Senior Vice President

Inspire Brands is seeking a Senior Vice President to lead the Procurement function for SONIC, Buffalo Wild Wings, Jimmy John's, and Baskin-Robbins (managing over $4B in spend), while also supporting all six Inspire brands through group purchasing initiatives.

Reporting to the Chief Supply Officer, this Executive Leader will ensure each brand has access to the right products and services at competitive cost while enabling innovation, resilience, and sustainability. Overseeing sourcing strategy, contract management, supplier partnerships, and category leadership, this Leader will focus on balancing long-term strategic vision with operational execution to optimize spend, mitigate risk, and unlock supplier-enabled growth across Inspire Brands.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Team Leadership

• Leads a high-performing team of twenty-six, including seven direct reports (Senior Director, Director, Manager level)
• Provides coaching, performance management, and succession planning to build future organizational capability.
• Shapes team culture around accountability, agility, collaboration, and innovation.

Procurement Strategy & Category Excellence

• Defines and executes procurement strategies for SONIC, Buffalo Wild Wings, Jimmy John's, and Baskin-Robbins across categories including proteins, food & beverage, packaging and indirect procurement, and furniture, fixtures and equipment.
• Provides leadership for group purchasing events that drive scale efficiencies across all six Inspire brands.
• Guides execution of RFPs, supplier selection, and contract negotiations with a focus on value creation and risk management.

Supplier Relationships & Innovation Partnerships

• Serves as a primary leader for Inspire's most critical supplier relationships.
• Builds supplier partnerships that ensure reliable supply, foster innovation, and deliver competitive advantage.

Cost Optimization & Value Creation

• Drives sustained cost savings, cost avoidance, and value creation across procurement categories.
• Ensures transparency in pricing to optimize costs.
• Partners with Finance to provide accurate and timely Market Basket (COGS) forecasting and reporting.

Cross-Functional & Enterprise Collaboration

• Partners with Brand leadership, Marketing, Culinary, Operations, Quality Assurance, Commodities, Distribution, and Finance to align procurement strategies with business priorities and innovation pipelines.
• Coordinates with external Supply Chain co-operatives for other Inspire brands on group purchasing initiatives to capture enterprise-wide value.

Risk Management & Supply Assurance

• Anticipates supply chain risks by monitoring macroeconomic and commodity trends.
• Develops contingency plans to prevent supply disruptions and protect brand operations.

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE QUALIFICATIONS

• 4-year degree in Business (Marketing, Supply Chain, Finance, others), Engineering or related field
• Master's degree and/or professional certification (e.g., CPSM) strongly preferred
• 10+ years of leadership experience
• Prior procurement experience across direct and indirect spend categories strongly preferred

REQUIRED KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS or ABILITIES:

• Highly skilled in developing diverse, high-performing teams
• Demonstrated ability to influence cross-functionally and build senior-level supplier partnerships
• Strong negotiation and contract management skills
• Excellent ability to develop solutions to problems of unusual complexity which require a high degree of ingenuity, creativity and innovativeness
• Deep knowledge of advanced concepts, techniques and standards with enterprise sourcing strategy and supplier management
• Proven success delivering cost savings, innovation, and risk mitigation at scale

Inspire is a multi-brand restaurant company whose portfolio includes more than 33,000 Arby's, Baskin-Robbins, Buffalo Wild Wings, Dunkin', Jimmy John's, and SONIC restaurants worldwide.

We're made up of some of the world's most iconic restaurant brands, but we're much more than just a restaurant company. We're a team of hundreds of thousands who individually and collectively are changing the way people eat, drink, and gather around the table. We know that food is much more than a staple—it's an experience. At Inspire, that's our purpose: to ignite and nourish flavorful experiences.