SQM in Sourcing Ingredients Director at Danone is responsible for overseeing the global portfolio of ingredient suppliers, developing and implementing quality strategies, leading a skilled Supplier Quality Team, and ensuring adherence to global standards for supplier lifecycle management. The role emphasizes strategic vision, team development, supplier performance monitoring, and collaboration across regions to support quality and food safety in ingredient sourcing.

Key expectations from the role owner

• Strong ownership and demonstration of Danone behaviours and values.
• Proven strategic thinking and business acumen.
• Ability to build and nurture a stakeholders’ network.
• Servant leadership to enable functional teams to execute with excellence.
• Mastery and globally recognized expertise in QFS systems and programs management.
• Strong leadership to drive change within the organization
• Excellent communication skills with data driven decision making
• Courageous leadership.
• Advocate for excellence in execution.

Description of the role

The role is responsible for managing the global portfolio of ingredients suppliers across Danone, considering all patterns of criticality.

The purpose of the SQM in Sourcing Ingredients Director is to:

• Design, develop and implement an ingredient quality strategy to meet Danone ‘s growth ambitions, in partnership with Cycle & Procurement (C&P) and Research & Innovation (R&I) organizations.
• Develop and lead a Supplier Quality Team with high level of expertise and capability to ensure robust supply of high quality and safe ingredients for all patients and consumers.
• Continuously evolve training materials for all specific ingredients categories, to increase the overall expertise of the Supplier Quality organization.
• Maintain and rejuvenate the Partner for Excellence (P4E) for a right first-time production.
• Ensure that the global standards for Suppliers Life Cycle Management (LCM) are adopted and applied worldwide. A global community of practice will address any improvement changes and learning from industry benchmarking via a governance structure with all the regions.
• Monitor supplier performance to positively influence business decisions for Suppliers awards, Business Continuity Projects (BCP) and Dual Sourcing initiatives, without compromising on quality and food safety. Implement predictive KPIs for the right first time onboarding of suppliers.
• Work openly and proactively with all the regions and the categories to increase efficiency across the organization.

Key deliverables of the job

• Strategic vision and roadmap.
• Development of a highly capable and performing team, along with development and succession plans.
• Predictive and monitoring performance of suppliers.
• One Danone Way of working with suppliers across all the region