Global Procurement Specialist

Louis Dreyfus Company is a leader in the marketing and processing of agricultural products. Structured as a matrix organization of six geographic regions and ten platforms, LDC operates in more than 100 countries and employs approximately 18,000 people worldwide.

The Global Procurement Specialist, Energy will be responsible for developing, aligning, and executing and/or coordinating the execution of the global category strategy for all types of Energy consumed or produced at LDC across all regions of the world, with the objectives of consuming cheaper, optimize consumption, reduce carbon emissions, increase cost predictability and mitigate supply chain risks.

The category scope includes electricity, steam, biomass, natural gas, coal, liquid fuels and any type of renewable energy).

Key Responsibilities and Activities

• Articulate the overarching principles of category strategy, globally, evaluating several options, collecting stakeholders feedback in the process towards alignment, in line with the company’s business objectives ads sustainability goals. Decline it for each of the sub-categories at stake.
• Develop and manage the virtual procurement category team including internal stakeholders dealing with procurement activities for any of the subcategory at stake, be them within or outside of the procurement organization, so as to deploy or coordinate the deployment of such strategies in the different markets where LDC operates.
• Be the voice of procurement towards the various global instances dealing with energy from various angles (sustainability, finance, technical) and the voice of those instances within procurement so as to ensure on one hand market insight / procurement insights are taken into account by those instances and on the other hand the outcome of the work of those instances is appropriately considered in the definition and deployment of category strategies.
• Deploy and/ or coordinate the Category strategies through appropriate initiative and sourcing plan and as part of it, conduct strategic negotiations with global / regional / local energy suppliers (as appropriate). This can include the execution of standalone initiative of the coordination of a set of initiative part of a large program. Support regions in managing energy supply contracts and agreements in various countries.
• Implement supplier relationship management framework for the Energy category and own the business / internal stakeholder relationships management plan for the entire category globally so as to enable strategy definition and execution. Part of it, set up the appropriate governance structure so as to govern the execution of the strategy execution (ownership of buy vs produce type of models to analyze projects or contribution to shadow carbon price as examples).
• Develop the category intelligence, inclusive of market analysis and insight, price benchmarking, regulatory risk and opportunities assessments so as to enable decision making and feed budgeting. Develop ‘energy control tower’ so as to be able to govern the spend and report appropriately on the company financial position wrt energy category.

Technical Requirements (Hard Skills)

• Higher education in Engineering, Administration, Economics, or related areas.
• Postgraduate degree or MBA in Supply Chain, Energy, or related areas (desirable).
• More than 5 years experience in strategic purchasing in the energy category.
• Technical knowledge of electricity, steam, biomass, etc. markets.
• Proficiency in contracts, commercial clauses, and risk management.
• Analytical skills for feasibility studies and TCO.
• Fluency in English (mandatory).
• Experience with ERPs and strategic sourcing tools.

Behavioral Skills (Soft Skills)

• Strategic thinking and long-term vision.
• Influence and negotiation in multicultural environments.
• Interpersonal skills and coordination with stakeholders.
• Autonomy and proactivity.
• Clear and objective communication.
• Analytical skills and results orientation.
• Adaptability and resilience.
• Innovation and sustainability mindset.
• Manage complexity.
• Financial acumen.

Differentials

• Experience with energy procurement in different regions (North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia).
• Participation in energy transition or distributed generation projects.
• Experience in industrial companies with high energy demand.

Additional Information for the job