Category Manager, Metals

This is where your work makes a difference.

At Baxter, we believe every person—regardless of who they are or where they are from—deserves a chance to live a healthy life. It was our founding belief in 1931 and continues to be our guiding principle. We are redefining healthcare delivery to make a greater impact today, tomorrow, and beyond.

Our Baxter colleagues are united by our Mission to Save and Sustain Lives. Together, our community is driven by a culture of courage, trust, and collaboration. Every individual is empowered to take ownership and make a meaningful impact. We strive for efficient and effective operations, and we hold each other accountable for delivering exceptional results.

Here, you will find more than just a job—you will find purpose and pride.

Your role at Baxter:

You, as Category Manager, will be responsible for development and execution of market leading sourcing strategies for Metals category. Offer mentorship, critical thinking, and knowledge on Metals categories to further Baxter Global Business Units (GBUs) mission agenda “Sustain and Save Lives”.

What you will be doing:

• Develop, lead, and maintain a detailed understanding of assigned commodities and supplier technologies. Understand manufacturing processes and related industries, including cost drivers and global execution. Apply this knowledge across multiple manufacturing locations to address specific supply issues.
• Serve as a resource to operations teams and others, using procurement knowledge.
• Define global subcategory segmentation and recommend a strong consolidation strategy to bring to bear business volumes.
• Responsible for defining and implementing assigned commodity strategy based on knowledge of regional markets, suppliers, and plants.
• Analyze and calculate most driven manufacturing costs based on market trends and suggest strategies to decrease expenditure, including transfer office.
• Build cost-saving opportunities through driven bidding, supplier development, continuous improvements, transfer office, etc.
• Act as a change agent to improve and coordinate suppliers’ performance through continuous improvement activities.
• Establish service levels and work together with relevant customers to measure and supervise suppliers’ performance. Maintain and review supplier performance to ensure conformance to supplier management goals (cost, quality, service, delivery). Ensure timely resolution of all disputes.
• Negotiate purchase price, contract terms, and conditions to deliver on spend cover by contracts.
• Support the SWAT team in the supplier recovery plan and disaster periods.
• Negotiate/Recoup all costs associated with rejects/defects, expedites, or shortages.
• Work with critical suppliers to improve current performance and develop new opportunities.
• Participate/lead multi-functional teams to drive sophisticated sourcing projects optimally.
• Efficiently handles long‑term relationships with suppliers and internal collaborators.
• Support of business objectives for cycle/response time, quality assurance, technology/new product development, risk mitigation, and total cost.

What will you bring?

• A bachelor’s degree in engineering or a related technical field is preferred, with equivalent experience considered.
• Minimum 3 years (5 years preferred) of important experience in Procurement and/or Supply Chain
• Strong decision maker surrounding multi‑million‑dollar contracts and agreements and major policies.
• Risk management abilities needed to drive innovative solutions and analyze and resolve problems.
• A top‑tier negotiator with knowledge of cost tools such as material breakdown, benchmarking, value analysis, value engineering, sophisticated RFQ and innovative purchasing tools.
• Strong project management skills to drive projects to closure.
• High‑level technical proficiency. Engineering or other technical training preferred.
• Ability to think strategically and globally.
• Ability to develop team with multifaceted strengths member interests and expectations.
• In‑depth understanding in building category strategies and sophisticated pricing arrangements and supplier profitability
• Previous experience working on metals commodities e.g. Carbon Steel, Aluminum, Stainless Steel preferred
• Strong ethical background.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills as well as interpersonal, analytical and presentation skills.
• Knowledge of root cause analysis, problem‑solving, continuous improvement, corrective and preventative action, product quality assurance systems, and supplier performance development and evaluation is helpful.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Baxter is an equal opportunity employer. Baxter evaluates qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, protected veteran status, disability/handicap status or any other legally protected characteristic.

Reasonable Accommodations

Baxter is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities globally. If, because of a medical condition or disability, you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application or interview process, please let us know the nature of your request along with your contact information.