Senior Sprouts Partnerships & Negotiations Manager

Sprouts Farmers Market is building a world-class Sprouts Partnerships & Negotiations (SP&N) capability to strengthen supplier partnerships, improve negotiation effectiveness, and create sustainable enterprise value across Merchandising. The Senior SP&N Manager serves as the organization's senior individual contributor and subject matter expert for supplier negotiations, Joint Business Planning (JBP), and partnership strategy, partnering closely with merchandising leaders, Category Managers, and the Director, SP&N to drive adoption of negotiation best practices, lead enterprise capability-building initiatives, facilitate complex and strategic supplier engagements, and continuously improve the tools, methodologies, and processes that support supplier partnerships. Acting as a trusted advisor across multiple categories, this role combines enterprise influence, negotiation expertise, program leadership, capability development, analytics, facilitation, and strategic problem solving to advance negotiation excellence and supplier partnership effectiveness across the organization.

Enterprise Negotiation Leadership

• Serve as the senior negotiation advisor supporting Merchandising's most complex and strategic supplier relationships.
• Partner with Category Managers and merchandising leaders to develop negotiation strategies that maximize long-term enterprise value.
• Lead preparation efforts for significant supplier negotiations, including scenario planning, value creation opportunities, risk assessment, stakeholder alignment, and supplier leverage analysis.
• Facilitate high-impact negotiations and provide real-time coaching to merchants during critical supplier engagements.
• Analyze negotiation outcomes and identify opportunities to improve effectiveness across the organization.
• Establish and reinforce best practices that improve consistency, preparation quality, and commercial outcomes.

Joint Business Planning Leadership

• Lead development and execution of Joint Business Planning efforts with strategic supplier partners.
• Facilitate Strategic Business Reviews, Quarterly Business Reviews, Joint Business Planning sessions, and supplier partnership meetings.
• Ensure strategic supplier relationships have documented objectives, initiatives, owners, KPIs, timelines, and success measures.
• Monitor partnership performance and recommend actions that strengthen supplier relationships and improve results.
• Identify opportunities to expand collaboration and create additional value through strategic supplier partnerships.

Capability Development & Organizational Effectiveness

• Serve as the primary coach and resource for negotiation capability development across Merchandising.
• Design and deliver advanced training programs focused on negotiation preparation, supplier relationship management, collaborative negotiation, and Joint Business Planning.
• Develop tools, templates, playbooks, and resources that improve merchant effectiveness.
• Facilitate workshops, simulations, role-playing exercises, and learning sessions that build organizational capability.
• Assess capability gaps and recommend development priorities to merchandising leadership.
• Support onboarding and development of new Category Managers and merchandising leaders.

Portager.ai Leadership

• Serve as the enterprise subject matter expert for Portager.ai.
• Drive adoption, utilization, and continuous improvement of negotiation technology and processes.
• Analyze negotiation data and platform insights to identify trends and opportunities.
• Recommend enhancements that improve decision-making, negotiation preparation, and business outcomes.
• Partner with stakeholders to ensure consistent execution and data quality across categories.

Program & Process Leadership

• Lead enterprise initiatives that improve negotiation effectiveness and supplier partnership management across Merchandising.
• Support implementation of negotiation frameworks, governance processes, and operating standards established by the SP&N function.
• Identify process improvement opportunities and recommend changes that enhance organizational performance.
• Establish measurement approaches that evaluate negotiation effectiveness, Joint Business Planning quality, and capability development outcomes.
• Share organizational learnings and best practices across merchandising teams.

Cross-Functional Influence

• Partner with Merchandising, Marketing, Supply Chain, Finance, Operations, and other stakeholders to align priorities and support supplier partnership strategies.
• Influence senior leaders without direct authority to drive adoption of standards, processes, and best practices.
• Facilitate alignment among internal stakeholders before major supplier engagements.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to merchandising leadership on partnership strategies, supplier challenges, and negotiation opportunities.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.
• 8+ years of retail merchandising, category management, supplier management, strategic sourcing, or related experience.
• Demonstrated success leading complex, high-value supplier negotiations.
• Experience facilitating executive-level business planning and supplier partnership discussions.
• Strong financial, analytical, and strategic problem-solving capabilities.
• Experience leading enterprise initiatives through influence rather than direct authority.
• Exceptional facilitation, presentation, and communication skills.

Critical Competencies

• Enterprise thinking and strategic planning.
• Negotiation expertise and value creation.
• Supplier partnership leadership.
• Joint Business Planning facilitation.
• Organizational influence without authority.
• Executive communication and facilitation.
• Data analysis and business insight generation.
• Program and change leadership.
• Financial acumen and commercial decision making.
• Coaching and capability development.
• Strategic problem solving and continuous improvement.

Success Measures

• Enterprise negotiation value delivered.
• Improvement in negotiation effectiveness across Merchandising.
• Adoption and quality of Joint Business Planning.
• Strategic supplier partnership health and performance.
• Merchant capability development and training effectiveness.
• Portager.ai adoption, utilization, and data quality.
• Consistency of negotiation process execution.
• Cross-functional stakeholder satisfaction.
• Successful implementation of enterprise SP&N initiatives.
• Organizational adoption of negotiation best practices.

In addition to a rewarding career, Sprouts offers a comprehensive program to help support you and your family. These programs include:

• Competitive pay
• Sick time plan that you can use to support you or your immediate families health
• Vacation accrual plan
• Opportunities for career growth
• 15% discount for you and one other family member in your household on all purchases made at Sprouts
• Flexible schedules
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• 401(K) Retirement savings plan with a generous company match
• Company paid life insurance
• Contests and appreciation events throughout the year full of prizes, food and fun!

Eligibility requirements may apply for the following benefits:

• Bonus based on company and/or individual performance
• Affordable benefit coverage, including medical, dental and vision
• Health Savings Account with company match
• Pre-tax Flexible Spending Accounts for healthcare and dependent care
• Company paid short-term disability coverage
• Paid parental leave for both mothers and fathers
• Paid holidays

Get Paid Every Day!

Sprouts Farmers Market offers DailyPay - if you’re hired as an eligible employee, you’ll be able to transfer the money you’ve already earned at no extra cost, and get it the next business day, for free.  We offer DailyPay so you don’t have to wait for payday to access the money you’ve already worked for. With DailyPay, you can see how much you’ve made every day and you can transfer your money any time before payday.

 You can learn more by visiting https://www.dailypay.com/partners/sprouts-farmers-market/.

Grow with us!

If you have a passion for inspiring people and a flair for fresh food, consider applying for a job at Sprouts! With a focus on customer service, our neighborhood grocery stores offer high-quality, farm fresh produce, natural meats, plenty of scoop-your-own bulk goods and much more in a fun, friendly, old-fashioned farmer’s market setting.  Come grow your career in healthy living with a fast-paced, rapidly growing company and teams that pride themselves on empowering others along their journey.

The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of the work being performed by people assigned to this work. This is not an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, and requirements. Sprouts’ management reserves the right to amend and change duties, responsibilities, and requirements to meet business and organizational needs as necessary.

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