General Category lead

This is a leading institution in the UAE that is building a digital-first, AI-enabled financial services organisation from the ground up. This is a unique opportunity to join at an early stage and help shape the people, operational, and service foundations of a business with significant institutional backing and long-term ambition. If you're passionate about HR operations, payroll excellence, and creating exceptional employee experiences, we'd love to hear from you.

Role Purpose:

Owns category planning, business requirements, RFP content and supplier onboarding for the bank’s general-spend categories, including marketing and customer-growth services. Partners with the Procurement Operations Lead, who leads sourcing, to ensure supplier solutions are fit for purpose, controlled, and ready for mobilization and ongoing operations.

Key responsibilities:

• Develop and maintain category strategies, demand forecasts, specifications, and supplier-market insight for professional services, facilities, real estate, corporate services, marketing, travel, banking operations services, business process outsourcing and third-party processing, and other general spend.
• Define business requirements, scopes of work, service levels, evaluation criteria, and implementation expectations for RFPs; work with the Procurement Operations Lead, who owns the sourcing process and commercial procurement activity.
• Lead business stakeholder engagement throughout RFPs, coordinate subject-matter input, and lead the business evaluation of supplier proposals in accordance with the approved procurement process.
• Provide category intelligence, demand forecasts, and fit-for-purpose requirements to the Procurement Operations Lead to support supplier selection, commercial negotiation, and contracting.
• Own the business-side supplier onboarding and mobilization plan after appointment, including service acceptance criteria, stakeholders, controls, operational handover, and early-life performance monitoring.
• Work with Legal, Compliance, Risk, Facilities, Finance, and business stakeholders to ensure that service requirements and onboarding arrangements meet applicable control, data-protection, and operational needs.
• Monitor category performance, demand trends, service quality, and stakeholder feedback; identify opportunities to rationalize demand, improve specifications, or refresh requirements for future RFPs.
• Maintain category documentation, RFP requirements, evaluation records, and onboarding evidence in line with procurement and third-party governance standards.
• Use approved analytics and AI-enabled tools for demand analysis, supplier-market insight, requirements development, and onboarding tracking, with human validation of outputs.

Required Skills & Experience:

• 8+ years in category management, business procurement, or supplier management within banking or financial services, including senior leadership of a general category management team.
• Deep expertise across indirect and general spend, including professional services, facilities, real estate, corporate operations, and marketing services.
• Proven record defining category strategies, RFP requirements, evaluation frameworks, and supplier onboarding arrangements in a regulated environment.
• Strong knowledge of relevant CBUAE expectations and applicable standards for outsourcing, data protection, and third-party risk.
• Exposure to AI-enabled procurement tooling, spend and demand analytics, supplier-market insight, and onboarding workflow analytics.

Qualifications & Certifications (Preferred)

• Bachelor’s degree in business, supply chain, or a related field preferred.
• Procurement certification preferred.
• CBUAE Fit & Proper requirements and any applicable controlled-function eligibility criteria, where required.

Ready to join us? Apply today and take the next step in your career.