Shanghai, China
Welcome to my profile, I’m Alexander Nijdam — an ambitious, entrepreneurial professional with a background in Supply Chain Management and Industrial Engineering. Currently, I serve as Head of Procurement Engineering at Dyson. Driven by the motto “learn something new every day,” my career has taken me from The Netherlands, toHong Kong and Shanghai. In my current role, I’m developing the Procurement Engineering function at Dyson, building a team who represents Procurement early in the new product development and with an eye on sourcing strategy and value engineering. I manage a global team of procurement professionals with the goal of being the best in business partnering. Core strengths: Enthusiastic | Entrepreneurial | Team Leadership | Strategic Thinking | Analytical | Strong Communicator | Chinese Proficiency | Global Perspective
In this role I build and manage a high performing Procurement Engineering team at Dyson to bridge engineering requirements with strategic sourcing across the product lifecycle with Dyson's Joint Development Partners. We set and execute sourcing strategies, develop, partner closely with R&D, Manufacturing and Supply Chain. Focus areas include value engineering, best-of-bom, should‑cost analysis, risk management, dual sourcing and driving innovation and cost competitiveness from concept through commercialization.
In this global director-level leadership role, I oversee all procurement and supplier management activities for the Healthy Cooking category, leading a team of professionals across Europe and Asia. Healthy Cooking is the largest category within Versuni’s Kitchen Life business, anchored by our flagship Philips Air Fryers and Air Steam Cookers. These products are designed to offer healthier cooking solutions — from reducing the use of oil in frying to preserving nutrients through steam-based cooking — enabling consumers to prepare a broader range of nutritious meals.
Air business category is responsible for the Air Purifier, Humidifier, Dehumidifier, and adjacent Air business within Philips Domestic Appliances. I represent procurement in the business MT and lead a team of procurement professionals who support the new product development and Internet-of-Things projects as well as manage the key suppliers to this category. I define and execute the strategy from procurement perspective in new product development, sourcing, make-or-buy and design-for-excellence initiatives.
As Senior Procurement Engineer, also known as Senior Manager Procurement Engineering, I take care of the Procurement role in New Product Development, sourcing for suppliers to partner with for our future propositions. In this specific role I'm working closer to our key supply base in South China as well as cooperate extensively with the Philips factory in Zhuhai. Next to that key activities are driving Design for Excellence and cost down programs in the business.
As Procurement Engineer for Beauty I take part in development projects to launch new products to the market, enable Early Supplier Involvement and challenge the business on technical specifications. With leading Design for eXcellence initiatives I try not only to generate savings but also enable value up for our products. Not only trying to find savings for the business in the obvious ways but also allow a certain degree of out-of-the-box thinking. Another responsibility for the Procurement Engineer is to manage supply risk throughout the lifecycle of a product in terms of cost, quality and availability.
The Design for eXcellence team gives training and coaches people to drive projects to deliver cost savings and enhance customer value across the Philips businesses. Besides writing my thesis here I provided and held workshops in methods like Value Stream Mapping and Reversed Engineering/Tear Down.
Entrepreneur and co-founder of DeVention VOF, inventors of the Solar Bell, the solar powered doorbell. Tasks involve everything within a startup company, product development, marketing, sales, production coordination, purchasing and customer relationship management.
The Academic Business Club is an association that encourages entrepreneurship among students. Beside the regular Board Member activities I am the treasurer of the board. I am responsible of the financial side of the association. Making sure our Strategy and Operations are executed within the financial bandwith of the association, maintaining the financial sustainability of the Academic Business Club.