Procurement Category Manager – Growth and Business Services

Overview

In this role you will lead procurement for Marketing, Facilities and Business Services, shaping category strategies that deliver value and drive innovation. You will partner across Finance, Legal and Risk to embed procurement into Merlin’s transformation and growth agenda. You will manage complex sourcing, supplier relationships and governance to enable global scale and continuous improvement. This is an opportunity to influence strategic spend and collaborate with cross-functional teams to deliver measurable commercial benefits.

Pay / Benefits

• Merlin Annual Passes (6 per year)
• Merlin Magic Pass (20 tickets, rising to 40)
• 33 days holiday (incl. bank holidays)
• Company bonus
• Private pension scheme
• 40% discount on LEGO

Responsibilities

• Develop and deliver global category strategies aligned to Merlin’s objectives
• Build sourcing roadmaps that drive value and operational excellence
• Identify opportunities to optimise spend and consolidate suppliers
• Lead procurement transformation initiatives with best-practice governance
• Drive adoption of procurement tools, analytics and category management frameworks
• Lead complex sourcing, negotiations and contract management
• Deliver measurable cost savings and value creation across categories
• Foster strategic supplier partnerships and continuous improvement
• Manage supplier risk and ensure governance, cybersecurity and data protection compliance
• Act as trusted commercial partner with stakeholders across Finance, Legal, Risk and Operations

Key requirements

• Specialised procurement experience in Marketing, Facilities or Corporate Services within a complex global organization
• Strong experience developing and implementing category strategies from scratch
• Proven success in procurement transformation or maturity improvements
• Strong commercial negotiation and contract management skills
• Experience managing strategic supplier relationships with global technology vendors
• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills at all levels in a large organization

• Stakeholder management
• Influencing skills
• Cross-functional collaboration
• Procurement tools
• Analytics
• Category management frameworks

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