Regional Senior Manager - Supply Relationships (Asia-based)

Summary:

Responsible for producer and supplier relationships and crops Asia and Oceania Regions. This role reports to the Director of Procurement, works remotely while making periodic site visits at both farm and wild collection production bases for selected prioritized crops and to post-harvest processing facilities, either operated by the producer or by processor/supplier, or both. The job entails relationship trust-building towards long-term retention of TM quality producers and suppliers, supporting long-term crop planning to prevent supply chain quality or quantity disruptions.

This person will also be a resource to the producers and suppliers, able to offer expert technical support, by being fluent in Good Agricultural and Collection Practices (GACPs) for medicinal plants, in pharmacopeial quality requirements for the medicinal plants used by TM, and in the compliance requirements of various voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) of relevance to TM, from Biodynamic to Organic, and Fair-For-Life to FairWild. Most importantly, the Responsible Person is an ambassador, the face of TM in the region.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities:

Relationships: Maintain trusting relationships throughout TM's botanical value chain from producer to processor to supplier to brand. Work cross-functionally to identify, qualify, and onboard new botanical suppliers into the TM supply network.

Periodic site visits: Monitor TM's prioritized crops (farmed and wild) at selected production bases in the TM botanical supply chain in Asian and Oceanian countries, mainly India and China, but also Australia, Japan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and eventually others. Facilitate arrangements for accompanying TM personnel on selected site visits. From time to time, this may include TM owners, members of the TM Board of Directors, members of the TM Executive Leadership Team, TM Directors, and some TM Managers.

Risk assessment: Assess crop risks (contamination, labor, weather) and document adaptation and sustainability measures. Provide insight to leadership on geopolitical

risks within responsible regions assisting with developing and deploying risk miti-gation tactics.

Capacity assessment: Assess the capacity of existing producers and determine whether additional producers are needed to expand TM's producer base. If yes, help to identify and develop additional producers according to the sourcing strategy for each botanical.

Technical cooperation: Help to ensure that TM will receive the contracted quantities of materials that meet TM's defined exceptional quality and sustainability requirements, i.e., pharmacopeial, organic, and fair. Upon request, provide technical support to producers and suppliers as needed in areas of Quality - Good Agricultural and Collection Practices (GACPs) for medicinal plants and TM quality specifications as per pharmacopeial standards; Sustainability: voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) compliance (organic & fair) in support of TM's goal of 80% Fair-for-Life by 2030.

Reporting: Write timely comprehensive site visit reports following TM's existing re-port structure, including photographs (and informed consent of photographed indi-viduals) and copies of currently valid certification and license documents relevant to each site. Provide timely and regular communications with key internal and external stakeholders. Identify and share relevant crop outlook, market, and trade intelligence data that may impact the TM supply chain.

Support: Support TM's Sourcing, including troubleshooting, in case of producer or sup-plier failures or sudden spikes in demand. Work in close coordination with the responsible person(s) for crops of other regions (Africa, Europe, and the Americas), as well as the Director of Quality, the Director of Supply Chain Planning, and selected Managers (Social Impact, Standards Compliance, Supplier Quality, and Sustainability Impact).

Represent: Represent TM at relevant networking opportunities with producers and sup-pliers in the region.

Minimum Requirements:

Ten to fifteen years of medicinal and aromatic plant producer and supplier development experience. Global/international herb production, processing, and im-port/export trade experience in the medicinal and aromatic plant sector.

Ability to communicate fluently (speaking and writing) in American or British Eng-lish, and one or more other languages relevant to the regions.

Knowledge or training in medicinal plant cultivation and wild collection practices.

Knowledge or training in pharmacopeial quality standards and Good Agricultural and Collection Practices (GACPs) for medicinal plant crops.

Education:

Bachelor's degree or equivalent in the Natural Sciences. Master's degree or Ph.D. in a botanical or related science preferred, such as, for example, Agronomy of Medicinal Plants; Ethnoecology, Ethnobotany & Medicinal Botany; Medical Herbalism; Medicinal Plant Biology & Conservation; or Pharmacognosy.

Other Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

Familiarity with the Government of India Biological Diversity (Amendment) Act 2023 and its applicable regulations such that the material supplied to TM is al-ways lawful and compliant to the local biodiversity regulations.

Botanical photography and landscape photography.

Strong planning and organizational skills.

Exceptional communication, reading comprehension, and writing skills (multilingual).

Keeps others informed of information that contributes to the performance of the team, department, or company.

Engender trust and respect in all working relationships; Collaborative.

Approachable and diplomatic.

Resourceful and self-sufficient understands how to execute with the resources of a company this size.

Ability to analyze business problems from both a qualitative and quantitative perspective.

Ability to think innovatively.

Travel

Ability to travel up to 75%, both domestically and internationally. The home base may be in Southern Asia.

A valid passport and no issues with obtaining Business Visas for travel to Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and possibly other countries in the Asian region such as Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Pakistan.

Physical/Mental Requirements:

While performing the duties of this job, the employee must be able to travel and work in rural and remote environments, sometimes with minimal infrastructure and limited ser-vices, including but not limited to the ability to take long-duration international flights, long-duration inland transportation by car and train, the ability to operate a computer, camera, office equipment, and prepare detailed site visit reports with photographs.

Traditional Medicinals, Inc. and its subsidiaries are proud equal-opportunity employers. We wholeheartedly embrace authenticity, diversity, and people's differences. We acknowledge,

celebrate, and support individuality to the great advantage of our consumers, stakeholders,

products, and the planet. We are committed to building an inclusive workplace for all our people.

We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, marital status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic information, gen-der, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or any other status protected under federal, state, or local law.