Global Inventory Strategy and Optimization Lead

Work Your Magic with us! Start your next chapter and join EMD Electronics.
Ready to explore, break barriers, and discover more? We know you’ve got big plans – so do we! Our colleagues across the globe love innovating with science and technology to enrich people’s lives with our solutions in Healthcare, Life Science, and Electronics. Together, we dream big and are passionate about caring for our rich mix of people, customers, patients, and planet. That's why we are always looking for curious minds that see themselves imagining the unimaginable with us.
Everything we do in EMD Electronics is to help us deliver on our purpose of being the company behind the companies, advancing digital living. We are dedicated to being the trusted supplier of high-tech materials, services and specialty chemicals for the electronics, automotive and cosmetics industries. We foster a global collaborative organization made up of individuals who have the passion to win, obsess about the customer, are relentlessly curious and act with urgency. Together, we push the boundaries of science to make more possible for our customers.
This role does not offer sponsorship for work authorization. External applicants must be eligible to work in the US.
Location: The Global Inventory Strategy & Optimization Lead is a hybrid position located in Allentown, PA or Chandler, AZ with 15% travel required to meet business needs.
Your Role:
The Global Inventory Strategy & Optimization Lead serves as the central point of coordination for global inventory management & governance including material risk across regions. Working closely with regional planning and procurement teams, this role consolidates regional inventory positions, supply constraints, inventory exposures, and mitigation strategies into a single source of truth that supports executive decision-making.
In a global Make-to-Order (MTO) environment, this role establishes inventory policies, leads optimization and allocation governance, and provides the analytics and reporting needed to proactively surface risks, opportunities, and trade-offs while instilling inventory discipline across the organization.
The ideal candidate is a highly analytical planning professional who combines expertise in inventory management, materials planning, supply risk management, and business analytics with exceptional communication skills. They are comfortable working with large datasets, defining inventory strategies, and influencing leaders across operations, finance, and regional planning teams without direct authority.
Key Responsibilities:
Global Inventory Strategy & Governance
Lead the global inventory strategy by establishing inventory policies, safety stock methodologies, planning parameters, and governance processes that balance customer service, working capital, and supply continuity.
Coordinate with regional inventory planning teams to ensure consistent application of inventory strategies, challenge inventory assumptions, and identify opportunities to optimize inventory across the network.
Develop global inventory segmentation, safety stock, replenishment, coverage, and inventory positioning strategies that support business objectives while minimizing excess inventory and reducing supply risk.
Partner with operations, finance, and planning teams to align inventory investment and inventory objectives across the enterprise.
Inventory Analytics & Business Insights
Serve as the planning organization's inventory analytics expert by developing and maintaining executive dashboards, KPI scorecards, and reporting tools that provide visibility into inventory performance, material availability, allocation status, inventory exposure, and supply risk.
Analyze inventory performance, material shortages, excess and obsolete inventory, service impacts, and inventory trends to identify risks, quantify business impacts, evaluate scenarios, and support leadership with data-driven recommendations.
Continuously improve inventory reporting capabilities, inventory metrics, and planning analytics to enhance decision quality and inventory effectiveness.
Regional Inventory Integration & Governance
Drive global inventory alignment by consolidating regional inventory positions, validating planning assumptions, identifying cross-regional inventory opportunities, and supporting cross-functional decision-making while promoting standardized inventory management practices across the organization.
Maintain standardized inventory policies, planning parameters, governance processes, inventory definitions, planning calendars, and data quality standards.
Act as the global steward of inventory governance to ensure a disciplined, repeatable inventory management process across all regions.
Material Risk & Allocation Management
Lead the global management of material constraints, inventory exposure, allocation decisions, and long-term supply risks, particularly for strategic and long lead-time components.
Chair and coordinate the Allocation Board by facilitating stakeholder alignment, evaluating competing business priorities, and driving decisions consistent with established allocation policies and prioritization frameworks.
Identify customer, operational, financial, and inventory risks resulting from material shortages and supply constraints, while ensuring visibility of mitigation and recovery plans across the enterprise.
Coordinate network inventory balancing strategies to prevent simultaneous shortages and excess inventory across regions and manufacturing locations.
Executive Rep