Supplier Sourcing & Development
- Conduct proactive global sourcing for every new SKU across Alibaba, Made-in-China, Global Sources, and trade-show channels.
- Cast a wide net per RFQ. Engage 10 or more candidate factories per category, triage to a workable shortlist of 3 for sampling.
- Pre-qualify factories on capability, capacity, certifications, prior export experience, and reference projects before sampling spend.
- Build and maintain the WTW Master Supplier Database with current pricing, MOQs, lead times, tooling cost, and category coverage.
Cost Engineering & Negotiation
- Build BOMs for every commercialised SKU. Model landed COGS scenarios across MOQ, freight mode, and tooling amortisation.
- Negotiate landed COGS that meet margin targets without burning supplier relationships.
- Cross-quote across factories to ensure pricing is competitive. Identify where cost is hiding in materials, packaging, freight, or tooling.
- Manage tooling negotiations, including amortisation schedules and ownership clauses.
Sampling, Validation & Quality
- Brief samples to spec. Evaluate against the WTW brand and quality bar, document deviations, and drive iterations to sign-off.
- Coordinate inspections and pre-shipment QC where required.
- Know when to push for another iteration, and when to walk to a different supplier.
Project Management
- Run 5 to 10 NPD workstreams in parallel without dropping any. Maintain the source-of-truth tracker in ClickUp / Asana / Monday.
- Manage stage gates from Concept to Commercialisation to Production. Enforce gate discipline so work does not drift between stages.
- Surface blockers early. Escalate with a recommendation, never just a problem.
Technical Dossier Gathering
- Pull together regulatory inputs from suppliers: Certificates of Analysis (COA), MSDS / Safety Data Sheets, formulation breakdowns, ingredient sourcing declarations, certifications (NASAA, OMRI, organic, kosher, etc.), labelling specs.
- Hand a complete dossier to our regulatory partner (Brand Maven Consulting) for US filings and AU compliance. The role does not own filings, only the inputs.
Brand-Aware Execution
- Internalise the WTW brand guidelines and apply them across all supplier-facing artwork, packaging, and finish briefs.
- Push factories to deliver on-brand outputs without needing to be art-directed at every step.
- Catch brand drift early in the supplier sampling process, before it hits production.
AI-Augmented Working
- Use AI tools daily across sourcing research, RFQ drafting, supplier comms, BOM analysis, sample notes, dossier review, and project tracking.
- Build personal workflows that leverage AI to multiply output. Active fluency with ChatGPT, Claude, NotebookLM, or equivalent is an expectation of this role, not optional.
- Continuously identify where AI can replace manual effort, and propose new ways of working to the team.
- New SKUs delivered to first production on time, on brand, and within COGS targets at 95% or better.
- Every active product category has 3 or more qualified suppliers in the database with current pricing and lead times.
- Margin targets met on 100% of SKUs at production sign-off, no exceptions without sign-off from the Operations Director.
- Regulatory dossiers handed to Brand Maven complete and on time, 100% of the time, with zero rework loops.
- Master Supplier Database refreshed monthly. No stale entries older than 90 days.
- Stage-gate discipline: zero work in production without Commercialisation sign-off.
- Demonstrable AI workflow adoption: at least 3 documented AI-driven workflows running in the role within 90 days.
