Sourcing Lead

Overview

Own the multi-year sourcing strategy across Takeda's category portfolio and lead a team of sourcing professionals to deliver value, quality and risk-aware execution in support of Takeda's patient-centric mission.

What you'll do

• Set and own the multi-year sourcing strategy across the category portfolio, aligned to Takeda's enterprise priorities and patient-centric mission.
• Deliver a sourcing plan and pipeline to agreed quality, customer and performance KPIs.
• Drive quality, expertise, and risk-aware execution, supporting Strategic Procurement in complex environments.
• Lead and develop a team of Sourcing Associates, Sourcing Managers, and Senior Sourcing Managers.
• Act as primary executive interface for Category Managers, Business Units, and Site Leadership Teams.
• Take accountability and ownership for relationships with suppliers and stakeholders, when managed by the value delivery team.
• Drive a continuous improvement mindset to improve performance of process, team and experience.
• Develop strategy and conduct negotiations with suppliers at different levels.
• Define and own multi-year global sourcing strategies aligned to GPO frameworks and global category strategies.
• Champion total cost of ownership (TCO) and drive value levers: cost, demand, innovation, risk, ESG.
• Own and monitor savings, RFx cycle time, sourcing KPIs, and stakeholder satisfaction.
• Maintain the project pipeline in Wave and drive continuous improvement against efficiency, customer and quality targets.
• Prioritize workload and delivery focus.
• Lead and manage a sourcing team with strategic thinking, performance focus and the ability to multi-task, think critically and prioritize work.
• Coach the team on sourcing execution, negotiation techniques, CI, growth mindset and stakeholder interaction.
• Foster a climate that inspires, enables, encourages open dialogue, feedback and diverse opinions.
• Elevate capabilities across self, team members and key business partners; ensure compliance with Takeda training requirements.
• Translate business needs into effective sourcing strategies and challenge demand where appropriate.
• Align site and regional priorities with Global Category Strategies and GPO frameworks.
• Escalate complex or strategic topics appropriately to CPO / Head of Value Delivery.
• Implement and enforce standardized sourcing templates, playbooks, and workflows.
• Identify opportunities for automation with digital and AI for process optimization and simplification.
• Drive continuous improvement and a performance culture.
• Keep abreast of industry trends and best practices in sourcing execution.
• Identify and mitigate supply chain risks to ensure business continuity and patient supply security.
• Interface with Operational Procurement (procurement solutions) and align with Central Finance on end-to-end execution and service delivery.
• Maintain clear process boundaries between global category, sourcing and operational procurement.

What you'll need

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant field.
• 10+ years of procurement experience.
• At least 4 years in a senior leadership role.
• Proven track record in sourcing management and delivering cost/value targets in a complex matrix organization.
• Strong background in sourcing execution and procurement transformation, preferably in a GCM setup.
• Experience leading and developing sourcing execution teams or shared service environments.
• Deep understanding of Source-to-Contract processes with ability to drive digital and AI improvement.
• Strong knowledge of sourcing, contract lifecycle management, and supplier management processes.
• Proficiency with SAP Ariba or equivalent eSourcing/P2P platforms and Wave pipeline management.
• Exceptionally skilled at stakeholder management.
• Collaborative and diplomatic, with a demonstrated track record of operating successfully with limited day-to-day direction and ambiguity.
• Strong attention to detail.
• Exceptional communication and presentation skills, both oral and written.
• Extensive experience using Microsoft desktop applications (e.g. PowerPoint, Excel) and experience using Generative / Agentic AI.
• Fluent written and spoken English.

Nice to have

• MBA.
• Pharma, biotech, or FMCG experience.
• Experience working in a complex global environment.

Details

• Location: IND - Bengaluru.
• Hybrid working.
• Full time, Regular employee.