Head of Procurement

In brief

**Overview** The President Hotel, embarking on a journey toward luxury, seeks a strategic Head of Procurement. This role is crucial for evolving the hotel's procurement function from transactional purchasing to a strategic, data-driven operation. The Head of Procurement will lead this transformation within a complex, high-volume 349-room hotel, directly influencing profitability, operational performance, and contributing to the guest experience. This position offers the opportunity to take ownership of a strategic function, work closely with senior leadership, and play a vital role in strengthening cost management, governance, sustainability, and operational resilience. **What you will do** * Take overall responsibility for the hotel’s end-to-end procurement function. * Develop and implement the hotel’s procurement strategy, policies, procedures, and annual sourcing plan. * Translate hotel strategy, operational requirements, and budgets into clear procurement priorities and category plans. * Work closely with senior leadership and departmental heads to understand operational requirements and future procurement needs. * Advise leadership on procurement opportunities, supplier markets, commercial risks, and supply constraints. * Constructively challenge demand, specifications, sole-source requests, and historical purchasing practices where better value can be achieved. * Lead strategic sourcing initiatives, RFQs, formal tenders, and commercial evaluations. * Ensure sourcing decisions consider total cost, quality, service reliability, risk, sustainability, and operational impact, rather than price alone. * Negotiate supplier pricing, payment terms, service levels, warranties, remedies, and other commercial conditions. * Manage supplier contracts throughout their lifecycle, including implementation, obligations, renewals, renegotiations, and termination dates. * Maintain a comprehensive and accurate contract register. * Oversee supplier due diligence, approval, onboarding, and master-data requirements. * Ensure appropriate supplier documentation is maintained, including tax, banking, B-BBEE, safety, ethical, and sustainability information where applicable. * Segment suppliers according to value, risk, and operational importance. * Develop supplier scorecards and conduct structured supplier-performance reviews. * Monitor supplier performance across price, quality, delivery, service, compliance, innovation, and risk. * Identify critical supplier and continuity risks and develop appropriate contingency plans. * Explore supplier and market innovation opportunities that could improve hotel operations or deliver greater value. * Oversee daily procurement activity across Food & Beverage, Rooms, Engineering, IT, Sales & Marketing, Human Resources, and Administration. * Review and approve purchase orders within delegated authority and established governance frameworks. * Ensure operational requirements are met timeously while maintaining appropriate procurement controls. * Resolve shortages, delivery challenges, supplier disputes, and urgent procurement requirements. * Work closely with Cost Control, Stores, and operational departments to optimise stock availability, inventory turn, wastage, obsolete stock, and stock loss. * Partner with Finance and departmental leaders to ensure procurement commitments align with approved budgets, forecasts, and cash-flow requirements. * Identify, measure, and validate procurement savings, cost avoidance, and other value improvements. * Produce procurement dashboards and reports covering spend, contracts, suppliers, savings, compliance, inventory, performance, and risk. * Maintain accurate procurement documentation, quotations, evaluations, contracts, purchase orders, and supplier records. * Ensure procurement activities comply with legislation, contractual obligations, internal controls, and hotel governance requirements. * Maintain strong controls around supplier creation, banking-detail changes, conflicts of interest, tender evaluations, and purchasing commitments. * Promote ethical, local, B-BBEE, and sustainable procurement practices. * Support internal and external audits and ensure procurement-related findings are addressed appropriately. * Lead procurement involvement in ERP and related system implementations or improvements. * Use procurement data and technology to strengthen visibility, decision-making, efficiency, and control. * Develop and maintain effective procurement Standard Operating Procedures. * Continuously identify opportunities to improve procurement and inventory processes. * Lead, coach, and develop the Procurement and Cost Control teams. * Establish clear objectives, responsibilities, and performance expectations. * Develop team capability through coaching, training, and cross-functional exposure. * Build a culture of integrity, collaboration, accountability, service, and continuous improvement. * Ensure procurement consistently supports the professional and elevated standards expected at The President Hotel. **Requirements (from the original advert)** * Bachelor’s degree or equivalent qualification in Procurement, Supply Chain Management, Business Administration, Commerce or a related field * Recognised procurement qualification such as CIPS or equivalent professional certification preferred * Relevant postgraduate qualification advantageous * Minimum 7 years’ progressive procurement or supply management experience * Minimum 3 years’ experience leading a procurement team or procurement function * Experience within a large-volume hotel, resort, hospitality group or comparable high-volume service environment essential * Direct hotel or hospitality procurement experience strongly preferred * Demonstrated experience managing procurement across multiple operational spend categories * Strong experience in strategic sourcing, category management and tender processes * Proven commercial negotiation and contract-management experience * Experience managing supplier performance, service levels and strategic supplier relationships * Strong understanding of inventory management and cost-control principles * Experience managing operational and capital expenditure procurement * Experience procuring across categories including Food & Beverage, operational supplies, outsourced services, maintenance, technology and capital projects * Proven experience with supplier due diligence, onboarding and master-data controls * Experience developing and monitoring supplier KPIs and scorecards * Strong financial and commercial acumen with an understanding of total cost and value analysis * Ability to analyse spend, demand, market trends and supplier performance data * Experience measuring and validating procurement savings and cost avoidance * Strong understanding of procurement governance, delegated authority and segregation of duties * Experience implementing or improving ERP, procurement or inventory management systems and approval workflows * Sound knowledge of the South African supplier market, commercial practices and B-BBEE considerations * Understanding of ethical, sustainable and responsible procurement practices * Strong risk-management and business-continuity awareness * Strong leadership, coaching and people-development capability * Excellent stakeholder-management and influencing skills * Ability to constructively challenge requirements and influence senior stakeholders * Strong analytical, problem-solving and decision-making ability * Excellent negotiation and communication skills * High levels of integrity, professional judgement and accountability * Ability to manage competing priorities within a large, high-volume operational environment * Strong computer literacy and confidence working with procurement data and reporting systems * South African ID or valid South African work authorisation * A fully updated CV with contactable reference details is essential **Who should apply** This opportunity is for a procurement leader who can look beyond transactional purchasing and take ownership of procurement strategy, strategic sourcing, contracting, supplier performance, inventory oversight, cost optimisation, and governance. The ideal candidate is confident engaging with senior leadership, able to challenge historical purchasing practices where necessary, skilled in commercial negotiation, experienced in managing complex supplier relationships, and adept at using data to identify opportunities for greater value and efficiency. This role suits someone who understands that exceptional procurement is about achieving the best overall value for the hotel, not simply securing the lowest price. **Deadline** Not specified **Reference** Original posting: https://www.jobmail.co.za/jobs/tourism-hospitality/other-tourism-hospitality/western-cape/head-of-procurement-id-7591522 Source: jobmail

Summary drafted with AI assistance from the original advert. The advert itself is the authority — how we use AI.

At a glance

• At least 3 years of experience.

Extracted automatically from the advert; confirm requirements on the original listing.

Job description

Before you apply

• Confirm the requirements and closing date on the original listing (jobmail). SPANi lists vacancies from other sites and may not reflect last-minute changes.
• Legitimate employers do not charge application, registration or training fees.
• Don't send your ID or bank details before you have confirmed the employer is real.

How to spot a job scam

Applying for permanent roles

• Mirror the job title and top three requirements in your CV summary and most recent experience.
• Quantify results where possible: sales targets, cases handled, tickets closed, or team size.
• Proofread contact details and filenames before submitting — small errors cost interviews.
• Verify the company and role on the source page before sharing ID copies or banking details.