James Heidrich

SENIOR SUPPLY CHAIN & OPERATIONS LEADER with 20+ years of experience building and leading global teams and delivering significant value to the business in terms of cost savings, product quality, supply lead times, and new capabilities in the areas of: ✓ Supply Strategy and Supply Chain Operations Transformation ✓ Global New Product Sourcing ✓ Supply Chain Technology Optimisation ✓ Ethical and Sustainable Procurement ✓ International Services Coordination and Standardisation ✓ Vendor and Supplier Negotiations I have had the privilege to serve with and lead many great teams. Over the years, I have built a reputation for creating a customer-centric, service excellence-focused identity within diverse, multi-cultural, and cross-functional teams. I believe deeply in leading by example and offering a strategic, big-picture perspective that emphasises problem solving and fosters goal alignment throughout the organisation. With my MBA and Lean Six Sigma background, I am able to instill a commitment to quality and an ability to lead change and transformation initiatives from the top-down and the bottom-up to ensure that they are executed effectively.  In 2013, Smith & Nephew (nyse: snn; lse: sn), a leading multi-national medical equipment manufacturer, needed to transform their global procurement operation and improve productivity to help them stay at the forefront of the market. To spearhead this initiative, the Vice President of Global Procurement at S&N selected James Heidrich for the role of Global Procurement Productivity Leader. James served as the cornerstone of S&N’s initiative to deploy the Ariba Procure-to-Pay (P2P) platform across the enterprise, a five-year programme with a $13.3M budget that is projected to deliver savings of more than $70M in the first five years, much higher than the $43M in benefit cited to gain the buy-in of the senior executive team. James was also the catalyst behind S&N’s transition to a Shared Services Global Procurement model. When he discovered that field procurement professionals spent nearly two-thirds of their time non-value-added performing middle-office and back-office tasks, he established low-cost resource pools at centres in the US, the UK, and China to handle these functions. This initiative enabled the highly trained procurement professionals to spend nearly 100% of their time in the front-office while saving the organisation 20% on costs. James and his team developed and implemented productivity tools for the procurement organisation, including e-sourcing, e-auction, and e-contract success tools, as well as standardised manufacturing and commercial sales sites. In addition, James oversaw the establishment of the Sustainable and Ethical Procurement programme with a conflict minerals policy, sustainability risk scoring, controls, and supply chain audits to ensure compliance and reporting. From 2011 until 2013, James served as the Supplier Development Manager for Smith & Nephew in the US. He created the Supplier Lean Engineering unit, which engaged with suppliers and vendors to identify and deliver on performance improvement opportunities with a 50/50 benefit-sharing incentive. During this time, he also collaborated with global executives to develop an acquisition integration (A&I) strategy and playbook that was used successfully for two large acquisitions. Prior to joining Smith & Nephew, James served in a series of supply chain, procurement, and quality management roles from 2001 until 2011 at Caterpillar Inc., the world’s largest construction equipment manufacturer. As the Supply Chain Manager for two separate operations (PPPG and HPE), James led the implementation of an integrated SAP ERP platform and MRP system processes that enabled Caterpillar to cut finished goods inventories by more than $12M. He also created a standardised Production Part Approval Process and closed commercial agreements. James spent two years as a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, leading process improvement initiatives for supply chain, manufacturing, and assembly operations. In this capacity, he helped to secure more than $3.5M in direct cost savings, a 30% increase in productivity, and $1.7M in capacity growth. James started at Caterpillar in their Professional Development Programme, completing three one-year rotations before gaining a preferred assignment in Procurement. James is a change and execution leader who is committed to quality and business transformation. He brings a big-picture perspective and a unique problem-solving ability as a manager of diverse, cross-functional teams. He holds an MBA along with a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering and his Six Sigma certifications.        James Heidrich http://jamesheidrich.ch/