Associate Director - Strategic Procurement
Posted date [2026-08-24]
(ID: 50108)
 |
Aldar Education is a leading education provider in the UAE, delivering inclusive, sustainable, and innovative learning experiences that inspire students and support community development. The organization offers a diverse portfolio of educational brands, covering all stages from early years to adult learning, with a wide range of curricula across multiple locations in Abu Dhabi and beyond. With a mix of owned and managed schools, Aldar Education ensures high standards in teaching, modern facilities, and a supportive environment for students, educators, and staff, maintaining a strong commitment to quality education and continuous improvement.... |
Job Description and Requirements
Associate Director - Strategic ProcurementJob Snapshot
Role: Associate Director - Strategic Procurement
Location: Abu Dhabi Emirate, United Arab Emirates
Industry: Education Management
Function: Purchasing
Experience: Minimum 10 years regional procurement experience
Job Type: Full-time
Position Overview
Associate Director - Strategic Procurement in Abu Dhabi Emirate, United Arab Emirates is a senior Education Management opportunity with Aldar Education for an experienced procurement leader who can manage complex sourcing portfolios, procurement governance, commercial negotiations, supplier performance, framework agreements, and transformation initiatives. The role supports schools, headquarters functions, and cross-functional programmes by converting business requirements into compliant, commercially sound procurement outcomes while improving cost efficiency, operational readiness, and procurement visibility.
Job Details
Country: United Arab Emirates
City: Abu Dhabi Emirate
Industry: Education Management
Function: Purchasing
Salary: 28000-40000
Estimated salary range based on similar jobs in the job city; please confirm the final offer with the employer.
Gender: Any
Candidate Nationality:
Any
Job Type: Full-time
Role Context
The Associate Director - Strategic Procurement provides senior leadership across assigned procurement portfolios, ensuring requirements are properly planned, competitively sourced, approved, contracted, and delivered in accordance with procurement policy, Delegation of Authority, budgets, service expectations, and organizational priorities.
The position combines strategic sourcing with hands-on portfolio management across schools and corporate functions. It oversees complex capital and operational requirements covering facilities, school expansions, technology, security, specialized learning environments, furniture, equipment, refurbishment, and other recurring procurement categories.
A major part of the role is strengthening procurement maturity. This includes consolidating demand, creating framework agreements, standardizing specifications, improving reporting, managing supplier performance, supporting audit actions, and applying digital tools to improve transparency, cycle times, governance, and measurable value creation.
Key Responsibilities
* Develop and maintain procurement plans for assigned portfolios covering confirmed, forecasted, recurring, and strategic requirements.
* Work with schools and headquarters departments to clarify scope, budgets, specifications, timelines, approvals, and business priorities before sourcing begins.
* Reduce emergency purchasing by improving demand forecasting, early engagement, procurement planning, and stakeholder readiness.
* Oversee major capital and operational procurement programmes including school expansions, specialized rooms, inclusion facilities, security, FF&E, refurbishment, technology, and learning-space requirements.
* Track portfolio delivery, dependencies, risks, approval delays, supplier constraints, and other blockers requiring senior intervention.
* Lead RFQs, RFPs, bidder-list development, tender planning, evaluation frameworks, negotiations, award recommendations, and approval submissions.
* Review sourcing strategies to ensure procurement routes, evaluation criteria, disqualifiers, and approval requirements are appropriate and compliant.
* Validate specifications with requestors before market engagement and challenge unnecessary customisation or unclear requirements.
* Review and appropriately challenge single-source procurement proposals where competitive sourcing should be applied.
* Use structured tender trackers and regular portfolio reviews to improve sourcing cycle times and identify bottlenecks.
* Deliver measurable cost savings and cost avoidance through negotiation, demand consolidation, auctions, volume leverage, and early stakeholder engagement.
* Analyze procurement spend to identify frequently purchased or high-value categories suitable for framework agreements.
* Develop standardized specifications where commercially appropriate to reduce fragmented purchasing and improve economies of scale.
* Support catalogue-based ordering and approved reference catalogues for recurring school and operational requirements.
* Coordinate with Contracts, Supplier Relationship Management, Legal, Finance, and business teams on agreements, renewals, variations, purchase orders, and supplier commitments.
