Sr. Category Manager, Indirect Procurment
Supply Chain
Dallas, TX
June 18, 2025
Sr. Category Manager, Indirect Procurement
Coppell, TX
What does it mean to be a BrinkerHead? We play like a team, take pride in our culture and seek every opportunity to make people feel special. Life is short. Work happy. At Brinker, we connect, serve and give to create the best life for our Team Members, Guests and community. Through our cultural beliefs, Brinker empowers its Team Members to positively impact our 4 Key Results: Engaging Team Members, Bringing Back Guests, Growing Sales and Increasing Profits. Brinker International is an equal opportunity employer; we foster an inclusion environment that promotes respect, diversity of thought and success for all.
Job Summary
The Senior Category Manager on our Indirect Procurement team will support both goods and services purchasing across a broad variety of areas and align procurement strategies with overall business objectives. This role will support restaurant operations with purchasing for areas such as Energy, Marketing, Accounting, Finance, HR, Treasury, Risk, and others. This Team Member will lead strategic supplier negotiations with the goal of achieving process efficiencies and cost avoidance/reductions. The person successful in this role will have strong leadership skills and be able to effectively influence others without authority.
Your Key Job Functions
- Set strategic direction for managed categories and suppliers to deliver value, both financially and operationally.
- Develop, review and manage contracts, agreements, statements of work, etc. with best-in-class suppliers.
- Negotiate agreements with buy-in from stakeholders by leveraging terms, conditions, volumes, etc. Ensure cost-effectiveness and quality of goods and services.
- Ensuring adherence to contracts by managing service levels and metrics. Create touchpoints with internal and external teams such as business reviews.
- Analyze and effectively communicate business terms with internal stakeholders to ensure compliance with budgets.
- Lead multiple individual and team projects with various deadlines, ensuring accurate and timely deliverables.
- Effectively manage projects and strategies. In order to do this a successful candidate will be self-motivated, be capable of removing roadblocks, defining priorities, and show accountability for projects.
- Mentor and assist in the development of others to ensure Indirect team is achieving best practices across the team.
- Develop world-class partnerships with suppliers, serving as the direct point of contact during escalations.
- Write and apply procurement knowledge to Requests for Proposals, Quotes or Information (RFPs, RFQs, RFIs) for new or existing strategic projects.
- Collaborate with cross functional departments within a multi-tiered corporate environment to support and serve.
- Stay informed on key industry and market information.
What You Bring to the Team
- Required: Bachelor's degree
- Required: Minimum of 8-10 years working in procurement, with 3-5 years of Indirect Procurement experience, including both goods and services
- Preferred: Previous experience in non-food procurement within restaurant or hospitality industry.
- Preferred: Experience with energy category
- Proven expertise with the end-to-end procurement process, including budget/cost control, negotiation, legal/risk management, financial forecasting
- Demonstrated history of developing and deploying strategic projects that deliver long-term financial and operational value
- Experience conducting complex negotiations
- Ability to transform broad business strategies into action items and objectives
- A "self-starter" attitude that thrives in a fast paced and dynamic environment
- Strong communication style, both verbal and written, with experience presenting complex ideas to varying levels of familiarity, adjusting style to their experience and needs. Strong interpersonal communication is a must
- High organization, attention to detail, and project mana