Global Purchasing Manager (M/W)

Most purchasing roles ask you to run a function. This one asks you to build it.

Our client, an international aerospace group, is growing fast (X0% on a yearly basis) across several countries and sites through the US, EMEA & APAC, and its purchasing organisation (30 buyers worldwide today) is still taking shape. As Global Purchasing Manager, you will design the global strategy, build the supplier ecosystem and make purchasing a true lever of growth and industrial resilience for the Group.

Few careers offer the chance to leave this kind of mark on a company. This is one of them, and we have been mandated to find the leader who will take it on.

About our client

Our client is an international, multi-site industrial group serving the aerospace sector, currently in a phase of strong growth. Its name will be shared with shortlisted candidates, in strict confidence.

What makes this context unique:

• Fast growth. New sites, new programmes and new products are on the horizon, and the supply base must keep pace.
  
• A mid-sized company spirit. Decisions are quick, teams are close, and pragmatism beats bureaucracy. The company is not a large corporation yet. It is shaping for it.
  
• Micro-series, extreme specifications. We produce small volumes of highly technical parts and equipment, where quality, traceability and know-how make the difference.
  
• Purchasing still to be structured. Processes are not yet mature. The job is to build them at multinational scale while keeping them light, useful and adapted to each site.
  

Your mission

You define and drive a global purchasing strategy on the Group's structuring topics. You coordinate local actions, secure subcontracting capacity, reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) and strengthen industrial resilience. Above all, you stay deeply connected to the shop floor and to the needs of sites, programmes and customers.

How you will work:

• On the ground. You spend real time on the sites and with suppliers, not only in meetings.
  
• Coordination over uniformity. You align practices where it creates value and respect local realities where it does not.
  
• Standards where they matter. You build simple, robust standards only where they make a difference.
  
• Proactive on make-or-buy. You challenge and inform make-or-buy decisions with facts on cost, capacity and risk.
  
• TCO and resilience first. You look beyond unit price to total cost, supply security and long-term capability.
  
• Growing with the company. The role will evolve as the company grows, and so will you.
  

Your roadmap

Short term: map, secure, understand, earn trust

• Map the supply base, spend and critical suppliers across all sites.
  
• Professionalise the sourcing of new suppliers and develop the capabilities of existing ones.
  
• Identify which commodities to manage globally and which to keep local.
  
• For local commodities, build an international network of buyers by purchasing category.
  
• Set up the SIOP (Sales, Inventory and Operations Planning) for tooling produced externally across countries.
  

Medium term: structure, harmonise, steer TCO

• Structure supplier panels and harmonise purchasing practices.
  
• Steer TCO and support industrialisation of new parts and programmes.
  
• Increase and scale industrial capacity through the supply base.
  
• Improve overall performance and structure multi-site customer offers.
  

Long term: build a global supplier ecosystem

• Make purchasing a platform and resilience lever for the Group.
  
• Anticipate the supplier network needed for new service sites, new products and new programmes.
  

Profil