* Ensure approved requirements are formalized through purchase orders before suppliers commence work or deliver goods and services.
* Verify that sourcing, evaluation, award, approval, and commercial documentation is complete before handover to contract or supplier management teams.
* Escalate purchase order, contract execution, supplier delivery, or commercial issues that could affect portfolio performance.
* Act as a senior procurement partner for Education, Operations, Finance, Legal, IT and Digital, HR, schools, and other headquarters functions.
* Facilitate stakeholder and supplier workshops where additional scope definition, specification alignment, or catalogue development is required.
* Guide internal requestors on procurement routes, required documentation, approval requirements, and realistic sourcing timelines.
* Maintain professional supplier relationships while ensuring formal bidder communication during live tenders remains controlled through Procurement.
* Ensure all procurement activity complies with internal policy, Delegation of Authority, financial controls, contract governance, and audit requirements.
* Coordinate assigned internal audit actions, gather supporting evidence, monitor corrective measures, and drive timely closure.
* Contribute to procurement risk registers, internal controls, policy development, governance improvement, and value-creation reporting.
* Escalate material supplier risks, policy exceptions, contract concerns, budget constraints, and delivery failures to appropriate leadership.
* Coach and guide procurement team members, reviewing the quality and compliance of sourcing outputs.
* Set expectations for portfolio execution and help team members resolve complex stakeholder, supplier, or commercial issues.
* Prepare executive-level reports, dashboards, portfolio summaries, risk updates, and recommendations for management decisions.
* Use Oracle Fusion and related procurement systems to monitor requisitions, approvals, purchase orders, supplier information, and transaction status.
* Apply procurement dashboards and trackers to monitor KPIs, sourcing activity, delivery performance, and outstanding actions.
* Support procurement transformation through automation, AI-enabled initiatives, improved reporting, digital workflows, and more consistent operating practices.
Ideal Profile
Candidates should hold a Bachelor\'s Degree in a relevant discipline, supported by professional procurement training or qualification where applicable.
A Master\'s Degree in Business Administration is preferred for this senior position.
A recognized procurement qualification or professional membership such as CIPS is desirable.
Applicants should bring at least 10 years of procurement experience within the region, with demonstrated responsibility for strategic sourcing, commercial negotiations, tender governance, portfolio management, supplier relationships, and procurement controls.
Previous education-sector procurement experience is preferable, particularly where the candidate has managed requirements across schools, facilities, technology, furniture, equipment, refurbishment, or other institutional categories.
Strong working knowledge of Oracle Fusion or comparable enterprise procurement and ERP platforms is essential.
The role requires advanced stakeholder-management capability and the confidence to influence senior internal clients, challenge non-compliant procurement approaches, resolve escalations, and balance commercial priorities against governance requirements.
Candidates should demonstrate strong MS Excel and PowerPoint capability, including the ability to build management dashboards, analyze procurement data, and present complex information clearly to executive stakeholders.
Fluent written and spoken English is required. Arabic language capability is an added advantage.
The successful candidate should be highly organized, commercially astute, detail-focused, proactive, agile, and comfortable managing multiple high-value procurement activities under pressure.
Skills Set
* Strategic procurement
* Procurement portfolio management
* Strategic sourcing
* RFQ management
* RFP management
* Tender management
* Bidder list development
* Tender evaluation
* Evaluation matrices
* Commercial negotiation
* Award recommendations
* Procurement governance
* Delegation of Authority
* Procurement policy compliance
* Cost savings
* Cost avoidance
* Spend analysis
* Demand consolidation
* Framework agreements
* Category standardization
* Catalogue procurement
* Supplier management
* Supplier performance management
* Supplier relationship management
* Contract coordination
* Purchase order management
* Procurement planning
* Procurement risk management
* Internal audit actions
* Commercial governance
* Stakeholder management
* Procurement dashboards
* KPI reporting
* Executive reporting
* Oracle Fusion
* ERP procurement systems
* Microsoft Excel
* Microsoft PowerPoint
* Procurement automation
* AI procurement initiatives
* Process improvement
* Procurement transformation
* Team leadership
* Coaching and mentoring
Why Join Us
This position offers the opportunity to influence procurement strategy across one of Abu Dhabi\'s largest Education Management networks while managing a diverse portfolio spanning schools, corporate functions, technology, facilities, learning environments, and major operational programmes.
