[Hiring] International Vendor Manager @Harbor Freight

Role Description

The International Vendor Manager maintains negotiation and execution while managing a global supplier base to drive competitive costs, maintain production and shipment schedules, and ensure on-time delivery without compromising quality. This role partners closely with Merchandising, Quality, Planning/Inventory, Logistics, and Finance to balance speed, cost, and risk across the business. The position requires strong, data-driven decision-making, analytical rigor, and creative problem-solving to improve vendor performance and deliver measurable business results. With dynamic cross-functional involvement and responsibility for driving projects to completion, this role offers the opportunity to make a significant impact and supports strong potential for career growth.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Manage day-to-day business with a large global supplier base across China, Vietnam, India, and other low-cost countries, maintaining a consistent operating cadence through status updates, capacity reviews, and risk assessments.
• Build strong vendor partnerships that promote transparency, accountability, responsiveness, and rapid issue resolution while continuously monitoring supplier performance across lead times, quality, and on-time delivery.
• Lead multi-round cost negotiations across a large spend portfolio, delivering measurable savings through data-driven strategies that account for labor and material changes, yield, packaging, MOQs, lead-time tradeoffs, tariffs, and duties.
• Identify and execute cost-reduction opportunities through benchmarking, specification optimization, alternative sourcing, and informed commercial decision-making.
• Own production execution by tracking critical-path milestones, factory capacity, material readiness, and shipment schedules to ensure finished goods are delivered on time to port.
• Proactively identify risks, escalate issues early, and drive root-cause analysis and corrective actions to resolve delays, shortages, capacity constraints, and documentation challenges.
• Analyze data related to shipments, production capacity, purchasing plans, cost negotiations, tariffs, and duties to deliver accurate, decision-ready reporting and business insights on demand.
• Partner closely with Merchandising, Quality, Planning/Inventory, Logistics, and Finance to align priorities, manage tradeoffs, and ensure decisions reflect total enterprise impact across cost, speed, availability, quality, and risk.
• Drive projects to completion by working effectively within and around existing systems while maintaining strong organization, attention to detail, and execution discipline in fast-paced, ambiguous environments.
• Continuously improve tools, workflows, and standard operating procedures to increase predictability, efficiency, and scalability; share best practices across the Vendor Management team.
• Travel internationally as needed to strengthen vendor relationships and drive results.
• Support departmental process improvements and perform additional duties as assigned by management.

Scope

• Staff supervision and development: Yes
• Decision making: Creates policy and resolves problems
• Travel: Up to 50%
• Flex Designation: Anywhere

Salary and Benefits

• The anticipated salary range for this position is $117,300 – $176,000 depending on location, knowledge, skills, education and experience.
• This position is also eligible for an annual discretionary bonus.
• Comprehensive and competitive benefits to Associates (and their families) such as medical, dental, vision, life insurance, short-term and long-term disability.
• Eligible Associates are able to enroll in our company’s 401k plan.
• Associates will accrue paid time off up to 236 hours per year (inclusive of PTO, floating holidays, and paid holidays).
• Paid sick time up to 80 hours per year unless otherwise required by law.