Join the power movement as a Staff Supplier Integration Manager

CFS confronts exciting but significant challenges associated with the supply chain for ARC and other new products and projects.  Key challenges for ARC include: (a) producing a design that leads to a very cost competitive and producible (deployable) product (b) managing high levels of technical uncertainty and (c) an expensive and operationally difficult path to begin building ARC power plants.

The Staff Supplier Integration Manager (SSIM) will create and execute global supply chain strategies fully integrated with CFS design teams and in close partnership with other functions including R&D, business and corporate development, Open Innovation, and government affairs.  This strategy development will include focused and highly technical efforts to improve and simplify CFS designs with practical knowledge of supply chain capabilities, focused on major improvements to product cost and other key metrics.  It will require deep, continuous, and insightful research into new technologies, evolving market conditions, and other key trends. 

The SSIM will also conduct global, creative and systematic supplier searches, and build and manage complex, senior-level supplier relationships.  Finally, the SSIM will lead negotiation of long-term, high-value agreements that will be pivotal to CFS’ ability to build and deploy key products such as ARC.

The SSIM must be an established expert in technical sourcing, able to speak the languages of plasma physicists, engineers and material scientists.  The SSIM must be experienced and comfortable in uncertain, unstructured, low Technology Readiness Level (TRL) environments, while exercising curiosity and creativity to identify and understand new trends and technologies.  The SSIM should be capable of serving as the senior face of CFS to supplier executives and other external audiences, during difficult negotiations and other interactions.  Internally, the SSIM should be able to speak directly to the Executive Leadership Team about how design and technical decisions translate into the supply of hardware, including associated cost, risk, etc. and should understand how to marshal internal resources and consensus in support of project objectives.

What you'll do:

Partner with Chief Engineer, R&D organization and Fusion Economics teams to drive powerplant value engineering, cost reductions, technology selection, and increase TRL of fusion specific hardware
Take an active role in the techno-economic model development and inputs for future powerplants
Serve as a feedback loop to the R&D and engineering organizations to understand the key levers to continuously drive down ARC costs and LCOE
Advise Supply Chain, Open Innovation, Government Affairs, and C-Suite teams on potential opportunities to acquire companies, develop joint ventures, drive public and private partnerships, and other creative or sophisticated strategies to drive supply chain readiness and reliability of fusion powerplants
Stay informed of the latest world wide state of fusion industry, how major and minor players are moving in the market, and has an overall high fusion industry acumen to help drive decisions within CFS - this person is seen as an expert in the fusion supply chain
Develop and lead category and commodity strategies including spend analysis, benchmarking, cost, market analysis, supplier selection and contracting in the global technology & economic context
Support potential customers, sponsors, partners, and investors in diligence processes
Support management in developing scope, budget, and schedule for new projects based on matching expertise and capabilities to research needs and project opportunities
Respectfully raises execution or design concerns, providing a sound rationale or data to support their perspective.
Support Investor Relations, Business Development, Corporate Finance, and Engineering teams as needed, and on-demand with queries and reports
Develop, drive and execute annual and strategic plan with supporting commodity strategies
Timely execute strategies to align with business growth and new product introductions
Build and deepen relationships with key supplier leadership
Align with Engineering, Technology, Business, Operations, Finance and Quality for world class performance
Manage sourcing processes and performance through an effective management operating system
Prepare briefing materials, write and publish research results in internal technical reports and public facing presentations, including collaborations with key external partners
Manage organizational effectiveness through continuous improvement and functional transformation
Relentlessly gathers intelligence on the health of strategic suppliers’ business and informs Sr. Leadership of long-term risk and proposed countermeasures
Conduct periodic supplier business reviews to communicate supplier performance to internal and supplier management teams
Conduct site surveys and business evaluations of existing and potential suppliers
Serve as a point of escalation and resolution of corrective actions with suppliers
Contribute to the resolution of sourcing issues from CFS or their subtiers

What we’re looking for:

• Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Supply Chain Management, Engineering, or a related field
• 15+ years minimum experience managing supply chains in raw materials, metals, machined components, welding and fabrication, and/or contracted assemblies
• High finance acumen to be able to understand a company's financial structure and strategize contract incentives
• Extensive technical knowledge of contracting for long lead time items based on project milestones
• Must be able to travel 25% - 50% of time and to remote sites
• Experience in sourcing for both R&D (prototypes) and on-going production
• Ability to work effectively both independently and in cross-functional teams
• Strong communication skills and ability to manage multiple tasks and projects
• Exceptional organizational and analytical skills, and a proven ability to drive complex projects with minimal oversight
• Ability to earn trust, maintain positive and professional relationships, and strengthen our culture of inclusion
• Generates work plans, defines milestones for own tasks, and helps define processes that impact direct work. Contributes to process improvement.
• Strong organizational abilities to manage many various cases and scenarios
• Ability to map out and understand complex interconnected systems
• Exquisite attention to detail applied across a multitude of systems, ensuring comprehensive analysis and identification of gaps in quality or detail
• Reliable and persistent work ethic, seeing tasks through to completion. Stays determined in the face of uncertainty and setbacks.
• Ability to identify the right level of detail for a given task and flexibility to adapt to modeling both rough, quick estimates for establishing development priorities and detailed, reliable models for finalizing project specifications
• Adaptability to a start-up environment, capability to take initiative, develop own tasks and timelines, and solve broad, ambiguous problems.
• Operates with general guidance from management and increasingly takes independent ownership of developing execution approaches to assigned work.
• Proven writing and communication ability, and consistent quality of work appropriate for preparing material for a broad external audience

Bonus points for:

• Previous experience with Mergers and Acquisitions, Joint Venture formation, or strategic partnership framework development

Must-have Requirements:

• Perform activities such as typing, standing, or sitting for extended periods of time
• Willingness to travel or work required nights/weekends/on-call regularly
• Work in a facility that contains industrial hazards including heat, cold, noise, fumes, strong magnets, lead (Pb), high voltage, high current, pressure systems, and cryogenics