The posting
Working directly with the CEO, COO, Finance, Supply Chain and Legal teams, you will define negotiating objectives, build commercial leverage strategies, lead contract drafting and redlining activities, and implement the governance framework required to deliver a long-term, mutually beneficial supplier relationship.
This role requires a highly experienced commercial practitioner who has personally led complex CMS contract negotiations and understands the commercial realities of outsourced manufacturing, new product introduction (NPI), and volume production environments.
The successful candidate will combine strong negotiation expertise with commercial acumen, contract management discipline, and the ability to maintain collaborative supplier relationships while achieving materially improved commercial outcomes.
Success Measures
The Commercial Lead will be expected to: -
· Deliver a negotiated and executable Master Supply Agreement.
· Improve ALL.SPACE's commercial position while maintaining a strong supplier relationship.
· Implement a sustainable commercial governance framework.
· Reduce commercial and operational risk exposure.
· Establish mechanisms that support profitable and scalable business growth.
Key responsibilities
Commercial Strategy & Negotiations
· Develop and execute the negotiation strategy for a strategic global CMS Master Supply
Agreement.
· Define commercial objectives, negotiating positions, concession frameworks and walk-away
criteria with executive stakeholders.
· Lead commercial negotiations directly with supplier executive and commercial teams.
· Build leverage maps and risk assessments to maximise commercial outcomes while preserving collaborative relationships. · Drive alignment across Operations, Finance, Engineering, Legal and Executive Leadership throughout the negotiation process.
· Identify and assess benchmarking opportunities.
Contract Development & Governance
· Draft, review and redline MSA terms and supporting schedules.
· Establish robust commercial governance frameworks including KPIs, QBRs, escalation processes and change control mechanisms.
· Define and implement ongoing contract management practices following agreement execution.
· Ensure contract structures support both current operations and future scaling requirements.
Commercial Risk Management
· Negotiate key commercial areas including:
- Open-book and cost-plus pricing models
- Material cost down commitments and pass-through mechanisms
- NRE and tooling ownership
- Minimum order quantities (MOQs)
- Inventory profiles and Excess and obsolete liability
- Capacity and lead-time commitments
- Yield, scrap and cost recovery mechanisms
- Quality and warranty obligations
- Engineering Change Order (ECO) management
- Intellectual Property protections
- Manufacturing transfer and exit rights
-Deliverables and milestone payments
Supplier Relationship Management
· Maintain a collaborative and partnership-focused negotiating approach.
· Strengthen supplier relationships whilst improving commercial terms.
· Develop executive-level relationships with key supplier stakeholders.
· Support future sourcing, scaling and manufacturing transfer strategies where appropriate.
Requirements
Applicants must demonstrate all of the following:
- CMS Contract Negotiation Experience
- Personally led a minimum of 10 Master Supply Agreement negotiations with global CMS or contract manufacturing organisations, with 20+ preferred.
- Experience negotiating with tier 1 CMS organisations such as: Sanmina, Jabil, Flex, Celestica, Plexus, Benchmark Electronics and Similar global manufacturing partners
Outsourced Manufacturing Commercial Expertise Demonstrable in ·
- Major manufacturing and product development outsourced programmes of work,
- Significant contractual and service agreements
- Leveraging risk and revenue sharing
- Open-book pricing models
- Cost-plus and target-cost structures
- BOM cost analysis
- Material cost pass-through
- Vertically integrated supply-chain margins
- NRE and tooling agreements
- Inventory liability management
- Capacity reservation structures
- Lead-time commitments
- Quality and warranty frameworks
- IP protection
- Exit and transfer provisions NPI and Volume Manufacturing
(NPI) into volume production
- Experience negotiating supply agreements for products transitioning from New Product Introduction
- Strong understanding of commercial mechanisms that accommodate evolving designs, forecasts and production maturity.
Commercial Leadership
Proven ability to:
- Build negotiation strategies
- Define leverage points
- Establish concession plans
- Define walk-away positions
- Present and defend commercial positions with senior supplier stakeholders
Personal Attributes
- Commercially astute and analytical.
- Ability to secure commercially advantageous agreements that optimize cost, protect margin, mitigate risk.
- Executive-level communicator.
- Credible operating at CEO and Board level.
- Able to challenge constructively and influence without creating conflict.
Desirable Experience
- Low-volume, high-mix electronics manufacturing.
- RF, microwave or advanced communications products.
- Aerospace, Defence, Space or Satcom industries.
- Experience working within a CMS organisation as a Commercial Director, Contracts Director or similar role.
- Experience supporting manufacturing transfers, dual-source strategies or global footprint optimisation initiatives.
Please note - This position is part time over 2-3 days with flexibility to go full time if required and is on a 3-6 month contract basis, with the potential to go Permanent in the future.
