Region Fiber Supply Manager

The Opportunity:

The Region Fiber Supply Manager reports to the Sr. Director, Fiber Supply for the South region and is primarily seated at the Dublin, GA, mill and is responsible for sourcing, negotiating, and purchasing recycled fiber for the Dublin, GA; Florence, SC; and Cowpens, SC papermills supporting mill production requirements. There will be travel to Florence and Cowpens as part of the support for those locations.

Do not wait to apply after reading this description a high application volume is expected for this opportunity.

This role is responsible for defining and leading the regional procurement strategy to ensure optimal cost and quality to meet papermill production needs and Smurfit Westrock environmental, health and safety standards. This role serves as the day-to-day contact point between Fiber Supply and the mill leadership, operations, and finance teams to ensure strategic and tactical alignment of purchased volumes and inventory strategy. This position typically manages a purchase requirement of 1MM tons of recycled fiber annually with an estimated annual spend of $100MM- $200MM.

Job Duties

• Develop and execute sourcing strategies for recycled fiber, including market analysis, supplier evaluation, contract negotiation, and risk management.
• Manage the relationship with recycled fiber suppliers, ensuring compliance with contractual terms, quality standards, and environmental regulations.
• Monitor and optimize the inventory and logistics of recycled fiber, coordinating with mill operations, and transportation teams to ensure timely and efficient delivery.
• Analyze and report on recycle fiber market trends, cost drivers, and performance indicators, providing insights and recommendations for continuous improvement.
• Collaborate with mill leadership and finance teams to forecast the recycled fiber demand and budget, aligning with the paper mill’s production and profitability goals. Complete monthly fiber procurement financial forecasts and annual fiber procurement budget presentations.
• Lead and mentor recycled fiber buyers and administrative fiber coordinators, providing guidance, training, and feedback.
• Attract, assess, and develop talent, and build organizational capabilities necessary to execute current and future business needs.
• Holds staff accountable to established performance levels for achieving individual and group goals.
• Resolves individual and group performance issues in accordance with Smurfit Westrock’s policies and procedures to motivate and foster teamwork.
• Develop effective relationships with business partners, internal and external customers, and suppliers to ensure an effective source of fiber to optimize papermill operations.
• Identifies strategic sourcing opportunities to drive best quality and cost.
• Develop and drive data and metrics to measure supplier quality to Smurfit Westrock Papermills within the region.
• Establishes communication expectations and standards with internal and external resources.
• Using market knowledge, identifies threats and opportunities to achieve overall sourcing goals and manage related costs.
• Ensures current market influences are understood by internal customers.
• Actively supports the Smurfit Westrock Sustainability Platform
• Maintain alignment with the Fiber Supply leadership to ensure support for the broader Smurfit Westrock sustainability platform by leveraging Smurfit Westrock efforts to the advantage of our end customers sustainability goals.

Lead / Manage Supply Execution

• Establishes culture of ownership, customer focus, safety, quality, and responsiveness. Supports this with metrics and accountability. Ensures priorities align with overall Smurfit Westrock strategy through proactive partnership with Papermills, Logistics, Operations and Finance to ensure optimal cost and quality recycled fiber for the papermills.
• Ensure employees and stakeholders understand success criteria and measurements.
• Identifies and drives operational excellence and productivity projects for continuous improvement.
• Understands and communicates priorities, makes final decisions, with the support of Sr. Director, in cases of disagreement or uncertainty.
• Ensures ease of doing business with suppliers who serve multiple geographies and/or papermills.
• Partners effectively with data and analytics functions to anticipate results and consequences of actions to meet short and long-term goals.

Competencies

Supervises and Develops Others:

Provides people with tools, knowledge, and opportunities to develop themselves. Determines employees’ training needs, works with employees to produce continuous development plans, and provides feedback and coaching to help employees develop in current roles and for future roles. Promotes continuous learning.

Communication:

The ability to articulate vision or requirements. Able to build rapport with and understand perspective of others. Effectively listens, speaks, and writes in a business context. Capable of conveying key messages clearly and correctly.

Negotiation:

The ability to effectively produce outcomes in a situation to obtain the best long-term benefit of the organization. Recognizes the degree of impact both short term and long term to all parties and makes best decisions to secure desired result.

Leadership:

The ability to understand and share a clear vision that others will follow. Provide the information and knowledge to realize the vision. Coordinate and balance the conflicting interests of all members and stakeholders to achieve their vision. Willingness to make difficult decisions, take accountability and remove obstacles from the path of others.

Business Acumen:

The understanding of the financial, operational and commercial decisions which drive results for the organization. Ability to use that information to drive a strategy with understanding of risk and reward potential in both the long and short term.

Technical Capabilities

Demonstrate proficiency is the use of data analysis and communication tools including Excel, Word, PowerPoint etc.

What You Need:

• BA or BS degree
• 5 - 10+ years of procurement/materials management/supply chain experience with demonstrated progression of responsibilities
• Strong leadership, communication, planning, and analytical skills.
• Available to travel up to 25% of the time.
• 3+ years managing others
• Experience in recycled fiber procurement is strongly preferred.

What we offer:

Corporate culture based on integrity, respect, accountability and excellence

Comprehensive training with numerous learning and development opportunities

An attractive salary reflecting skills, competencies and potential

A career with a global packaging company where Sustainability, Safety and Inclusion are business drivers and foundational elements of the daily work.