Senior Specialist, Supply Chain Commercial Operations

At Cheniere, we provide the world with safe, reliable energy in the form of LNG.  But more than that, we provide opportunities for our employees to make an impact on their local communities every day. Our diversity is key to our continued success and forges a path where our culture supports greater equity and inclusion for our employees, customers and beyond. 

Cheniere Supply Chain Management (SCM) is shaping our future with a focused transformation program.  We are mobilizing to establish an agile and resilient Supply Chain that is fit to support our company's growth.  The Cheniere SCM team are accountable to support our business partners to create value, mitigate risk and assure security of supply.   We are building a team of SCM professionals that not only deliver value today but create a more agile and resilient Supply Chain for the future.   

POSITION OVERVIEW

This is an essential Supply Chain Management role designed to manage a portfolio of contracts. The role is responsible for the end-to-end contract life cycle from Sourcing, Contracting, contract implementation, and ongoing management of the contract within the business.  This position is also accountable to maintain and continuously improving the SCM Team's sourcing and contracting processes, procedures, tools, and systems.    

Our team is looking for a team member with experience engaging business partners and suppliers in the processes associated with Sourcing, Contracting, and Contract Management. The Sr. Specialist is responsible for:  

• Integrating and working lock-in-step with business partners in the Operations, Pipeline and Engineering & Construction businesses.  
• Supporting the Sourcing and Contracting of a portfolio of contracts. 
• Implementing contracts for use by the business and purchasing teams.   
• Maintaining SCM Sourcing and Contract Management systems and procedures. 

This is a non-DOT position.  

RESPONSIBILITIES AND ESSENTIAL DUTIES

Stakeholder Management 

• Integrates with business partners and suppliers to align business needs, supplier capability, and drive performance and best practices.  
• Leverages Cheniere's scale to coordinate business needs with suppliers. 
• Acts as the single point of accountability for SCM Sourcing and Contracting processes and systems.
• Supports the Contract Owners in the gathering of performance feedback for effective contractor management  

Category Strategy and Implementation 

• Provides input to the development of comprehensive Category Strategies. 
• Leverages category strategies when available. 

Sourcing, Contracting, and Contract Management  

• Performs pre-qualification and qualification of new suppliers. 
• Ensures all Sourcing and Contracting is compliant, timely and delivered with quality. 
• Builds and designs requests for proposal to consider total cost models to understand value, operating costs, and supplier price impacts on existing budgets.  
• Performs negotiations to establish contracts with qualified suppliers to secure quality services, materials, and equipment on time at optimum cost. 
• Prepares bid evaluation and supplier award documentation for business partner approvals.   
• Drafts, evaluates, negotiates, and executes various contract commercial structures. 
• Ensures timely delivery of quality contracts in support of safe, reliable, and competitive operations. 
• Maintains post contract award awareness of supplier activity to ensure supply of materials, equipment, and services to meet current and future needs. 
• Ensures contractual records and documentation and contract correspondence maintained and logged into the appropriate systems. 
• Supports the Delivery Purchasing team in the creation of Contract Purchase Agreements (CPA's) and Blanket Purchase Agreements (BPA's) as appropriate. 

Process Efficiency and Data Analytics: 

• Develops expertise in the teams GEP sourcing and contracting solution to become team's lead Power User.
• Integrate data from various sources to perform in-depth analytics on procurement processes, identifying trends and insights.
• Works with the SCM COE to define areas for improvement within category management practices.
• Leads change management efforts to implement new ways of working, ensuring smooth transitions and user adoption.
• Utilize data analysis and reporting tools to track and evaluate contract and category management performance metrics.
• Create clear and concise visual representations of data findings from collaborating with COE, Commercial and Delivery team to facilitate decision-making and communication.
• Facilitate knowledge sharing within Commercial team by documenting best practices and lessons learned.

Contract Administration: 

• Manages the GEP contract processes, approvals, and signatures.
• Assures the SCM team are aware and adhering to Process and GEP System requirements.  
• Provides QA/QC approval of contract attributes to ensure useful, accurate and complete reporting and analytics. 

KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS

• General understanding of LNG or Oil & Gas plant or pipeline experience  
• Basic knowledge of category management strategies, inventory management and purchasing.   
• Hands-on experience with sourcing, negotiation of general material and service contract provisions, commercial terms, and contract management.   
• Hands-on experience with source-to-contract and purchase to pay systems i.e. Oracle, SAP, GEP, Coupa, JDE, etc. 

SCM Commercial Ops Sr Specialist shall have hands on Sourcing and Contracting experience with one or more of the following: equipment, materials and/or service traditional spend categories associated with Shared Services, Operations or Pipelines.  Experience with contract administration, sourcing and contracting technology, continuous improvement, process and procedure development, and contracting is a plus. 

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE

Education and Certifications:  

• A bachelor's degree in Supply Chain management or related business  

Experience: 

• Five (5) to Eight (8) years of hands-on SCM experience with emphasis in operations. Will consider candidate with three (3) years of specific experience in sourcing, competitive bidding, RFP development, bid evaluation, selection, contracting and purchasing.  

DIRECT REPORTS

• None

FREEDOM TO ACT

• The Commercial Ops Sr Specialist will require minimal supervision.

WORK CONDITIONS 

• Physical Area: Our Houston office is in the heart of downtown, and we offer free parking or a metro ticket. With all corporate teams at the same location, there's always a buzz around the office. You will have dedicated desk space and plenty of human interaction. 
• Facilities and hardware: Our offices are modern, bright, and designed to foster collaboration. You will have access to great IT (Information Technology) equipment and support and can readily access the downtown tunnels, restaurants, and gyms. You may occasionally need to travel to our sites at Sabine Pass and Corpus Christy and those sites are governed by FTZ (Foreign Trade Zone) regulations which do include drug and alcohol testing. 
• Working conditions: Cheniere is committed to improving the well-being of our employees and while you may need to work outside the usual working hours, we aspire to provide a good work life balance for all. 
• Company culture: So, what is the culture like at Cheniere? It is our values-teamwork, respect, accountability, integrity, nimbleness, and safety-atwork. We are happy when we hear employees say we have agreat culture. But we are not satisfied with building agreat culture, we are endeavoring to build the best culture.

WORK CONDITIONS

• Job is performed in a typical office environment, but is subject to time pressures and constraints, and is often dependent on input from others.  
• Occasionally, work may be performed from home, after normal work hours or on weekends. 
• Periodically travel as business requires.
• Subject to drug and alcohol testing, per applicable federal regulations or as required by Cheniere.

ADA JOB REQUIREMENTS

Reasonable accommodation will be made to ensure that the essential functions of the job can be performed and not hinder the employee's performance due to physical, mental or emotional disability.

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY

Cheniere Energy is an equal opportunity workplace. All employment decisions are made without regard to sex, race, color, religion, national origin, citizenship, age, disability, marital or veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other legally protected categories. This includes providing reasonable accommodation if requested for disabilities or religious beliefs and practices.