Kim Meiring

• Commercial Strategy Leadership: Developed and executed the Commercial Strategy for South Africa (Strategic Procurement, SQA & Supplier Development), ensuring alignment with factory requirements, market needs, and performance targets. Led the Commercial Operations, and Commercial Savings functions to optimize performance and delivery in line with regional and global objectives for the Region (South Africa, Argentina and Brazil). Led the Sustainability Function regionally, developing and executing sustainability strategies aligned with global corporate goals.
• Team Development: Led the Commercial team’s growth, focusing on performance, collaboration, onboarding, and skill development to ensure high performance.
• Strategic Sourcing Leadership: Led the Strategic Sourcing function for South Africa, developing and executing sourcing strategies to optimize raw material procurement, packaging, and services. Drove cost-effective, sustainable, and innovative sourcing solutions aligned with commercial objectives and regional market needs. Collaborated with suppliers and internal teams to ensure the consistent supply of high-quality materials, while managing risks and maintaining compliance with sustainability and quality standards.
• Risk & Compliance: Ensured adherence to governance, ethics, and compliance standards, addressing gaps and updating policies for best practices.
• Strategic Planning: Led the creation and presentation of the Commercial Operating Plan, aligning with financial and stakeholder goals.
• Sourcing & Innovation: Drove value creation in raw materials and packaging, supporting sustainable sourcing and collaborating with the formulatory and R&D teams to identify innovation opportunities.
• Supplier Development: Developed and implemented a 10-year Supplier Development Strategy, fostering strong partnerships for continuous improvement and sustainable supply.
• Leadership & Communication: Led cross-functional teams, improving raw material and packaging supply, processes, and service performance through clear communication and collaboration.
• Food Safety & Quality Management: Managed the Supplier Quality Assurance (SQA) strategy, ensuring compliance with global standards and improving supplier and material quality.
• Regional & Global Collaboration: Represented the region in global SQA and MQM committees, ensuring alignment with global strategies and best practices.
• Sustainability & Compliance: Led sustainability initiatives, including water balancing and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) projects in South Africa.
• Performance Monitoring: Established KPIs to monitor commercial performance and supplier quality, taking corrective actions to drive continuous improvement.

Focused on cost optimization, customer satisfaction, and maximizing supply reliability by identifying and implementing business opportunities, optimizing existing contracts, and ensuring value-added cost opportunities. Led multiple business units including New Business Development, Customer Management, Product Launches, Procurement, Finance, Legal, Regulatory, and Outsourced Manufacturing.

These responsibilities focused on driving business performance, optimizing costs, ensuring compliance, and managing key business functions effectively.

Led the development and execution of strategic procurement practices within South Africa and Southern Africa, including category strategies and sourcing, to optimize total cost of ownership savings, minimize commercial risks, and enhance procurement value contribution.

Achievements include significant savings across multiple years.