Strategic Sourcing & Category Manager – Concerts, Venues & Festivals

Job Summary

Live Nation Entertainment is the world’s leading live entertainment company, comprised of global market leaders:
Ticketmaster, Live Nation Concerts, and Live Nation Media & Sponsorship. Ticketmaster is the global leader in event ticketing with over 620 million tickets sold annually and approximately 10,000 clients worldwide. Live Nation Concerts is the largest provider of live entertainment in the world promoting more than 50,000 events annually for nearly 7,000 artists in 40+ countries. These businesses allow Live Nation Media & Sponsorship to create strategic music marketing programs that connect more than 1,200 sponsors with the 145 million fans that attend Live Nation Entertainment events each year.

The Manager, Strategic Sourcing Category Management is responsible for sourcing and procurement of over $100 M in spend in F&B distribution and other direct & indirect venue and event-related products and services within our Global Procurement ecosystem. The emphasis is on sourcing and procurement of Food & Beverage, but will also include sourcing of non-foods, disposables, small equipment, and vendor services for Live Nation Entertainment, its corporate offices, concerts, venues, festivals and clients, as needed.

The role will also act as the procurement liaison for Crunch Time and other F&B-related systems. This position reports to the Senior Director of Global Procurement.

• Work in a highly collaborative manner with a decentralized group of stakeholders and Sponsorship team members, devise and execute category strategies and both competitive and direct negotiation strategies that generate material, sustainable value regionally, nationally, or globally, as applicable.
• Lead a portfolio of sourcing, negotiating and contracting projects addressing millions of dollars in annual F&B and related spend across a wide variety of categories for Live Nation’s Concerts, Venues and Festivals teams.
• Interface with members of legal, sponsorship, financial/revenue recognition, operations, sales, and other stakeholder teams to bring deals to closure and ensure compliance with audit, financial, and system requirements; assist in resolving post‑execution nonstandard contract modification requests/disputes and non‑compliance concerns (both internal and with suppliers/distributors).
• Facilitate online supplier and catalog enablement with Ed Don, Sysco and other distribution partners to encourage and streamline utilization of LN‑negotiated agreements across various stakeholder groups.
• Analyze business, financial, and legal risks and develop and communicate creative solutions and mitigation strategies for key negotiation points; conduct rigorous analysis of spend data and other quantitative metrics to enable stakeholders to make sound, data‑driven decisions.
• Develop and execute procurement‑related activities associated with the rollout and ongoing success of new concepts and products, including working with divisional F&B leadership on announcements and supporting materials.
• Lead/mentor 1-2 specialists and/or analysts in executing F&B‑related projects; mentor other team members in sourcing, negotiation, and contracting fundamentals to help upskill the broader Global Procurement team.
• Lead supplier qualification efforts and partner with stakeholders in establishing and maintaining quality processes with suppliers; harness supplier expertise to drive supplier innovation, productivity, and performance; conduct due diligence on product trends that provide solutions to meet changing business requirements; track product life cycles in high‑spend and high‑risk areas to assist in multi‑year budget planning and product forecasting.
• Manage the contract lifecycle in partnership with Legal teams, including redlining, approvals, renewals, and maintaining accurate documentation in contract management systems.
• Consult with all relevant business segments and identify opportunities to improve the effectiveness of policies and procedures.
• Develop, validate and maintain various departmental month‑end reports, as required.
• Other day‑to‑day operational responsibilities and special projects as assigned by…