasting, financial planning and use insights/analytics to drive decisions
- Proven people leadership experience building and developing high-performing teams
- Experience influencing senior stakeholders and driving cross-functional alignment
What We Do
Foodies is a cooperative, made up of 22,000 kiwis just like you, working hard to make sure New Zealanders get more out of life. Chances are you have been one of our customers, we serve more than 1.4 million kiwis each week through our PAK’nSAVE, New World, Four Square and Gilmours stores. We have more than 350 stores up and down the North Island, from Houhora in the far north, to Island Bay in the coolest little capital in the world. And we have support centres in Auckland, Palmerston North and Wellington. Check out www.foodstuffs.careers to hear our people talk about what they do, why they do it, and to hear about some of the coolest career opportunities in NZ.
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