Director of Procurement

Sidewalk Labs is an urban innovation company working to make cities more sustainable and affordable for all. We create products, invest in new companies, and help plan innovative places around the world. Since our founding in 2015, we’ve grown into an organization of over 100 employees based primarily in New York City. Our cross-disciplinary team consists of experts from real estate, urban planning, government, finance, technology, and engineering, among other backgrounds.

We’ve launched innovative companies addressing urban mobility, next-generation infrastructure, and community-based healthcare, and invested in startups working on everything from robotic furniture to digital electricity. We continue to work internally on projects such as factory-made mass timber construction that can improve housing affordability and sustainability, a digital master-planning tool designed to help developers and communities achieve shared objectives, and a new approach to all-electric neighborhoods.

With the potential to catalyze and scale new models for sustainable and affordable growth, our work is both exciting and complex. We are working to achieve something unprecedented — help us build it!

This role is our first dedicated Procurement Director hire, reporting to our Director Finance, Chris Macies. We are looking to scale our Procurement function as our business scales, and to implement a best-in-class procure-to-pay process. You will lead and oversee all aspects of Sidewalk Lab’s Procurement and Supply Chain function and our current team of three, growing to five at year end. 

Your leadership will entail the development and implementation of sourcing and procurement activities that support key business objectives, facilitate improvements of procurement services, and ensure consistent and high-quality value delivery.  

• Define the vision and execute a procurement strategy against a long-range plan, delivering on established financial targets.
• Ensure the execution of standards, controls, policies, procedures, and performance metrics to effectively and efficiently manage the acquisition and reporting of third-party spend across the company.
• Make improvements to current procurement processes and deploy best practices to support business growth.
• Lead rigorous and objective supplier contract negotiations with key internal stakeholders, legal department and support groups.
• Conduct business review meetings with key stakeholders to assess risk, review future strategies, and identify potential cost down and improvement opportunities.
• Design vendor governance framework, and establish relationship management best practices and performance scorecards. Develop a preferred supplier program and reduce total number of suppliers.
• Manage recruiting, training and supervising of the Procurement and Supply Chain team who are responsible for both strategic and day-to-day operational procurement activities (includes full-time onshore and offshore support).
• Oversee the development and execution of sourcing strategies across all categories within your span of control including targets, timelines and resource plans.
• Build market intelligence capabilities within the sourcing and business unit teams on key markets, suppliers and solutions to support strategy development for new innovations, technologies and markets as Sidewalk’s business requirements dictate.

Within your first month, you:

• Have met with key stakeholders and have a full understanding of the current Procurement policies, processes, procedures and systems in place at Sidewalk Labs.  

By the end of month three, you:

• Own the management of the team and begin hiring the next member of your team. 
• Have shared your recommendations on improvements and enhancements to the overall process and begin executing against this vision.
• Have added structure to the existing procurement operations, and legal, finance, procurement and the business will have clarity on process and status. 

By the end of the year, you will have implemented: 

• Design vendor governance framework, and establish relationship management best practices and performance scorecards. Develop a preferred supplier program and reduce total number of suppliers.
• From there, you will be responsible for executing on the long-term strategy that continues our journey toward development of a world class procurement organization.

• You have an extensive track record of procurement leadership experience.
• 10+ years of experience in strategic sourcing;
• 6+ years of people leadership experience in managing and/or developing high-performing teams;
• You are familiar and knowledgeable about the use of Procure-to-Pay (Coupa preferred) and ERP systems (Netsuite preferred), and comfortable working with the various suite of Google tools (i.e. Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Google Drives, etc.).
• You are an effective business partner and leader
• You can interact effectively with the senior executives and influence business decisions where appropriate;
• You support your decision-making with both quantitative and qualitative criteria;
• You have well-developed communication skills – both written and verbal – and can effectively distill and present complex information.
• You are a strong leader and player-coach
• You are able to manage with (and be managed by) clearly defined goals and objectives.
• You are focused on tangible results and can support your decision-making with both quantitative and qualitative criteria.
• You are committed to creating more equitable and inclusive outcomes both in the workplace and in the work you do.

We are very excited to hear from you.

Sidewalk Labs is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We actively seek applicants from underrepresented communities. Even if you are not 100% sure you are right for the role, please apply and we will be happy to consider your application. All employment is based on merit and business need, and we respond to each application we receive.