About Zipline
Zipline is the world’s largest and most experienced drone delivery service. We are on a mission to serve all humans equally by ensuring access to food, medicine and essential goods anytime, anywhere. We design, build, and operate the world’s largest autonomous logistics system, delivering critical supplies quickly and reliably. Today, Zipline operates on four continents, makes a delivery somewhere in the world every 30 seconds, and has completed millions of deliveries to date, including blood, vaccines, medical supplies, food, and retail products.
Our customers include the world’s largest and most prominent healthcare systems, governments, retailers, restaurants and global businesses who rely on us to save lives, reduce emissions, increase economic opportunity, and provide delivery from point A to point B as fast as possible. The drone is only 15% of what we’ve built to enable seamless, reliable, global operations.
Our system strengthens supply chains, reduces congestion, and gives people time back. With more than 140 million commercial autonomous miles safely flown, Zipline is redefining access to healthcare, consumer products, and food across the globe.
We operate at a global scale and are looking for practical problem solvers who thrive on real-world challenges and rapid growth. Our team is motivated by building systems that have a direct, meaningful impact on people’s lives and by scaling the future of logistics. We are seeking people who sculpt from first principles, enjoy facing adversity, and can do the impossible at record breaking speeds.
About You and The Role
Does the opportunity to architect and lead the global sourcing strategy for one of the world’s most innovative robotics companies sound like the challenge you’ve been preparing for? Are you energized by building world-class supplier ecosystems capable of supporting revolutionary products, rapid manufacturing scale, and global expansion? Can you simultaneously think strategically, negotiate commercially, lead high-performing teams, and make difficult decisions under uncertainty?
As Head of Global Strategic Sourcing, you will lead Zipline’s worldwide Strategic Sourcing organization and be accountable for the commercial success of our entire direct supply base. Every Global Supply Manager, Commodity Lead, and Strategic Sourcing function will report into your organization.
You will define and execute the sourcing strategy for every production component that goes into Zipline’s autonomous aircraft and logistics systems. From supplier selection and executive negotiations to long-term supply agreements, cost competitiveness, delivery performance, supplier development, and risk mitigation, you will own the commercial relationships that enable Zipline’s products to scale globally.
This is a highly visible executive leadership role requiring close partnership with Engineering, Operations, Manufacturing, Finance, Legal, Product, Executive Leadership, and our global supplier network. Success requires balancing technical innovation, commercial excellence, and operational execution while building an organization capable of supporting Zipline’s long-term growth.
This is an in-person role based at our headquarters in South San Francisco with approximately 25–40% global travel.
What You'll Do
- Lead the development and execution of Zipline’s global sourcing strategy across all direct materials and strategic supplier relationships while building and scaling a best-in-class Strategic Sourcing organization.
- Develop and own Zipline’s end-to-end global sourcing strategy across all commodities, technologies, and production programs to support current operations and future product roadmaps.
- Lead, mentor, and develop the Global Supply Management organization, including Commodity Leads and Global Supply Managers, establishing high-performance operating mechanisms, career development, and organizational capability.
- Own executive relationships with Zipline’s most strategic global suppliers, serving as the primary commercial escalation point for critical business issues, executive negotiations, and strategic partnerships.
- Establish sourcing strategies that optimize cost, quality, delivery, capacity, resiliency, innovation, and long-term competitive advantage across the entire supply base.
- Lead negotiation of complex, high-value global supply agreements, long-term pricing strategies, capacity reservations, intellectual property protections, and strategic commercial partnerships.
- Build sourcing governance processes that ensure disciplined supplier selection, competitive bidding, should-cost analysis, contract management, and executive sourcing reviews.
- Partner closely with Engineering, Supplier Industrialization, Manufacturing, Planning, Quality, Finance, and Legal to ensure sourcing strategies enable aggressive product development timelines and production scaling.
- Drive enterprise-wide supplier performance through executive business reviews, scorecards, performance management, supplier development initiatives, and continuous improvement programs.
- Develop comprehensive supply risk management strategies including geographic diversification, dual sourcing, capacity planning, business continuity, geopolitical risk mitigation, and supplier financial health monitoring.
- Identify opportunities for vertical integration, strategic partnerships, technology investments, and supply chain transformation initiatives that strengthen Zipline’s long-term competitive position.
- Build executive reporting and sourcing metrics that provide visibility into cost performance, supplier health, delivery execution, sourcing pipeline, contractual obligations, and strategic initiatives.
- Represent Supply Chain leadership in executive reviews, product planning, manufacturing strategy discussions, and long-range business planning.
- Foster a culture of ownership, accountability, operational excellence, and first-principles thinking throughout the Strategic Sourcing organization.
What You'll Bring
- ·15+ years of progressive experience in Strategic Sourcing, Supply Chain, Global Procurement, Commodity Management, or Supply Chain Leadership within aerospace, robotics, automotive, advanced manufacturing, semiconductor, or other high-technology industries.
- Significant experience building and leading high-performing global sourcing organizations responsible for multiple commodities, global supply chain execution, and high-complexity commercial dealmaking.
- Demonstrated success developing enterprise sourcing strategies that support rapid product development, manufacturing scale, and global operations.
- Proven executive-level negotiation experience involving complex global supply agreements, strategic partnerships, long-term commercial contracts, and multi-year supplier relationships.
- Extensive experience leading supplier strategy across complex global manufacturing environments with demanding technical, quality, and operational requirements.
- Strong understanding of global manufacturing, supply chain economics, contract law, supplier risk management, capacity planning, and cost optimization.
- Demonstrated ability to influence executive leadership while partnering effectively across Engineering, Operations, Finance, Legal, Product Management, and Manufacturing.
- Track record of building organizational capability through leadership development, coaching, succession planning, and operational excellence.
- Strong analytical capabilities including total cost modeling, should-cost analysis, executive business reviews, market intelligence, and long-range sourcing strategy.
- Exceptional communication, executive presence, and decision-making skills with the ability to lead through ambiguity and rapidly changing business priorities.
Major Bonuses
- Experience leading Strategic Sourcing organizations supporting highly-engineered, complex products at huge production volumes.
- Background scaling supply chains for disruptive hardware companies from new product introduction through global production.
- Experience managing an international supply base across North America, Europe, and Asia.
- Demonstrated success negotiating transformational commercial agreements resulting in significant cost savings, improved supply resiliency, and long-term strategic advantage.
- Experience with aerospace, aviation, robotics, autonomous systems, medical devices, or other highly regulated manufacturing environments.
- MBA or advanced degree in Engineering, Supply Chain, Business, or related discipline.
- Strong understanding of manufacturing technologies including precision machining, composites, electronics, batteries, motors, PCBAs, and advanced materials.
- Experience leading organizational transformation and building scalable sourcing processes, systems, and operational metrics.
- Experience leading large, high-performing organizations, including both individual contributors as well as “managers of managers”
What Else You Need To Know
Zipline is an equal opportunity employer and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws or our own sensibilities.
We value diversity at Zipline and welcome applications from those who are traditionally underrepresented in tech. If you like the sound of this position but are not sure if you are the perfect fit, please apply!
Voluntary Self-Identification
For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.
As set forth in Zipline ’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.
