Juan Padilla
PriceSmart ,Inc
Miami,Florida
2
Languages
1
Certification
15
years of professional experience
Senior Global Buyer directs sourcing, pricing, and supplier negotiations across high-volume grocery categories. Balances forecasting, gross margin, and vendor performance to support stronger purchase decisions and cleaner assortments. Partners with management and buying staff to build category plans that improve product availability and commercial results.
Work History
Global Buyer Produce
1 Year 2 Months- Developed succession, capability, and knowledge-sharing strategies to enhance Produce buying expertise across organization.
- Own the overall commercial performance of the Produce category, including sales, gross margin, inventory productivity, shrink, claims, and overall profitability.
- Establish strategic partnerships with key growers, exporters, importers, distributors, and industry partners to strengthen PriceSmart's global supply network.
- Lead high-level negotiations with strategic suppliers covering cost, programs, rebates, payment terms, freight, volume commitments, quality standards, and long-term commercial agreements.
- Anticipate global supply risks related to weather, crop conditions, production changes, geopolitical events, logistics disruptions, regulatory requirements, and market volatility and establish mitigation strategies.
- Partner with Supply Chain leadership to optimize international transportation, distribution, lead times, inventory positioning, and supply-chain costs
Global Buyer Food Service
5 Years- Lead the global sourcing and purchasing strategy for Food Service categories.
- Managed and developed strategic supplier relationships across PriceSmart markets to enhance sourcing effectiveness.
- Negotiated product costs, commercial terms, and other supplier agreements to optimize financial outcomes.
- Identified new sourcing opportunities and business partnerships to expand product offerings and improve market competitiveness.
- Partner with Supply Chain and Operations to develop efficient sourcing and distribution strategies across PriceSmart markets.
- Lead category portfolio development, including assortment strategy, product innovation, supplier diversification, and product lifecycle management
- Reduced costs significantly by identifying and eliminating inefficiencies within purchasing department.
Corporate Buyer-Poultry/Gourmet Deli/Prepared Foods
2 Years 3 Months- Developed procurement strategies aligned with corporate objectives to enhance supply chain efficiency.
- Managed vendor relationships, ensuring compliance with quality standards and timely delivery schedules.
- Analyze sales, margins, inventory, forecasts, market trends, and product performance to make informed purchasing decisions.
- Partner with suppliers and Quality Assurance to ensure products meet PriceSmart's quality, food safety, packaging, labeling, and specification requirements.
- Collaborate with Operations and Fresh Foods teams to improve product presentation, quality, shelf life, and member experience.
- Prepare business reviews, forecasts, category analysis, and recommendations for leadership.
- Ensure purchasing decisions align with PriceSmart's financial, operational, quality, and strategic objectives
Assistant Buyer -Deli/Gourmet Deli/Prepared Foods
1 Year 9 Months- Developed and executed strategies for merchandise assortment, vendor relations management, and marketing cadences management.
- Designed and implemented creative merchandise displays to enhance customer engagement
- Examined sales history and reported findings to the buyer to help reduce excess ordering
- Maintain vendor database and generate marketing and sales reports.
- Maintained vendor database and generated marketing and sales reports.
- Obtaining competitive price quotes.
- Developed creative and compelling merchandise displays
- Led negotiations and problem resolution discussions with suppliers
- Obtained competitive price quotes.
Inventory Control Analysis
8 Months- Allocated inventory efficiently and analyzed merchandise performance.
- Analyzes sales and stock levels to ensure that reorder recommendations made by the replenishment system reflect the sales trend, presentation standards and turnover goals
- Allocated inventory efficiently and analyzed merchandise performance as needed
- Updated Inventory Manager on current projects and identified opportunities for improvement
- Analyzed sales and stock levels to align reorder recommendations with sales trends and turnover goals
- Manage stock levels in warehouse and work in progress work areas
- Cleared damaged items and loaded freight
IT Specialist
4 Years 5 Months- Led trace team for implementing the use of Extended Events on SQL Server.
- Debug and maintain server and web-based applications
- Analyzed database management solutions to introduce ideas to increase repository storage needs by 50%.
- Address performance issues and implement recovery procedures.
- Analyzed database management solutions, proposing strategies to enhance repository storage capacity by 50%.
- Maintains database performance by identifying and resolving production and application development problems.
- Exposed mainframe elimination by migrating data from IBM mainframe to Novell file servers and Oracle databases.
- Performed network support tasks for WAN,LAN and remote Dial-In clients running Microsoft Windows XP,2000 or NT.
- Design and manage backups, recovery processes and business continuity recovery plans.
- Responsible for daily development in a mid-sized customer service firm.
- Create new inventory schedules to address individual store issues.
- Plan the install of new versions of the application its tools and any other tools that access the database.
- Provided analysis and documentation of all user reports & interfaces related to the AS400 systems
- Built in Wireless Communication using FSO technology.
- Plan the install of new versions of the application its tools and any other tools that access the database.
Education
M.S - Information Systems Management
- Obtained on July 2017
- GPA: 3.6
Certified in Production and Inventory Management (CPIM)
B.B.S - Information Technology
obtained on December 2012
A.A.S - Information Technology
obtained on August 2010
Skills
Negotiation
Supplier sourcing
Vendor relations management
Purchasing strategy
Supplier performance management
Merchandising plan development
Assortment planning
Inventory forecasting
Gross margin analysis
Purchase order processing
Category management
Promotional calendar planning
Cost of goods analysis
Certification
- PICS
- Certified in Production and Inventory Management (CPIM)
Languages
Spanish
Native or Bilingual
English
Full Professional
Timeline
Global Buyer Produce
PriceSmart ,Inc
06.2025 - CurrentRead More
Global Buyer Food Service
PriceSmart, Inc
06.2020 - 06.2025Read More
Corporate Buyer-Poultry/Gourmet Deli/Prepared Foods
PriceSmart,Inc
03.2018 - 06.2020Read More
Assistant Buyer -Deli/Gourmet Deli/Prepared Foods
PriceSmart,Inc
06.2016 - 03.2018Read More
Inventory Control Analysis
PriceSmart,Inc
10.2015 - 06.2016Read More
IT Specialist
PriceSmart,Inc
05.2011 - 10.2015Read More
Monroe College
A.A.S from Information Technology
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Monroe College
B.B.S from Information Technology
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PICS
Certified in Production and Inventory Management (CPIM)
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DeVry University
M.S from Information Systems Management
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