Chaitra Garalapuri

About Chaitra Garalapuri

Strategic Sourcing leader with a passion for building and leading creative, fast-paced, high-performance operations teams. Results-oriented procurement and strategic sourcing leader with a proven track record of driving transformative change and achieving significant cost savings across global supply chains. Adept at building fast-paced high-performance teams, fostering supplier relationships, and optimizing processes for maximum efficiency. Procurement/Strategic Sourcing team builder with global experience across indirect and direct spend categories with a passion for creating fast-paced, high-performance teams. C-level executive management to ensure best practices and goals are shared enterprise-wide to drive significant cost savings, creating strategic advantage through supplier relationships, and building talent/culture/infrastructure to sustain top performance. Procurement experience in areas of IT Software, Hardware, Telecom, Labor, Marketing, Transportation, Finance and HR. Lead global and regional teams in complete end to end Category Management from gathering and understanding business requirements to identifying best in class suppliers to putting contracts in place and ongoing Supplier Relationship Management.Through my career, I have consistently delivered success in• Positioning Procurement as a Valued, Collaborative Partner and Recognized Business Asset• Procurement and Strategic Sourcing Process Design and Optimization• Engaging in Advanced Supplier Relationships and Performance Management• Developing, Mentoring and Inspiring Top-Caliber TeamsMy success is primarily based on:(a) Excellent communication and listening skills, enabling me to get the “voice of the internal customer”, understand company culture and how to best communicate procurement’s value;(b) Run procurement as a strategic services provider;(c) Advanced knowledge of sourcing and procurement principles and best practicesAreas of Expertise:Process Optimization | Digitization • Hands on Leadership • Large Complex Contract Negotiation • Direct | Indirect Category Expertise • Business Transformation • Performance Metrics | KPIs • Category strategy Development • Contract Management • System Implementation | Integration • Global Marketplace Insight • Policy Documentation • Data-Driven Decision-Making | AI

Experience

1. Head of Indirect Procurement

   IFF

   May 2024 — Present

   Responsible for all Indirect categories including MRO, Warehousing, Logistics, Facilities, Transportation, Professional Services totaling upwards of $1Bn in spend.• Established preferred suppliers across 50+ plants in the US in various categories such as MRO, Facilities, Professional Services etc. across 4 business units. Worked on business partner relationships to move upwards of $400M in spend towards the preferred suppliers generating 6-10% savings. • Part of org-wide initiative to streamline Logistics after multiple mergers and acquisitions leading to savings in volumes and rates• Implemented Tail Spend Management solution for Indirect categories• Implemented a consolidated Contingent Labor program • Business process re-organization at grassroots level to increase payment terms across vendor base internationally across 5 continents• Led the digitization of procurement process through AI driven tools for each step of the procurement process• Created templates to capture SOWs, MSAs etc. at a category level to take advantage of home contracts.

Education

• William & Mary

  Master of Business Administration (MBA)

• Visvesvaraya Technological University

  B.E, Instrumentation Technology

• Manipal Academy of Higher Education

  Masters, Information Systems

Skills

• Business Process
• Six Sigma
• Project Management
• Process Improvement
• Sdlc
• Oracle
• Requirements Analysis
• Cmmi