Head of R&D Procurement

Our mission is to make biology easier to engineer. Ginkgo is constructing, editing, and redesigning the living world in order to answer the globe’s growing challenges in health, energy, food, materials, and more. Our bioengineers make use of an in-house automated foundry for designing and building new organisms. 

Ginkgo is a high-growth, well-capitalized public biotech company in Boston that is redesigning the living world to solve some of the globe’s growing challenges in health, energy, food, materials, and more. Ginkgo is constructing, editing, and redesigning the living world in order to answer the globe’s growing challenges in health, energy, food, materials, and more. Our mission to “make biology easier to engineer” is poised to disrupt multiple industries by leveraging our innovative data, automation, and scale in biological engineering.

To support this rapid growth, Ginkgo is seeking a highly motivated Category manager to support Ginkgo’s Lab Consumables, DNA, Chemicals, Enzymes, Plastics, Equipment, and Services spend categories. Collaborating closely with cross-functional teams across Ginkgo, you’ll work to develop an in-depth understanding of Ginkgo’s business needs to effectively develop and execute sourcing plans, deliver financial and operational results. You will be responsible to develop the forecasting models and support sourcing efforts to ensure products are available at the highest level of quality, efficiency and cost.

As a member of Ginkgo’s Procurement and Supply Chain Team, you’ll leverage your strategic thinking and analytical skills to help drive key decision-making and ensure that the team’s short, medium, and long-term goals are achieved.  With your passion for Ginkgo’s mission and building something that matters, along with your ability to adapt and thrive in fast-paced environments, you’ll be a critical contributor to the success of Ginkgo as a whole.

You will support the category team by securing the appropriate sponsorship, resources and implementation support from the designated business area. You will provide strategic insight and access to all relevant spend and related data.

You will work with the category team to develop the category plan (Vision, Strategy and Implementation Road Map). To deliver benefits of value enhancement projects through business engagement and resources where appropriate. You will meet deliverables as agreed upon during Category Plan development. Identify and resolve compliance issues with respect to usage of preferred suppliers. Ensure that the business area engages and fully supports the Supply base and Supplier Management strategies that impact the business area.

We want to hire you if you have real sourcing experience rather than operations with exposure to technical side of things; ideally around the R&D scope. We are looking for commodity strategy, supplier relationship, and contract negotiation experience.

Responsibilities

• Accountable to ensure that key products and services are available at the right time, right quality and right price to deliver Ginkgo’s mission.
• Collaborate with cross functional stakeholders to gather business requirements and market insights to support effective strategy creation and execution for Lab Consumables, Instruments, Service Contracts, DNA’s, CDMO’s, Enzymes, Chemicals and related spend areas.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to gain early access to portfolios to assess supply chain options/strategy and operationalize sourcing plans.
• Support Make versus Buy decisions.
• Build effective spend management tools to drive total cost of ownership and asset utilization decisions.
• Develop a robust portfolio of sourcing projects to deliver year over year productivity and cost savings targets.
• Develop category strategy, priorities and portfolio of projects with relevant business stakeholders to ensure effective alignment.
• Ensure relevant customer centric procurement KPI’s are created, implemented and tracked for the designated business area.
• Initiate, negotiate and execute contracts and agreements relevant for the category including commercial terms, intellectual property and confidentiality. Ensure compliance with all legal, ethical, and procurement standards.
• Develop and manage key supplier relationships through appropriate programs (e.g. alliance/supplier relationship management) to enable innovation and cost reduction through mutual accountability and trust.
• Establish category and supplier management processes and help communicate value of and ensure compliance with these processes across Ginkgo.
• Collaborate with finance to streamline and lead budget/forecasting process relating to third party spend to improve the efficiency and timeliness of budget cycle to support Ginkgo’s growth

Requirements

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Science, Biotechnology, Engineering, supply chain management, procurement, or related field
• 8+ years of experience with sourcing (Lab consumables, DNA, Chemicals, Enzymes, Plastics, lab equipments and services combined with R&D technical working experience 
• Demonstrated knowledge of strategic sourcing, category management, and supplier relationship management 
• Proven ability to manage negotiations, suppliers, and contracts
• High-level problem-solving and analytical skills, with the ability to identify, maintain, and utilize key metrics to make data-driven decisions and make continuous improvements
• Strong multitasking skills, with the ability to work on multiple, concurrent projects and adapt to changing priorities in a fast-paced, high-growth environment
• Enthusiasm about being a part of Ginkgo’s mission

Preferred Capabilities

• 20 + years of sourcing experience and prior experience with a biotech start up or pharmaceutical companies preferred
• 10+ years proven experience in managing R&D category/spend. (preferably with labs/scientific background)
• Proven negotiations, supplier management and contract management skills
• Strong analytical, strategic, and critical thinking skills
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to partner effectively with cross-functional leaders through the company and communicate thoughtfully to diverse stakeholders, and external parties.
• Ability to remain flexible in a fast paced, high growth environment
• Demonstrated commitment, self-motivation, and drive
• Enthusiasm about being a part of Ginkgo's mission

#LI-JH1

To learn more about Ginkgo, visit www.ginkgobioworks.com/press/ or check out some curated press below:

• What is it really like to take your company public via a SPAC? One Boston biotech shares its journey (Fortune)
• Ginkgo Bioworks resizes the definition of going big in biotech, raising $2.5B in a record SPAC deal that weighs in with a whopping $15B-plus valuation (Endpoints News)
• Ginkgo Bioworks CEO on scaling up Covid-19 testing: ‘If we try, we can win’ (CNBC)
• Ginkgo raises $70 million to ramp up COVID-19 testing for employers, universities (Boston Globe)
• Ginkgo Bioworks Redirects Its Biotech Platform to Coronavirus (Wall Street Journal)
• Ginkgo Bioworks Provides Support on Process Optimization to Moderna for COVID-19 Response (PRNewswire)
• The Life Factory: Synthetic Organisms From This $1.4 Billion Startup Will Revolutionize Manufacturing (Forbes)
• Synthetic Bio Pioneer Ginkgo Raises $290 Million in New Funding (Bloomberg)
• Ginkgo Bioworks raises $350 million fund for biotech spinouts (Reuters)
• Can This Company Convince You to Love GMOs? (The Atlantic)

We also feel that it’s important to point out the obvious here – there’s a serious lack of diversity in our industry, and that needs to change. Our goal is to help drive that change. Ginkgo is deeply committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion in all of its practices, especially when it comes to growing our team. Our culture promotes inclusion and embraces how rewarding it is to work with people from all walks of life.  

We’re developing a powerful biological engineering platform, so we must remain mindful of the many ways our technology can – and will – impact people around the world. We care about how our platform is used, and having a diverse team to build it gives us the best chance that it’s something we’ll be proud of as it continues to grow. Therefore, it’s critical that we incorporate the diverse voices and visions of all those who play a role in the future of biology.

It is the policy of Ginkgo Bioworks to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees, employment applicants, and EOE disability/vet.  

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