Reports to: Vice President of Global Finance with functional reporting line to Purchasing Director
Location: New York
Department: Global Finance
Scope: Global Conservation
Position Type: Full Time
About Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS):
WCS saves wildlife and wild places worldwide. We are the only organization that combines on-the-ground field conservation programs in more than 55 countries with the world’s largest network of urban wildlife parks, based in New York City.
WCS’s five wildlife parks, led by our flagship Bronx Zoo, have educated and inspired over 425 million visitors since 1899. Each year, WCS welcomes about 3.5 million visitors to the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo, Queens Zoo, and New York Aquarium—opening people’s eyes to the wonders of the natural world, while setting the gold standard for animal care and well-being.
WCS has a long track record of achieving innovative, impactful results at scale. Our scientists, veterinarians, and conservation experts have helped recover bison, tigers, gorillas, whales, coral reefs, and more. In the past century, we have helped governments create more than 430 protected areas around the world on land and sea, and we currently work with national governments and local communities to manage and monitor several hundred protected areas.
Position Summary:
The Assistant Director of Global Procurement and Contract Oversight provides strategic leadership and oversight of procurement and contracting across WCS Global’s conservation operations. This is a unique opportunity for an accomplished procurement professional to bring global expertise to a mission-driven organization operating across diverse countries, regions, and operating environments. The Assistant Director will play a role in shaping global procurement, strengthening controls and compliance, improving systems and processes, and ensuring that teams have the resources and guidance they need to support conservation programs around the world. Working closely with Global Finance, Purchasing, Legal, regional leadership, and country teams, the Assistant Director will provide both strategic direction and hands-on leadership across sourcing, contracting, vendor management, logistics, and procurement operations. The position reports to the Vice President of Global Finance with a functional reporting line to the WCS Purchasing Director. The role establishes standards, ensures compliance, drives efficiencies, and maintains oversight of regional and country procurement professionals through a matrixed reporting structure. The position balances strategic sourcing, risk management, and operational execution across a highly decentralized operating environment. The individual leads global procurement and contract management across WCS’s conservation portfolio.
Key responsibilities:
- Oversee procurement professionals and teams in regions and countries through a matrixed structure
- Supervise the New York headquartered global procurement team to successfully deliver required programmatic supplies to local country offices, coordinating with field logisticians and managing transportation providers
- Develop and implement processes to operationalize WCS procurement policies, adapting procedures as needed for regional or country contexts.
- Drive improvements to financial and procurement workflows, streamlining and standardizing processes across regions, and provide guidance on system solutions and their rollout strategy.
- Oversee the execution of high-value or high-risk procurements and serve as a decisionmaker for procurement policy exceptions.
- Systematize and maintain the global vendor subset and preferred supplier lists, guiding regional and country teams on supplier selection.
- Guide regional and local contracting processes, including the use of standard contract templates, and provide guidance on key terms and negotiation strategies; serve as a key liaison with the Office of General Counsel and support negotiation of major agreements.
- Establish best practices for contract management, including lifecycle tracking, renewal and expiration calendars, monitoring of SLAs, and overall vendor compliance.
- Oversee key vendor relationships, monitoring industry trends, supply chain dynamics, and logistical developments to inform and guide procurement decisions Draft global inventory and asset management processes where needed.
- Develop and deliver global procurement training materials and sessions, conduct onboarding of new procurement staff, create and maintain dashboards and reports, and in partnership with Global Finance, incorporate procurement review into scheduled internal audits.
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