As a Senior Director - Supplier Relations, you will partner with the sales and sales support teams, and be responsible for providing strategic and tactical leadership to manage the relationship with key/strategic suppliers for a specific business unit. You will develop strategic relationship management plans that include field sales engagement, sales enablement, supplier volume rebates, and high-level negotiations. You will monitor monthly and quarterly performance and compliance with Wesco’s standards while driving continuous improvement and resolving performance issues.
Responsibilities:
Strategic Development
- Balance strategic goals, operational performance and cost mitigation through network optimization by building annual business plans for strategic suppliers.
- Identify business needs through analyzing metrics and providing overviews of industry landscape and maintaining awareness of current market trends and conditions that may affect vendors and pricing and may have an operational or strategic impact on the company.
- Create plans to address competitive gaps.
- Selects, manages, evaluates, and develops staff.
Vendor Relationship Development and Management
- Drive down unit cost of network through development and implementation of a vendor strategy while maintaining operational performance.
- Ability to improve end-to-end supplier performance through increasing capacity, improving supplier supply chain responsiveness, and raising performance standards, whilst maintaining high levels of quality.
- Partner with sales to building sales programs in each region which will ultimately lead to reciprocal sales from our large vendors.
- Managing relationships with vendors to ensure WESCO has the right connections into key vendors at all levels and functions from day-to-day ordering to escalation and strategic negotiation.
Risk Management and Process Improvement
- Evaluate, renegotiate, and approve vendor MSAs to meet current market standards for key terms such SVRs, payment terms, cash discounts, and marketing cooperative advertising.
- Monitor day-to-day vendor risk management processes and procedures to ensure consistency with corporate policy while resolving disputes and minimizing corporate exposure.
- Act upon gathered performance data and provide quarterly feedback to business partners to identify key activities and priorities nationally and globally.
Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree required.
- 15 years required of management in electrical distribution industry.
- 15 years required of progressive management in varied organizational development projects and programs.
- 10-15 years of experience, building the following skills:
- Demonstrable negotiation skills in standard as well as complex environments/situations.
- Successful track record showing ability to work with a team to set strategic direction aligned with business goals with a clear execution plan and activity.
- Business and management principles related to strategic planning and resource allocation.
- Knowledge of industry including suppliers, customers, and competitors.
- Strong communication, analytical, negotiation skills.
- Strong strategic thinking skills.
- Ability to identify and cultivate external resources preferred.
- Ability to develop and manage vendor relationships and service providers preferred.
- Ability to work with senior management, as well as regional and group operational teams preferred.
- Ability to find and grow employees capable of moving up a minimum of two levels preferred.
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About UsThis amount is what we reasonably believe we will pay for the position; however, offer amounts may vary based on factors such as geographic location, relevant education, experience, qualifications, skills, shift, or any collective bargaining agreements.In addition, Wesco offers a benefits program for eligible employees, which may include paid time off, medical, dental, and vision coverage, and retirement savings plans. Additional details about benefits are available here.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree
- 15 years of management experience in the electrical distribution industry
- 15 years of progressive management experience in organizational development projects and programs
- 10–15 years of experience developing strategic planning, negotiation, analytical, communication, and vendor relationship skills
- Demonstrable negotiation skills in standard and complex environments
- Experience setting strategic direction aligned with business goals and creating execution plans
- Knowledge of strategic planning and resource allocation principles
- Knowledge of suppliers, customers, competitors, and the electrical distribution industry
- Strong communication, analytical, negotiation, and strategic thinking skills
- Ability to identify and cultivate external resources
- Ability to develop and manage vendor relationships and service providers
- Ability to work with senior management and regional and group operational teams
- Ability to develop employees capable of advancing at least two levels
WESCO International Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about WESCO International and has not been reviewed or approved by WESCO International.
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Retirement Support — Feedback suggests the 401(k) with company match is a relative strong point and is consistently part of the package. Retirement offerings are frequently cited as a solid element within the total rewards.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Feedback suggests PTO policies are favorable, including self‑managed or generous banks in some roles along with paid holidays. Paid parental leave and related time‑off options add to the perceived strength of leave benefits.
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Flexible Benefits — Feedback suggests employees have meaningful choice through medical plan options with HSA/FSA alongside ancillary programs like EAP, discounts, and supplemental coverages. The breadth of selectable add‑ons supports tailoring benefits to individual needs.
WESCO International Insights
What We Do
At Wesco, we believe life should run smoothly. As a leading provider of business-to-business distribution, logistics services and supply chain solutions, we create a world that you can depend on. Harnessing 100 years of ingenuity and expertise, we increase profitability, improve productivity and mitigate risk for approximately 150,000 customers worldwide. With nearly 1.5 million products and locations in more than 50 countries, Wesco is your partner in progress. Our company’s greatest asset is our people. From our corporate and field offices to our distribution sites, Wesco employs over 20,000 professionals around the globe. We’re committed to fostering diversity and inclusion across our workforce by embracing the unique perspectives, authenticity, and individuality our team members contribute to the company. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, Wesco is a publicly traded (NYSE: WCC) FORTUNE 500® company with 2022 net sales of $21.4 billion.









