Sr. Manager, Procurement Operations

Procurement Operations is accountable for ensuring the purchasing of goods and services is easy and compliant, building a delightful buying experience across Technology, Professional Services, Corporate Services/Facilities, Travel, Marketing, Production, and Distribution. We maximize preferred supplier usage to streamline buying and reduce supplier proliferation; enhance self-service and automation to support the speed of business; provide continuous support and proactive stakeholder engagement; manage and enforce the Global Procurement Policy; and champion a user-centered approach that builds trust and supports organizational objectives. 

The Senior Manager, Procurement Operations is an senior operations leader who owns day-to-day buying performance and executes the roadmap set by the Executive Director to make purchasing simpler, faster, and more reliable. This leader optimizes requisition-to-approval workflows; maximizes the impact of the operations team’s review, approval, and diversion to preferred suppliers in line with the Global Procurement Policy; and ensures all legal entities with access to SAP Ariba are fully onboarded and supported. They support the Executive Director in standing up a centralized procurement team and lead implementation to optimize purchasing across preferred buying channels, non-po invoices, and AP payment requests. They translate targets set by the Executive Director into operational KPIs (compliance, cycle time, first-time-right, adoption, NPS), use data to refine channels and enforce policy, and partner with Sourcing, Finance/AP, IT, and business leaders to deliver measurable results. 

Responsibilities 

• SAP Ariba Operations Management: Continue driving continuous improvement within SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing to ensure maximum adoption, simplified requisitioning, streamlined purchase order and invoice processing, and efficient workflow approvals. 

• Strategic Procurement Roadmap & Process Excellence: Partner with the Executive Director to develop a multi‑year roadmap for procurement process excellence and user experience improvement, defining what “great procurement experience” means and setting targets for compliance, cycle time, stakeholder satisfaction and cost savings. 

• Data‑Driven Continuous Improvement: Use spend analytics and requisition trends to identify opportunities for channel optimization, cost savings and policy refinement. Run a continuous improvement framework that iterates on policies and tools over time. 

• Change Management & Training: Design change‑management programs and develop training materials for new processes or tools, ensuring smooth adoption across the organization. 

• Support the Centralized Procurement Function: Support the Executive Director in scaling the Procurement Operations function through process standardization, training, performance tracking, and knowledge sharing. 

• Supplier Relationship Management: Partner with key procurement suppliers to reduce vendor proliferation, support strategic vendor consolidation and maintain robust governance that drives greater compliance and reliability. 

• Collaborative Operational Engagement: Partner closely with sourcing teams, finance, accounts payable, IT and other cross‑functional stakeholders to align operational procurement practices with overall organizational goals and facilitate seamless business operations. 

• Trusted Advisor: Manage relationships with internal stakeholders and champion procurement tool adoption through targeted training and support. Proactively meet with stakeholders to understand needs, communicate changes and develop trusted relationships. 

• Agile Process Improvement: Continuously look for ways to improve the procurement process and leverage new methods to drive faster cycle time, reduce touchpoints and increase the speed at which SPE does business. 

Qualifications

• Experience: Minimum of 7‑10 years of corporate procurement/purchasing/sourcing or similar experience, with at least 3–5 years leading procurement operations or service teams. Experience building or scaling a procurement function or service center is highly desirable. 

• Operational & Technical Skills: Demonstrated ability to run day‑to‑day procurement operations with a focus on efficiency, accuracy and compliance. Proven experience with SAP Ariba, S/4HANA and related analytics platforms; comfort establishing dashboards and using data to drive decisions. 

• Strategic & Analytical Capability: Ability to build persuasive business cases, present effectively and influence strategic decisions that drive measurable improvements in procurement performance. Track record of delivering measurable improvements in procurement processes, supplier management, compliance and spend visibility. 

• Industry Background: Experience in Media & Entertainment or technology‑based industries is preferred. 

• Leadership & Change Management: Proven leadership and team‑management skills; adept at recruiting and developing talent, delegating effectively and fostering a positive team culture. Strong change‑management skills to lead process transformations and gain buy‑in from stakeholders. 

• Personal Attributes: Self‑starter who works independently, proactively identifies areas for improvement and has an affinity for movies, television, entertainment and content creation. 

• The candidate must demonstrate aspects of the following core competencies: Trusted Partner, Effective Communicator, Strategic Thinker, Innovative Problem Solver, Change Agent, and Learner and Developer

Education

• Undergraduate Degree in Supply Chain, Engineering, Computer Science, Finance or Business required 

• CPM/CPSM or other similar certifications preferred.