The Supply Chain GPO (Global Process Owner) will report to the STP (Source to Pay) Transformation Director and will be responsible for defining, designing, developing, and delivering industry comparable ‘High Performance’ supply chain processes that are agile and support the transformation initiatives lead by the International and North America Supply Chain team. They will be able to understand and drive Pearson’s supply chain processes across a wide range of business models and markets and influence across stakeholder groups, internally and externally to design processes that externally benchmark in the middle to upper quartile for efficiency, effectiveness and cost.

• Create customer centric solutions, optimise current practices and support transformation agenda and implement and monitor process improvements to ensure they align with and contribute to Finance strategy and supply chain strategy.
• Collaborates closely with cross functional teams, including Finance, IT, Operations to align both Supply Chain and Source-to-Pay processes with broader organisational goals and drive alignment across functions.
• Continuously benchmarking internal processes against best practices to determine gaps, opportunities for improvement.
• Translates process strategy into process value drivers, process diagnostics, collateral, workflow and process maps, service objectives, performance priorities, and well-articulated process improvement plans with clear links to business performance uplift opportunities and be champions of process excellence and financial value management principles.
• Drives and owns the delivery of multiple, often parallel improvement projects across a number of complex, varied and evolving business models.
• Support the integration of source-to-pay responsibilities into the broader scope of supply chain management, facilitating a more cohesive and integrated approach to managing the flow of goods and services and information across the organisation.
• Bring commercial and business acumen to recognise and champion differences that enable competitive advantage and know when to leverage shared process and shared capabilities to unlock value clearly supported by data and experience.
• Supports the creation of business policies/guidelines, KPIs, process standards and controls and will play a key role in walk-throughs of controls with the external auditors.
• Ensures that operational teams are meeting expected outcomes and creates process performance uplift, adheres to the standards and understands any significant process variations with relevant controls installed to ensure effective, robust and measurable shareholder outcomes can be seen.
• Reviews and owns the training materials and relevant knowledge management needed to support any changes in process.
• Ensures alignment of process improvement initiatives with business strategy.
• Supports wider company strategic initiatives e.g. M&A, corporate restructuring, major system implementations/upgrades etc.

Key requirements:

• Operational or process experience in supply chain flows.
• Experience in supply chain process improvements including forecasting accuracy, service level and inventory optimisation.
• Experience of end-to-end supply chain interactions and inter dependencies including expertise in Sales & Operational Planning (S&OP) including demand planning, procurement, supply management, inventory management, distribution management, warehouse & transportation management.
• Awareness of multiple business models with experience of working with more than one and examples of how to influence and shape changes in these models for improvement.
• Experience of how to manage complex political environment, manage and turnaround negative opinion and demonstrate tangible results in driving opinion at an organisation level.
• Familiarity with value drivers and customer requirements within a print/publishing environment.
• Experience working in a multi-national matrix organisation.
• Proven project, programme and change management experience and demonstrated ability to champion and drive change.
• Lean Six Sigma experience/qualification preferred but not essential.
• Knowledge of Oracle ERP and Business Intelligence and value management applications preferred, but not essential if there is demonstrated experience across other applications.
• Fluent English verbal and written with experience of working globally across varying cultures, languages and markets.

What we are looking for:

• A self-motivated individual who thrives on seeing the results of their work make an impact in the business.
• Strong communication skills, both verbally and in writing.
• Ability to influence change.
• A keen sense for the art of the possible and problem solver.
• Continuous learner, willingness to stay updated with industry trends and best practices.
• Proven ability to be flexible and work hard, both independently and collaboratively.
• Methodical and organised, able to plan and structure work to ensure timelines are met.
• Excellent attention to detail with strong analytical problem-solving skills.
• Team player, happy to work with a wide range to stakeholders and work in the detail.