Market Category Specialist - Beer Raw Materials 

Market Category Specialist - Beer Raw Materials 

Location: St James Gate, Dublin 

Contract: 12 Month Fixed Term Contract 

Closing Date: 19th March 2026 

Join our Procurement Team! 

 
As the custodians of iconic brands such as Baileys, Guinness, Smirnoff, and Johnnie Walker, at Diageo, we source, produce and deliver 6.5 billion litres of world-leading products every year, across 180 markets globally. The commercial challenges here are large, diverse and endlessly fascinating. Never more so than in Procurement. 

As an organisation, we spend over £5 billion per year. And as the driving force in this expenditure, our Procurement teams make a far-reaching contribution to our business, productivity and growth goals – right across the globe. Premium quality and end-to-end, sustainable value are how we measure our success – across services, partnerships and products. We always want to be the best and, along with engaging the best talent to work with the best products, this is how we attempt to do it. Ultimately, this is about people as much as numbers. We build great relationships internally and externally - so we understand our needs and how to meet them. Every time. Join us in Procurement and, if you’re driven, resilient and share our pioneering spirit, there’s a world of opportunity here for you. 

About the Role 

We have a great opportunity for an ambitious and high‑performing professional to help shape Diageo’s beer supply chain - creating value, safeguarding quality, and driving strategic impact within the raw materials category. As a key member of the Procurement team, you’ll gain significant exposure to senior leaders across the beer category, offering an excellent platform for both career progression and meaningful influence. 

As a Beer Raw Materials Procurement Specialist, you will play a pivotal role in managing the raw materials supply chain during an exciting era for the Guinness brand. You’ll lead strategic sourcing for beer ingredients, unlocking substantial value, mitigating risk, and strengthening supply chain resilience. Acting as the primary procurement partner for St James’s Gate and Little Connel breweries, you will ensure their future needs are fully embedded in your plans and decisions. 

You will be at the forefront of change across Supply Categories—whether qualifying new suppliers, leading business continuity projects, securing supply for critical materials, or managing high‑value suppliers essential to the success of the beer category. 

Key Responsibilities will include: 

Strategic Sourcing & Category Leadership 

• Develop and execute robust, forward‑looking procurement implementation plans, contributing to the evolution of global category strategies for raw materials. 

• Proactively identify opportunities to deliver productivity gains and significant cost savings using sharp insights from both within and beyond the organisation. 

• Oversee the annual malting barley harvest in Ireland and ensure successful delivery against existing contractual obligations. 

Decarbonisation Roadmap Execution 

• Partner closely with the Grain‑to‑Glass (G2G) and Global Procurement teams to support the regenerative agriculture strategy, ensuring alignment and effective implementation at supply level. 

Cross‑Functional & Senior Stakeholder Partnering 

• Build and maintain influential relationships with key stakeholders across Planning, Sustainability, Finance, Manufacturing, and Legal teams within the beer category. 

• Drive the seamless integration of Procurement initiatives across the business, ensuring brilliant execution and securing the resources necessary to maximise impact. 

• Navigate complex stakeholder environments, securing buy‑in for strategic and operational initiatives and presenting compelling business cases to senior leaders. 

Commercial & Financial Foresight 

• Apply strong analytical and cost‑modelling skills to develop best‑in‑class sourcing strategies and negotiation approaches that deliver outstanding commercial outcomes. 

• Lead negotiations with external partners within a tightly regulated industry, delivering mutually beneficial agreements while continually seeking added value for Diageo. 

• Maintain strong financial acumen to ensure end‑to‑end value creation and delivery. 

Supplier & Risk Management 

• Build a resilient supply base by actively reviewing, managing, and safeguarding critical contracts to ensure uninterrupted supply. 

• Hold suppliers accountable for performance, fostering innovation, driving continuous improvement, and supporting sustainability commitments. 

Project Support & Process Optimisation 

• Support technical projects involving new technologies, collaborating with project leads to ensure successful execution. 

• Drive process optimisation within Procurement, using data‑led insights (e.g., Power BI dashboards, Kearney Chessboard) to streamline operations and enhance decision‑making. 

About You 

You are a proactive, analytical and collaborative professional who thrives in a fast‑paced environment and is motivated by the opportunity to make a real impact across a global supply chain. You bring curiosity, commercial awareness, and the confidence to challenge ways of working to deliver brilliant results. 

Skills and Experience Required 

• Proactive & Results‑Oriented: You take initiative, seek out opportunities, and use insight‑led thinking to influence decisions and support transformational change. 

• Strategic Expertise: You have experience owning a business area and shaping successful strategies within a complex, global organisation. 

• Analytical Acumen: You bring strong analytical capabilities, confidently using data, cost modelling, and financial evaluation to guide strategic choices and underpin best‑in‑class negotiation plans. 

• Commercial & Negotiation Strength: You demonstrate sound commercial judgement and have a track record of challenging suppliers and stakeholders to deliver excellent value. 

• Manufacturing & Operational Understanding: Experience in engineering or operations - ideally within brewing - gives you valuable insight into site processes, energy needs, and operational considerations. 

• Exceptional Stakeholder Engagement: You communicate with clarity, build strong relationships, and influence effectively across diverse teams and seniority levels. 

• Project Collaboration: You are comfortable working across functions, understand project phases, and support delivery in line with category and Procurement priorities. 

Working With Us  

Our purpose is to celebrate life, every day, everywhere. And creating an inclusive culture, where everyone feels valued and that they can belong, is a crucial part of this. We embrace diversity in the broadest possible sense. This means that you’ll be welcomed and celebrated for who you are just by being you. You’ll be part of and help build and champion an inclusive culture that celebrates people of different gender, ethnicity, ability, age, sexual orientation, social class, educational backgrounds, experiences, attitudes, and more.    

Our ambition is to create the best performing, most trusted and respected consumer products companies in the world. Join us and help transform our business as we take our brands to the next level and build new ones as part of shaping the next generation of celebrations for consumers around the world.    

Feel inspired? Then this may be the opportunity for you!    

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