Assistant Director / Senior Assistant Director, Category Lead, Facilities & Construction

We are seeking a seasoned procurement leader who combines strong operational discipline with strategic thinking. The ideal candidate is hands-on, commercially astute, customer-focused and capable of leading category team while partnering effectively with senior stakeholders. The candidate should possess a broad procurement background across Construction and Facility Management categories and be comfortable operating in a dynamic and complex higher education environment. The incumbent is responsible for leading the team for the development and execution of category strategies for Construction and Facility Management.

Responsibilities

• As a Procurement Category Lead, the incumbent will provide strategic and operational leadership to procurement teams, ensuring the efficient, compliant, and cost-effective acquisition.
• The role is accountable for category management, stakeholder engagement, supplier relationship management, staff development, and continuous process improvement.
• The incumbent will lead teams supporting academic, research and administrative units, drive procurement excellence, and ensure procurement activities are conducted in accordance with policies, regulatory requirements, and best practices.
• Category Management Strong customer focus with the ability to build trusted partnerships and provide strategic procurement advice throughout the project lifecycle, from project inception and tendering to contract award.
• Demonstrate strong commercial and analytical judgement in evaluating procurement strategies, market conditions, cost drivers, lifecycle costs, and risk mitigation approaches for construction and facilities spend categories.
• Co-create category strategies with key stakeholder groups.
• Execute procurement tender process including development and spearhead tender roadmap to meet NTU deliverables.
• Experience in construction cost estimation, quantity surveying, tender pricing analysis, and benchmarking of building, infrastructure, M&E, and facilities management projects.
• Ability to assess project cost reasonableness, challenge consultant and contractor cost proposals, and identify cost-saving opportunities without compromising project quality, safety, or operational requirements.
• Ability to collaborate with cross-functional teams, facilitate stakeholder alignment, and drive value creation through effective category management, strategic sourcing, supplier relationship management, and cost optimization initiatives.
• Lead procurement team to manage complex tenders.
• Driving effective teamwork, collaboration, and close dialogue with all interfacing functions to ensure a seamless efficient approach to information exchange and process flows to other areas within the procurement function.
• Provide coaching and mentoring to strengthen procurement, commercial, stakeholder management and leadership capabilities.
• Develop technical competencies in sourcing, contracting, procurement governance and supplier management.
• Identify skill gaps and implement targeted learning and development programmes.
• System Use purchasing tools such as spend analytics, e-sourcing, auctions and contract management while adhering to strategic sourcing standards/ policies.

Requirements

• Qualifications/Skills Minimum 10-12 years of Construction and/or Facility management procurement experience.
• At least 5 years in a leadership role managing procurement teams.
• Experience in public sector, higher education, research institutions, healthcare, statutory boards or large complex organisations is preferred.
• Demonstrated experience in strategic sourcing, contract management and procurement governance.

People

We regret to inform that only shortlisted candidates will be notified.

Hiring Institution

NTU