Supply Chain Lead - Emerging Markets
Full-time, Permanent
Netherlands, UK, Ireland
The Role
The Global Sourcing Supply Chain Lead – Emerging Markets will lead the end-to-end supply chain, logistics, warehousing and order fulfilment function for the Emerging Markets business unit within Uniphar. The role will provide clear operational ownership from order placement through to customer delivery, working closely with Sales, Procurement, Quality, Finance, warehouse partners, freight forwarders and regional teams.
The role is key to enabling growth by ensuring orders are delivered on time, in full, compliantly and cost-effectively as volumes, complexity and geographic reach increase. The right candidate will be responsible for building a scalable supply chain platform, improving visibility and execution, and ensuring the business can grow without operational bottlenecks.
Key Responsibilities
- Own the end-to-end order fulfilment process, from purchase order placement through to final customer delivery.
- Improve delivery performance, backlog management, customer visibility and execution discipline across the business.
- Lead freight and logistics management, including freight forwarders, routing decisions, service levels, disruption planning and cost control.
- Oversee internal and outsourced warehousing, including capacity planning, stock positioning, temperature-controlled storage and inventory accuracy.
- Define and implement a scalable supply chain operating model with clear ownership, governance, KPIs and escalation routes.
- Standardise and simplify supply chain processes to reduce manual work, improve cycle times and increase throughput.
- Develop a 3-year capacity, warehousing and logistics strategy aligned with the growth ambition of Emerging Markets.
- Establish a consolidated supply chain KPI dashboard covering OTIF, backlog, inventory, warehouse utilisation, freight performance, lead times and revenue-at-risk.
- Introduce targeted automation and AI tools to improve productivity, visibility and decision-making.
- Build, lead and develop the Supply Chain organisation, strengthening capability across fulfilment, logistics, inventory and operational planning.
Required Qualifications and Experience
- Significant experience 10+ years in supply chain, logistics, order fulfilment or operations leadership, ideally in pharmaceuticals, healthcare, medical devices, humanitarian supply or complex international distribution.
- Proven ability to lead end-to-end order fulfilment across multiple markets, warehouses, freight partners and customer types.
- Strong understanding of warehousing, inventory management, freight forwarding, temperature-controlled logistics and international trade requirements.
- Experience building scalable operating models, governance structures, KPIs and performance management routines.
Professional Qualities
- Commercially minded, with the ability to balance customer delivery, cost, compliance, risk and working capital.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to use data to improve performance and decision-making.
- Comfortable leading change in a fast-growing, complex and entrepreneurial environment.
- Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to work across Sales, Procurement, Quality, Finance and external partners.
- The ideal candidate will mix a hands-on approach with a strategic mindset
Uniphar – Who we are
With a workforce of more than 3000 employees spread across Ireland, United Kingdom, Mainland Europe, MENA, and the USA, Uniphar is a trusted global partner to pharma and MedTech manufacturers, working to improve patient access to medicines around the world. Uniphar provides outsourced and specialised services to its clients, leveraging strong relationships with 200+ of the world’s best-known pharmaco-medical manufacturers across multiple geographies, enabled by our cutting-edge digital technology and our highly expert teams. Uniphar is organised into three key divisions: Supply Chain & Retail, Medtech and Pharma.
Pharma – Global Sourcing
Under the Pharma division sits Uniphar - Global Sourcing, a specialist medical supply business that sources and distributes pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, and consumable supplies to healthcare professionals in over 160 countries worldwide. The business’s main activities encompass everything from Trading to Clinical Trials Supply, Unlicensed Medicines, Generics & Consumables and the storage and distribution of medical products and devices for third parties.
One of the fastest-growing business units within Global Sourcing is the Emerging Markets team. The team, spread across our offices in Ireland, UK, The Netherlands, USA, Australia and a partner office in India, focuses on the supply of pharmaceuticals and medical equipment & consumables to Africa, LATAM, MEA and APAC. Its main partners and customers are government entities, NGOs, UN bodies and Private distributors in these regions. End-to-end order fulfilment is managed through one of Uniphar’s (partner) logistics and warehousing centers in the UK, USA, The Netherlands, Kenya and India.
Culture at Uniphar
Uniphar is a combination of many businesses each with its own identity, culture, values, and ways of working. Our overarching culture narrative is inclusive of each of these stores. Uniphar lives and breathes four key pillars which unpin and support our culture.
- We have a people first approach - we do the right thing.
- We support entrepreneurial spirit where adaptability, commitment & resilience is embodied in our way of working.
- We have a Common Purpose that connects our diversified businesses and people.
- Finally, Trust is at the heart of how we operate.
Everything Uniphar does is enabled by our people and as we continue to grow domestically and internationally, we become more diverse. This diversity fuels our business and culture.
Sustainability
Sustainability is at the core of what we do and is deeply embedded in our business strategy. We want to contribute positively to the people and the world around us. Running our business in a sustainable way ensures that Uniphar will continue to prosper in the long-term. We are focused on ensuring that each of the five pillars of our sustainability strategy are a fundamental part of our decision-making process.
How we’d like to work together
Due to the expected key outcomes associated with this role by its nature it will be a role based out of one of our headquarters in either Netherlands, Ireland or UK. There will be an element of hybrid working available. It is important to note that we do not expect this job to be a ‘9 to 5’ type position. In return for your flexibility, you will be joining an environment that understands how inter-twined work and life have become - and both the benefits and challenges that brings - and therefore offers a flexible, progressive way of supporting it.
If you believe that you meet most of the criteria above, we encourage you to apply. We are an equal opportunities employer and will ensure any reasonable accommodations are implemented as part of the recruitment and selection process.
