Employee Category Management Europe Direct Materials (m / f / d)

We are ALTANA : one group of companies – four divisions : BYK, ECKART, ELANTAS, and ACTEGA. A global leader in specialty chemicals and with myriad opportunities for you to develop and grow. Enrich your life with this decisive plus!

With more than 8.000 employees, the ALTANA Group achieved sales of over 3 billion euros in 2024. BYK, as part of the ALTANA Group, is a leading global supplier of specialty chemicals. Our innovative and sustainable additives improve scratch resistance and surface gloss, the mechanical strength or flow behavior of materials, and properties such as UV- and light stability or flame retardancy.

With around 1,000 employees, Wesel has been BYK's largest location since 1962. We offer jobs and apprenticeships in the areas of production, laboratory, IT, and administration. BYK produces additives for the coatings, printing inks, and plastics industries. Our additives are manufactured and tested in Wesel and transported to the fully automated high-bay warehouse in Emmelsum for shipment. In recent years, the company has invested a triple-digit million amount in the Wesel site – including in our large digital laboratory.

Category Manager (m / f / d) Direct Materials Europe

Location : Wesel near Düsseldorf

Exciting opportunities await you – as Regional Category Manager for Direct Materials in Europe, you will lead the handling of non-core commodity groups and materials within your region, you will support the divisional category manager in strategy development and execution, and you will act as a cross-functional facilitator. Your further tasks include :

• Derive and take ownership for savings and other assigned targets – such as supply security, supply chain resilience or innovation sustainability – as well as respective initiatives and measures, inclusive of identifying cost reduction and optimization levers within the category
• Establish and facilitate continuous close collaboration within defined categories with business stakeholders on strategy and priorities
• Create internal spend transparency for materials and suppliers within the category portfolio
• Carry out continuous market analyses to identify alternative suppliers, new developments and trends as well as improved solutions
• Perform tenders and conduct negotiations within defined categories at the divisional level
• Provide regular transparency on category performance versus targets, including risk management and opportunities
• Oversee strategic suppliers and integrate them into demand and specification management and innovation processes
• Monitor supplier performance

With this profile, you convince us – if you have a commercial or chemical degree or several years' professional experience ideally in strategic purchasing, preferably in the chemical industry, possess strong negotiation and communication skills as well as a confident and congenial manner and enjoy working in interface functions and international teams, we warmly invite you to apply. Your other competencies include :

In the ALTANA Group, you will work in a unique culture of innovation where the utmost importance is attached to promoting individual ideas and abilities as well as open, trusting interaction. BYK offers you a lot of advantages. They include pleasant-sized operations where employees get to know each other personally and exchange ideas, short information and decision-making paths, comprehensive further education and training offers, flexible working hours with flextime and an impressive compensation with good employee benefits and pension plans.