Director of Procurement & Purchasing

Tide Rock

Tide Rock is an unlevered buy out firm that acquires lower middle market companies with strong free cash flow and grows them to scale, while distributing high quarterly yield to investors. We focus on businesses with high quality products and services that have artificial constraints that we can remove to accelerate growth. We have a holding company structure and do not use bank debt, which provides stability and flexibility for management teams to sustainably grow their business sand realize it's full potential. We work alongside of talented management teams that share our collaborative style and beliefs that great people build great companies and performance driven cultures drive results.

About the Role

We are creating a new centralized procurement capability—one that improves how our portfolio companies buy, negotiate, manage suppliers, and capture value across the portfolio.

As our Director of Procurement, you will architect and lead that capability. You will build the procurement strategy, design the playbook, deliver cost savings, and work closely with operating leaders across a wide range of businesses.

This is an opportunity to design procurement from the ground up inside a firm where your work directly increases EBITDA, strengthens the balance sheet, and improves the competitive position of dozens of companies.

You will report directly to our Chief Financial Officer and work closely with our Portfolio Operations leaders—ensuring procurement becomes a strategic lever for the entire firm.

This is a full-time position located at our headquarters in Solana Beach, CA

Build the Procurement Strategy

• Create a multi-year procurement strategy covering direct and indirect spend across 20 companies.
• Prioritize high-impact categories including vendor negotiation, contract review, technology, materials, and core operational inputs.
• Lead large, complex negotiations that set new standards for value, risk, and supplier performance across the portfolio.

Design the Tide Rock Procurement Playbook

• Build a scalable procurement and purchasing playbook that can be deployed across diverse businesses and ERP systems.
• Establish standardized processes, templates, KPIs, spend categorization models, and supplier evaluation criteria.
• Incorporate procurement maturity assessments to help companies understand where they are—and what great looks like.
• Provide training, onboarding, and guidance to portfolio teams as they adopt the playbook.

(Note: First-year success metrics and deployment plans will be shaped in partnership with you. We are looking for a leader who wants to help define the roadmap.)

Partner with Portfolio Companies

• Assess procurement capability gaps, spend patterns, and opportunities inside each company.
• Serve as a hands-on advisor to CEOs, CFOs, operations leaders, buyers, and materials managers across the portfolio.
• Adapt the playbook to company-specific needs while maintaining firm-wide standards for spend discipline and value creation.
• Although this role begins as an individual contributor, you’ll have access to on-site procurement resources in some companies (buyers, materials managers) and will help shape the case for a future centralized team as the function evolves.

Deliver Meaningful Cost Savings & Efficiency Improvements

• Identify opportunities to consolidate spend, improve contract terms, and enhance vendor performance.
• Drive quantifiable savings that flow directly to EBITDA and enterprise value.
• Track results with transparency and rigor, building credibility across the investment and operations teams.

Strengthen Supplier Relationships & Risk Management

• Build a reliable, high-performing supplier ecosystem that supports our B2B industrial and manufacturing footprint.
• Implement disciplined risk-management practices that ensure compliance with legal, ethical, and commercial expectations.
• Establish supplier scorecards and continuous improvement expectations.

Put Data to Work

• Leverage tools such as Simfoni for spend analysis and insight generation.
• Create dashboards and benchmarks that give leadership clear visibility into procurement’s impact.
• Identify purchasing synergies across companies that operate on diverse ERPs.
• Standardization expectations will be shaped jointly with you—our priority is value creation, cost savings, and practical improvements, not forcing uniformity where it doesn’t serve the business.

Travel Expectations

• Travel will be minimal overall, with slightly higher frequency in the early stages as you visit portfolio companies to establish baselines and build relationships.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain Management, Business Administration, Finance, or related field (MBA or equivalent preferred).
• Minimum 10 years of progressive procurement and purchasing experience
• Expertise in advanced negotiation techniques and tactics
• Experience in a matrixed multi-entity environment strongly preferred.
• Proven ability to lead both strategic initiatives and operational execution.
• Demonstrated success in cost savings, supplier negotiations, and cross-functional collaboration.
• Strong financial acumen and understanding of how procurement impacts the P&L.
• Exceptional communication, influencing, and stakeholder management skills.
• Proficiency in procurement systems and tools (e.g., SAP, Coupa, Ariba).