The role provides substantial scope to shape procurement planning, supplier strategy, framework agreements, digital reporting, governance, and commercial performance rather than simply managing transactional sourcing. It is particularly suited to an experienced procurement leader seeking senior responsibility in an organization where purchasing decisions directly support education quality, operational continuity, and long-term institutional growth.
Aldar Education also places emphasis on professional development, coaching, and future-focused working practices, creating opportunities to contribute to procurement transformation while developing broader strategic and leadership capability.
About the Company
Aldar Education is a major education group in the United Arab Emirates, operating and managing a broad network of schools and learning institutions across Abu Dhabi. The organization supports multiple curricula and educational pathways while contributing to Abu Dhabi\'s long-term development priorities through high-quality education, innovation, operational excellence, and investment in students, staff, and school communities.
Job Type: Full-time
Role Context
The Associate Director - Strategic Procurement provides senior leadership across assigned procurement portfolios, ensuring requirements are properly planned, competitively sourced, approved, contracted, and delivered in accordance with procurement policy, Delegation of Authority, budgets, service expectations, and organizational priorities.
The position combines strategic sourcing with hands-on portfolio management across schools and corporate functions. It oversees complex capital and operational requirements covering facilities, school expansions, technology, security, specialized learning environments, furniture, equipment, refurbishment, and other recurring procurement categories.
A major part of the role is strengthening procurement maturity. This includes consolidating demand, creating framework agreements, standardizing specifications, improving reporting, managing supplier performance, supporting audit actions, and applying digital tools to improve transparency, cycle times, governance, and measurable value creation.
Key Responsibilities
* Develop and maintain procurement plans for assigned portfolios covering confirmed, forecasted, recurring, and strategic requirements.
* Work with schools and headquarters departments to clarify scope, budgets, specifications, timelines, approvals, and business priorities before sourcing begins.
* Reduce emergency purchasing by improving demand forecasting, early engagement, procurement planning, and stakeholder readiness.
* Oversee major capital and operational procurement programmes including school expansions, specialized rooms, inclusion facilities, security, FF&E, refurbishment, technology, and learning-space requirements.
* Track portfolio delivery, dependencies, risks, approval delays, supplier constraints, and other blockers requiring senior intervention.
* Lead RFQs, RFPs, bidder-list development, tender planning, evaluation frameworks, negotiations, award recommendations, and approval submissions.
* Review sourcing strategies to ensure procurement routes, evaluation criteria, disqualifiers, and approval requirements are appropriate and compliant.
* Validate specifications with requestors before market engagement and challenge unnecessary customisation or unclear requirements.
* Review and appropriately challenge single-source procurement proposals where competitive sourcing should be applied.
* Use structured tender trackers and regular portfolio reviews to improve sourcing cycle times and identify bottlenecks.
* Deliver measurable cost savings and cost avoidance through negotiation, demand consolidation, auctions, volume leverage, and early stakeholder engagement.
* Analyze procurement spend to identify frequently purchased or high-value categories suitable for framework agreements.
* Develop standardized specifications where commercially appropriate to reduce fragmented purchasing and improve economies of scale.
* Support catalogue-based ordering and approved reference catalogues for recurring school and operational requirements.
* Coordinate with Contracts, Supplier Relationship Management, Legal, Finance, and business teams on agreements, renewals, variations, purchase orders, and supplier commitments.
* Ensure approved requirements are formalized through purchase orders before suppliers commence work or deliver goods and services.
* Verify that sourcing, evaluation, award, approval, and commercial documentation is complete before handover to contract or supplier management teams.
* Escalate purchase order, contract execution, supplier delivery, or commercial issues that could affect portfolio performance.
* Act as a senior procurement partner for Education, Operations, Finance, Legal, IT and Digital, HR, schools, and other headquarters functions.
* Facilitate stakeholder and supplier workshops where additional scope definition, specification alignment, or catalogue development is required.
* Guide internal requestors on procurement routes, required documentation, approval requirements, and realistic sourcing timelines.
* Maintain professional supplier relationships while ensuring formal bidder communication during live tenders remains controlled through Procurement.
* Ensure all procurement activity complies with internal policy, Delegation of Authority, financial controls, contract governance, and audit requirements.
