At Apeel, we look to nature to help the global food system extend quality, prevent waste, and ensure an abundant future for our planet.
We believe that our most essential ingredient in our recipe for success is our people. We strive to cultivate an environment where everyone is welcomed, and can bring their full, authentic selves into everything they do at Apeel. Humility, Ingenuity, Leadership, Teamwork and Grit are the values that define us and how we work with each other, customers, and communities across the globe.
As the Vice President of Product Supply, you will spearhead the development and execution of a dynamic, global, end-to-end supply chain and operations strategy to elevate customer satisfaction, propel business outcomes, and enable scalable, competitive growth.
Your responsibilities will encompass developing and leading a high-performing team, orchestrating seamless supply, scaling across regions, expediting new product launches in tandem with commercial and technical teams, continuously working to improve processes and optimize operational metrics, and fostering robust relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
With your keen business acumen, diverse yet deep industry expertise, and strong leadership skills, you'll navigate complex challenges, implement innovative solutions, and drive continuous improvement initiatives for success in a rapidly evolving marketplace.
What You'll Do
- Develop and lead a comprehensive, proactive, and competitive global supply chain strategy that enables positive customer experience, accelerates the achievement of business results, and rapidly scalable growth.
- Ensure the ability to rapidly scale the supply of our current formulations globally, including in regions where Apeel does not have an established legal entity.
- Establish and manage a network of contract manufacturers and tollers to meet demand.
- Work with our commercial and R&D teams to accelerate the launch of new products.
- Ensure appropriate and robust processes and technologies for scale.
- Collaborate and build strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders (including at executive levels) to gain input and buy-in to the strategy.
- Develop and lead a high-performing team and organizational design responsive to customer needs and aligned with business objectives across the supply chain accountabilities of Plan, Source, Make, and Deliver.
- This includes optimizing for fixed vs variable in-house and external resources to deliver against our business goals and plans.
- Embed a robust Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) process across cross-functional teams. Ultizing the S&OP process to ensure effective demand planning and forecasting.
- Develop strategic sourcing initiatives and procurement capabilities, negotiate supply agreements, and establish and maintain strong relationships with suppliers, vendors, and partners to ensure the availability of high-quality and cost-competitive materials.
- Evolve materials planning, manufacturing, and warehousing practices to improve inventory management and efficiencies, emphasizing product inventory and equipment parts management.
- Improve production capacity, raw material availability, lead times, and any constraints on our manufacturing process, both internal and CMO.
- Balancing inventory levels to better meet customer demand while minimizing carrying costs. This involves optimizing safety stock levels, managing obsolescence, and reducing excess inventory.
- Drive the execution of a robust logistics plan, clearing trade compliance requirements and optimizing global deliveries.
- Ensure quality and compliance with regulatory requirements and company policies across supply chain operations.
- Drive improvements (e.g., training, process, technology, supplier network, etc.) and implement best practices to reduce lead times, improve quality, reduce costs, and enhance overall company efficiency.
What You'll Bring
- Bachelor's degree in supply chain management, logistics, engineering, business administration, or a related field. Master's degree preferred.
- Minimum 15 years of experience in supply chain management, with at least 7 years in a senior leadership role.
- Deep global supply chain experience and relationships spanning a network of in-house and outsourced planning, sourcing, manufacturing (including Contract Manufacturing Organizations), trade compliance, logistics, inventory management, warehousing, quality, and supply chain technologies (e.g., Enterprise Resource Planning systems, process automation, etc.), operating in a highly regulated industry -- preferably for food, food ingredients, or agricultural inputs or products.
- Experience in a high-growth or turnaround business setting is preferred.
- Proven leadership skills
- Crafting and assuring a robust yet adaptive strategy with clear prioritization and detailed tactical plans to achieve operational excellence and measurable business results.
- Engaging proactively with internal and external stakeholders to build strong relationships (including executive-level relationships), drive influence, seize opportunities, and unblock challenges to drive business results.
- Developing a high-performing team.
- Helping establish and gain cross-functional buy-in to best practices that are suitable for an organization's size and stage, upon which the organization can scale and grow.
- Fearless but thoughtful -- managing the productive tensions between when to be collaborative and inclusive, and at other times assertive and decisive.
- Hands-on, resourceful, and agile
- Willing and able to be both a coach and a player.
- Able to keep the big picture clearly in mind, but dives into the details and gets close to the matters as needed to help diagnose and ultimately improve how it all fits together.
- Quickly adapts to a rapidly evolving business environment.
- Customer experience-driven.
- Exceptional problem-solving skills, strong attention to detail, high proficiency with data extraction, and deeply analytical, and staunchly metrics-driven.
- Strong business / commercial savviness
- Experience establishing and managing distribution partners/channel partners is highly preferred.
- Strong negotiation and contract management skills, achieving cost savings and favorable terms.
- Attention to external forces and trends, bringing those insights into the business to evolve the supply chain and business strategies.
- English proficiency is required; Spanish proficiency is a strong asset.
Apeel believes that the scale of our impact is determined by the teams that work with us. As such, we seek to build high-performing teams of people from various experiences and backgrounds who can collectively push our company into new realms. We seek a diverse pool of applicants and consider all qualified candidates regardless of race, ancestry, color, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, citizenship, disability, Veteran status, marital status, or any other protected status. If you have any need for accommodations, you can let us know if you choose and know that we will do our best to assist you.
