Mgr Category Procurement

Location: Hershey, PA Hybrid or In-Office Preferred

Why Hershey: At The Hershey Company, our culture is rooted in purpose and inspired by Milton Hershey's enduring vision that business should create opportunity for others. Through our commitment to corporate philanthropy, we create positive impact by supporting communities, helping children thrive, and operating as a business for good. This includes our deep and long standing partnership with Milton Hershey School, where we invest in education, workforce readiness, and hands on engagement to help students succeed beyond the classroom. Supported by strategic grantmaking, product donations, cross brand collaboration, and strong employee volunteerism, Hershey offers a place to work where making a difference—locally and globally—is part of how we do business every day. How will you fit in the big picture? This role is a specialized expert responsible for delivering significant impact on category or functional performance within the procurement organization. The role provides strategic guidance and serves as a trusted advisor by independently resolving complex issues and influencing procurement decisions across and beyond the division. It leads or contributes heavily to high-impact initiatives that require advanced procurement expertise, judgment, and coordination. The position guides others in applying procurement best practices and drives improvements in sourcing, supplier management, and related procurement processes to support organizational objectives. What will you do? Lead High-Impact Procurement Workstreams Leads significant procurement workstreams, programs, or complex projects with measurable business impact. Ensures deliverables align with category strategies, risk governance, and financial objectives. Anticipates issues and applies advanced expertise to guide decisions. Serve as a Trusted Advisor to Stakeholders Provides expert consultation to cross-functional teams on complex procurement matters. Communicates implications of sourcing decisions clearly to business partners. Influences stakeholders by explaining facts, risks, and trade-offs using advanced procurement knowledge. Drive Supplier Performance and Issue Resolution Engages with suppliers to address difficult challenges involving quality, service, or contractual execution. Conducts analysis to understand multi-area impacts and recommends solutions requiring limited guidance. Ensures suppliers understand performance expectations and partners on corrective actions. Advance Category Strategy and Insights Conducts advanced analysis, synthesizes insights, and proposes strategic options to category leaders. Evaluates market dynamics across multiple areas to inform decision-making. Identifies innovative sourcing approaches to improve resiliency, cost, or quality. Lead Improvements in Procurement Practices Designs and implements process and policy improvements that enhance consistency, compliance, or efficiency. Guides peers on applying updated practices and tools. Ensures enhancements are scalable across teams and aligned with procurement governance. Provide expert advice and guidance on complex procurement issues, acting as a trusted thought partner Lead or contribute significantly to procurement projects and programs that impact division results Analyze and resolve difficult challenges by understanding factors and impacts across multiple areas Influence and collaborate with stakeholders across divisions to align procurement strategies and practices Ensure operational targets are met through effective procurement planning and execution Continuously deepen specialized procurement knowledge and skills to enhance team and organizational capabilities Minimum Requirements Experience: 5+ years of relevant experience Procurement Processes Level 5: Understanding of the theory, practices and consequences of purchasing and acquiring products and services for the organization. Data Analysis Level 5: Data Analysis is the process of identifying, evaluating, interpreting and organizing data so that it can be used for business decisions. It includes sorting through data to identify patterns and establish relationships. Includes knowledge of Structured Data, information with a high degree of organization, such that inclusion in a relational database is seamless and readily searchable by simple, straightforward search engine algorithms or other search operations. As well as, knowledge of Unstructured data (or unstructured information), information that either does not have a pre-defined data model or is not organized in a pre-defined manner. Unstructured information is typically text-heavy, but may contain data such as dates, numbers, and facts as well.nn Supplier Management Level 5: The process of managing vendors and suppliers who provide products and services to the company. Understanding the process through which software and hardware products, as well as consulting and training services, are purchased for use in the corporation. This pertains to the development of RFI's and RFP's and understanding the roles each department plays in the process. It includes being able to incorporate necessary technical requirements into contracts. Compliance Management Level 5: The supervision and observation regarding the organization's conformity to various standards, procedures, rules and regulations. Work Order Management Level 1: Order Management is the administration of business processes related to orders for goods or services. An order management system (OMS) automates and streamlines order processing for businesses.