* Coordinate assigned internal audit actions, gather supporting evidence, monitor corrective measures, and drive timely closure.
* Contribute to procurement risk registers, internal controls, policy development, governance improvement, and value-creation reporting.
* Escalate material supplier risks, policy exceptions, contract concerns, budget constraints, and delivery failures to appropriate leadership.
* Coach and guide procurement team members, reviewing the quality and compliance of sourcing outputs.
* Set expectations for portfolio execution and help team members resolve complex stakeholder, supplier, or commercial issues.
* Prepare executive-level reports, dashboards, portfolio summaries, risk updates, and recommendations for management decisions.
* Use Oracle Fusion and related procurement systems to monitor requisitions, approvals, purchase orders, supplier information, and transaction status.
* Apply procurement dashboards and trackers to monitor KPIs, sourcing activity, delivery performance, and outstanding actions.
* Support procurement transformation through automation, AI-enabled initiatives, improved reporting, digital workflows, and more consistent operating practices.
Ideal Profile
Candidates should hold a Bachelor\'s Degree in a relevant discipline, supported by professional procurement training or qualification where applicable.
A Master\'s Degree in Business Administration is preferred for this senior position.
A recognized procurement qualification or professional membership such as CIPS is desirable.
Applicants should bring at least 10 years of procurement experience within the region, with demonstrated responsibility for strategic sourcing, commercial negotiations, tender governance, portfolio management, supplier relationships, and procurement controls.
Previous education-sector procurement experience is preferable, particularly where the candidate has managed requirements across schools, facilities, technology, furniture, equipment, refurbishment, or other institutional categories.
Strong working knowledge of Oracle Fusion or comparable enterprise procurement and ERP platforms is essential.
The role requires advanced stakeholder-management capability and the confidence to influence senior internal clients, challenge non-compliant procurement approaches, resolve escalations, and balance commercial priorities against governance requirements.
Candidates should demonstrate strong MS Excel and PowerPoint capability, including the ability to build management dashboards, analyze procurement data, and present complex information clearly to executive stakeholders.
Fluent written and spoken English is required. Arabic language capability is an added advantage.
The successful candidate should be highly organized, commercially astute, detail-focused, proactive, agile, and comfortable managing multiple high-value procurement activities under pressure.
Skills Set
* Strategic procurement
* Procurement portfolio management
* Strategic sourcing
* RFQ management
* RFP management
* Tender management
* Bidder list development
* Tender evaluation
* Evaluation matrices
* Commercial negotiation
* Award recommendations
* Procurement governance
* Delegation of Authority
* Procurement policy compliance
* Cost savings
* Cost avoidance
* Spend analysis
* Demand consolidation
* Framework agreements
* Category standardization
* Catalogue procurement
* Supplier management
* Supplier performance management
* Supplier relationship management
* Contract coordination
* Purchase order management
* Procurement planning
* Procurement risk management
* Internal audit actions
* Commercial governance
* Stakeholder management
* Procurement dashboards
* KPI reporting
* Executive reporting
* Oracle Fusion
* ERP procurement systems
* Microsoft Excel
* Microsoft PowerPoint
* Procurement automation
* AI procurement initiatives
* Process improvement
* Procurement transformation
* Team leadership
* Coaching and mentoring
Why Join Us
This position offers the opportunity to influence procurement strategy across one of Abu Dhabi\'s largest Education Management networks while managing a diverse portfolio spanning schools, corporate functions, technology, facilities, learning environments, and major operational programmes.
The role provides substantial scope to shape procurement planning, supplier strategy, framework agreements, digital reporting, governance, and commercial performance rather than simply managing transactional sourcing. It is particularly suited to an experienced procurement leader seeking senior responsibility in an organization where purchasing decisions directly support education quality, operational continuity, and long-term institutional growth.
Aldar Education also places emphasis on professional development, coaching, and future-focused working practices, creating opportunities to contribute to procurement transformation while developing broader strategic and leadership capability.
About the Company
Aldar Education is a major education group in the United Arab Emirates, operating and managing a broad network of schools and learning institutions across Abu Dhabi. The organization supports multiple curricula and educational pathways while contributing to Abu Dhabi\'s long-term development priorities through high-quality education, innovation, operational excellence, and investment in students, staff, and school communities.
