Perdue Farms

Senior Manager of Category Management

Perdue Farms$128K — $192K *
Food & Beverages
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 7-10+ years in procurement, category management, or strategic sourcing
  • Demonstrated leadership in category strategy development
  • Proven record of quantifiable value delivery through structured methodologies
  • Experience in a matrixed organization with cross-functional stakeholder influence
  • Strong communication and coaching skills for team development

Responsibilities

  • Define and maintain category strategy standards and playbooks
  • Support category leaders in aligning strategies with business priorities
  • Embed market intelligence to elevate sourcing strategy quality
  • Develop and manage a standardized value framework for procurement
  • Strengthen initiative and pipeline discipline for value delivery visibility
  • Establish best-practice sourcing methodologies and negotiation strategies
  • Coach category managers on advanced sourcing and value-creation techniques

Benefits

  • Comprehensive medical and prescription drug coverage
  • 401(k) plan with employer match after one year
  • Critical illness and accident insurance
  • Dental and vision insurance options
  • Life insurance and optional group life protection
  • Short-term and long-term disability coverage
  • Flexible spending accounts
  • Paid time off for work-life balance
Full Job Description
Summary

As a Senior Manager of Category Management, you will shape and elevate the organization's strategic sourcing capabilities by building consistent, enterprise-wide category management practices that drive measurable business value. You will partner with category leaders to strengthen sourcing strategies, enhance supplier value beyond cost savings, and champion best practices through playbooks, data-driven insights, and coaching. This role is ideal for a strategic procurement leader who is passionate about developing high-performing teams, influencing cross-functional stakeholders, and driving continuous improvement across the procurement organization.

The salary range for this position is $128,000 - $192,000 per year, based on experience and qualifications with annual bonus available (variable depending on performance).

In addition to the base salary, Perdue offers a competitive benefits package, including medical/Rx, 401(k) with employer match after 1 year, critical illness, accident insurance, dental, vision, life insurance, optional group life insurance, short-term and long-term disability protection, flexible spending accounts and paid time off.

Principal Essential Duties & Responsibilities
  • Define and maintain category strategy standards, templates, and playbooks to improve consistency and strategic rigor across all categories.
  • Support category leaders in developing and pressure-testing category strategies to ensure alignment with business priorities.
  • Elevate strategy quality by embedding market intelligence, value levers, and structured decision frameworks.
  • Develop and manage a standardized value framework (savings, cost avoidance, working capital, risk mitigation, innovation).
  • Partner with Finance and Category teams to ensure consistent value-tracking inputs and benefit attribution.
  • Strengthen initiative hygiene and pipeline discipline to improve visibility and comparability of value delivery.
  • Establish best-practice sourcing methodologies, including negotiation strategies, cost modeling, and supplier selection frameworks.
  • Curate and disseminate market benchmarks and cost-driver insights to enhance sourcing outcomes.
  • Continuously refine sourcing playbooks to reflect lessons learned and market shifts.
  • Provide prioritized advisory support to category teams on high-impact initiatives rather than open-ended execution support.
  • Coach category managers on advanced strategic sourcing and value-creation techniques.
  • Enable categories to independently execute stronger strategies through capability transfer.
  • Design and deliver training, playbooks, and knowledge-sharing forums to build enterprise category management maturity.
  • Serve as a thought partner to procurement leadership on evolving category excellence practices.
  • Institutionalize learning to reduce dependency on ad hoc support.
  • Collaborate with digital and analytics teams to improve data, tools, and reporting.
  • Support rollout of key initiatives (e.g., sourcing platforms, tail spend, new processes).
  • Partner with Governance, Policy, and Process leaders to ensure compliance with governance frameworks related to sourcing and category management.


Minimum Education and Experience
  • 7-10+ years of experience in procurement, category management, and/or strategic sourcing with demonstrated category strategy leadership.
  • Proven track record of delivering measurable value using structured sourcing and category methodologies (e.g., total cost of ownership, cost modeling, supplier-led innovation).
  • Experience operating in a matrixed environment with strong stakeholder influence across functions.


Physical Requirements and Environmental Factors
  • Position is mostly sedentary but may require occasional moving to other offices or buildings.
  • May need to move light equipment or supplies from one place to another.
  • May need to access files, supplies and equipment.
  • Work activity is in an office, open-partitioned, cubicle environment.


About Perdue Farms

Perdue Farms is the parent company of Perdue Foods and Perdue AgriBusiness, based in Salisbury, Maryland. Perdue Foods is a major chicken, turkey, and pork processing company in the United States. Perdue AgriBusiness ranks among the top United States grain companies. Perdue Farms has 2021 annual sales of $8 billion.
Learn more about Perdue Farms
Industry
Founded
1920

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