Senior Expeditor

Talascend is currently seeking a Senior Expeditor for a contract opportunity with our client in Richmond, Virginia.

Overview

The senior expeditor will manage critical and long-lead procurement packages from purchase order award through final delivery. This role works closely with procurement, engineering, quality, logistics, construction, project controls, and suppliers to identify schedule risks, resolve execution issues, and drive mitigation and recovery actions.

Responsibilities

• Execute expediting activities for assigned equipment, materials, and supplier deliverables supporting capital project execution.
• Manage purchase orders and critical equipment packages through manufacturing, inspection, shipment, and final delivery.
• Develop and maintain package-level expediting plans aligned with purchase order requirements and project delivery milestones.
• Review purchase orders, supplier schedules, manufacturing plans, and required delivery dates to establish expediting priorities.
• Conduct supplier follow-up meetings to monitor engineering, submittals, procurement, fabrication, assembly, inspection, testing, documentation, shipping, and delivery activities.
• Verify supplier progress against contractual milestones and project schedule requirements.
• Identify supplier delays, bottlenecks, and schedule risks, and escalate issues when required.
• Work with suppliers to establish mitigation and recovery plans for schedule deviations.
• Monitor critical-path and long-lead equipment to ensure alignment with required-on-site dates and construction priorities.
• Track supplier engineering data, drawings, submittals, documentation, inspection requirements, and other deliverables that could affect manufacturing or delivery schedules.
• Coordinate with engineering and suppliers to resolve technical questions, drawing reviews, and engineering deliverables affecting supplier progress.
• Coordinate with quality and inspection personnel to ensure inspections, testing, factory acceptance tests, and release activities support the planned delivery schedule.
• Coordinate with logistics and suppliers to ensure equipment and materials are prepared for shipment and delivered according to project requirements.
• Maintain accurate supplier progress information, delivery forecasts, expediting reports, dashboards, and package status updates.
• Document supplier commitments, action items, schedule concerns, and recovery activities, and follow through to closure.
• Provide timely information to procurement and project controls to support forecasting, schedule updates, and project reporting.
• Participate in supplier progress meetings, schedule reviews, procurement meetings, and project risk reviews.
• Perform supplier shop visits and field expediting to verify manufacturing progress and assess schedule risk when required.
• Evaluate actual supplier progress against reported progress and contractual milestones.
• Identify and escalate supplier performance issues that may affect construction sequencing, commissioning, qualification, or operational readiness.
• Support supplier corrective actions and performance improvement initiatives.
• Coordinate with procurement, engineering, quality, construction, logistics, project controls, and operations to support integrated project delivery.
• Identify potential schedule impacts resulting from engineering changes, supplier changes, or revised project requirements.
• Escalate significant supplier, manufacturing, documentation, logistics, or delivery risks to the appropriate leadership.
• Support the development and implementation of standardized expediting processes, reporting tools, and best practices.
• Provide guidance and technical support to less experienced expeditors and other project personnel.
• Maintain professional supplier relationships while ensuring suppliers remain accountable for contractual commitments.
• Support additional procurement and materials management activities as required to achieve project objectives.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in supply chain management, business, engineering, construction management, or a related discipline preferred; relevant experience may be considered in lieu of degree requirements where appropriate.
• Minimum 5 years of experience in expediting, procurement, materials management, supply chain, manufacturing, logistics, or project support roles.
• Experience managing complex equipment, material, or supplier packages through manufacturing and delivery.
• Experience supporting pharmaceutical, biotechnology, life sciences, manufacturing, EPC, or EPCM projects.
• Strong understanding of procurement, purchase order administration, supplier manufacturing processes, logistics, and schedule management.
• Ability to understand and evaluate supplier manufacturing schedules, milestone dates, progress reports, and delivery forecasts.
• Ability to identify supplier schedule risks and drive effective mitigation and recovery actions.
• Experience coordinating with engineering, procurement, quality, logistics, construction, and project controls.
• Strong supplier-facing communication, negotiation, problem-solving, organizational, and analytical skills.
• Ability to manage multiple packages and competing priorities in a fast-paced capital project environment.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to clearly communicate supplier status, risks, and required actions.

Preferred Qualifications

• CPSM, CPM, APICS, or similar professional certification.
• Experience supporting pharmaceutical and biotechnology capital projects.
• Experience supporting greenfield and brownfield projects.
• Experience expediting major equipment packages and long-lead materials.
• Knowledge of pharmaceutical project requirements, including supplier documentation, quality requirements, inspection, factory acceptance testing, commissioning, qualification, and turnover activities.
• Experience conducting supplier shop visits and manufacturing progress assessments.
• Knowledge of international sourcing, global supply chains, logistics, and supplier manufacturing oversight.
• Experience with ERP, procurement, expediting, scheduling, or project controls systems.
• Experience identifying schedule risks and implementing supplier recovery plans.
• Prior experience supporting large-scale capital projects in a regulated environment.