Senior Specialist – Hydrocarbons and Biofuels (Procurement)

Rio Tinto is seeking a Senior Specialist in Hydrocarbons and Biofuels (Procurement) for their Perth, Australia office. This full-time role involves managing global category strategies for hydrocarbons, engaging with stakeholders, and driving commercial innovation. The position requires strong strategic procurement experience, stakeholder management skills, and occasional travel. Candidates should possess excellent negotiation, communication, and analytical abilities, along with a commitment to safety.
Senior Specialist – Hydrocarbons and Biofuels (Procurement)
• Opportunity to join the Global Energy Procurement Team
• Exposure to a range of senior stakeholders working closely to build constructive relationships
• Drive change and deliver value through appropriate commercial activities, and innovation in global procurement strategies
• Occasional travel is required to meet stakeholders and suppliers
• Full-time permanent position | Location: Perth

About the role

All progress begins with pioneers. At Rio Tinto it begins with you.

We are looking for a Procurement Senior Specialist Hydrocarbons & Biofuels to manage the Hydrocarbon and Biofuel category. The core function of this role is to support, develop and deploy global category strategies for hydrocarbons for consumption in Rio Tinto operations on a worldwide basis. This category is critical to business performance, has a strategic role in the energy transition and consist of spend greater than US$2.3 billion per annum. The role interfaces with a diverse network of stakeholders including operations and maintenance managers within Rio Tinto's global operations, energy and climate groups, suppliers and logistics companies.

This is an excellent opportunity for someone who has strategic acumen coupled with strong influencing and communication skills and possesses solid experience in category strategy development, commercial frameworks, contracting and stakeholder management.

Reporting to the Manager - Hydrocarbons and Biofuels, you will:
• Develop customer relationships with all Rio Tinto Business Units
• Develop strong supplier relationships at global and regional levels
• Develop a deep global and regional market understanding of hydrocarbons and biofuels
• Contribute to the development and deployment of world class category strategies for hydrocarbons and biofuels, and in the context of the broader energy strategy
• Drive value creation and innovation through commercial strategy and frameworks, and market development
• Ensure supply security
• Maintain the highest standard of health and safety performance by implementing a personal safety plan and exhibiting behaviours consistent with zero tolerance.
• Build and manage structured supplier relationships and supplier performance
• Ensure suppliers’ strengths are fully leveraged in the supply chain
• Ensure a familiarity and working knowledge of proposed government legislative changes and their impacts on Rio Tinto Business Units.

What you’ll bring

To be successfully considered for this role, you will ideally have:
• A strong commitment to safety
• A solid background in strategic procurement, category management and contracting
• High level of interpersonal and influencing skills with experience in stakeholder management
• High level of commercial acumen with a strategic mindset and a proven track record of delivering commercial innovation and value
• Excellent negotiation and communication skills, both written and verbal
• Experience in business process improvement and change management desirable
• Strong project management, problem solving and analytical skills
• Advanced skills with the Windows environment, including use of the MS Office suite of products and ideally SAP or an equivalent ERP
• Tertiary qualifications in business or a related discipline highly desirable. CIPS Certificate or Diploma in Purchasing or Supply is advantageous

What we offer
• A work environment where safety is always the number one priority
• Flexible working from home arrangements as per operational requirements
• 18 weeks of gender-neutral and equal paid parental leave, with continued superannuation contributions whilst employees are on unpaid or half paid parental leave
• A competitive base salary reflective of your skills and experience with annual incentive program
• Comprehensive medical benefits including subsidised private health insurance for employees and immediate family
• Attractive share ownership plan
• Company provided insurance cover
• Extensive salary sacrifice & salary packaging options
• Career development & education assistance to further your technical or leadership ambitions
• Ongoing access to family-friendly health and medical wellbeing support
• Leave for all of life’s reasons (vacation/annual, paid parental, sick leave)
• Exclusive employee discounts (banking, accommodation, cars, retail and more); and
• Local relocation packages offered for Australian residents only

Where you’ll be working

Rio Tinto Global Procurement ensures resilient supply chains that deliver value to the Rio Tinto Group through the strategic sourcing and buying of goods and services for our operations. Playing a fundamental role, value is achieved through effective supplier partnerships, innovation, easy and standardised processes, e-technology, corporate social responsibility and increased commercial advantage.

Application Deadline: 07th March 2025 (Midnight)

(Rio Tinto reserves the right to remove advertised roles prior to this date)

Please note, in order to be successfully considered for this role you must complete all pre-screening questions.

Rio Tinto does not accept unsolicited CVs or candidate profiles from recruiters or employment agencies. Rio Tinto will not consider or agree to payment of any referral compensation or recruiter fee relating to unsolicited CVs or candidate profiles. Rio Tinto reserves the right to hire those candidate(s) without any financial obligation to the recruiter or agency. Any unsolicited CVs or candidate profiles, including those submitted to hiring managers, are deemed to be the property of Rio Tinto.

About Rio Tinto

Rio Tinto is a leading global mining and materials company. We operate in 35 countries where we produce iron ore, copper, aluminium, critical minerals, and other materials needed for the global energy transition and for people, communities, and nations to thrive.

We have been mining for 150 years and operate with knowledge built up across generations and continents. Our purpose is finding better ways to provide the materials the world needs – striving for innovation and continuous improvement to produce materials with low emissions and to the right environmental, social and governance standards. But we can’t do it on our own, so we’re focused on creating partnerships to solve problems, create win-win situations and meet opportunities.

Every Voice Matters

At Rio Tinto, we particularly welcome and encourage applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, women, the LGBTI+ community, mature workers, people with disabilities and people from different cultural backgrounds.

We are committed to an inclusive environment where people feel comfortable to be themselves. We want our people to feel that all voices are heard, all cultures respected and that a variety of perspectives are not only welcome – they are essential to our success. We treat each other fairly and with dignity regardless of race, gender, nationality, ethnic origin, religion, age, sexual orientation or anything else that makes us different.