VP, Strategic Sourcing & Integrated Planning

Greater Boston, MA | Medical Device / Life Sciences

A rare opportunity to build and lead the strategic sourcing and integrated planning function for one of the fastest-scaling public medical device companies in its sector, at the exact moment those decisions matter most. This is a net-new leadership seat: a chance to take ownership of critical supplier relationships currently held at the top of the company, embed sourcing into a landmark product-development cycle, and design a modern, digitally enabled procurement and planning organization from the ground up.

ABOUT OUR CLIENT

Our client is a publicly traded medical device company transforming the standard of care in a critical, life-saving area of healthcare. Its core platform is a first-of-its-kind technology that is transforming the organ donor sector, improving patient outcomes, and reducing the overall cost of care.

The company is scaling rapidly to deliver on its mission, investing heavily in manufacturing capacity, next-generation product programs, and new product introductions. This role is central to building the leadership structure required for that next phase of growth.

WHY THIS ROLE, WHY NOW

The next twelve months are pivotal. Our client is deep in development of its next-generation flagship platform and a major new therapeutic program being stood up largely from scratch. Sourcing and supplier decisions made now, during development, will shape the cost, quality and resilience of these products for years. This is the window to embed strategic sourcing into the product from day one, so that supplier capability and performance are designed in rather than managed after the fact.

At the same time, the business is maturing. Historically run on an uncompromising service-level model, it is now sharpening its focus on efficiency and margin as it scales, and procurement is being elevated from a tactical, reactive function into a strategic value driver. A significant capital investment in new manufacturing and campus infrastructure is physical proof of that ambition. The successful leader will not be optimizing a legacy machine. They will be designing and building the supply chain that underpins the company's growth story. They will own this function.

SCOPE AT A GLANCE

Spend under management: Approximately $100M today (roughly 15% of revenue), projected to grow 3 to 5 times over the coming years, weighted toward next-generation product.

Key categories: Mechanical and electrical components; specialty solutions and consumables integral to the product. Indirect categories to be incorporated over time.

Function: A procurement and sourcing team plus an established planning organization spanning demand, supply, S&OP and data analytics.

Footprint: US manufacturing base, including a major new campus under development, plus an international development site.

THE MANDATE

• Own executive-level supplier relationships. Take ownership of critical strategic supplier and partner relationships currently held by senior leadership, becoming the senior point of contact and bringing the CFO and other executives in at the right moments.
• Lead strategic vendor selection. Run holistic, upfront evaluation and selection of vendors and partners alongside Engineering and R&D, assessing capability, capacity and strategic fit, and giving supply a genuine voice in technical decisions.
• Build governance from the ground up. Establish procurement governance, controls and scalable operating models, focusing mainly on direct categories to start, then centralizing indirect spend over time.
• Set the digital and AI agenda. Lead a greenfield ERP implementation and shape the technology roadmap for the function, with a credible, practical point of view on where AI can genuinely improve procurement, and where it's simply noise.
• Drive margin and cost discipline. Introduce should-cost and design-to-cost thinking and partner with Engineering to build cost and resilience into products as the company protects and expands its margins.
• Lead across planning. Collaborate with and provide leadership across an established Integrated Business Planning organization. Deep planning architecture is not required. The priority is procurement and sourcing leadership, with planning fluency as a complementary strength.

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

This is a leader with the pedigree of a large, best-in-class procurement organization and the appetite to roll up their sleeves in a fast-moving, entrepreneurial environment. Someone who has seen how mature functions should run and wants the chance to build one from a low base.

• A senior strategic sourcing and procurement leader with a proven track record of transformation, building, modernizing and scaling functions rather than maintaining them.
• Background in life sciences, medical device, or another highly regulated, quality-driven manufacturing environment.
• Experience operating in or scaling a high-growth business, comfortable with ambiguity and change.
• Strong systems and ERP leadership; direct experience of an implementation (Oracle a distinct advantage) and a clear view of the procurement technology and AI landscape.
• Executive presence and influence, able to earn the confidence of the CFO, CEO and cross-functional leaders, and to lead through influence rather than hierarchy.
• A hands-on, decisive, ownership mentality: direct, resilient, and energized by the pace and scale of a company at an inflection point, with the ability to work down the line as well as up.
• Sufficient IBP / planning fluency to lead and collaborate across planning; deep planning specialism is not required.