International Vendor Manager - Mandarin Speaking, (Remote, USA)

Do you enjoy creating win-win situations that strengthen relationships? Do you speak Mandarin, and want to be a key problem solver within an organization? Do you crave an environment with low vendor turnover and building long term relationships? If so, then keep reading because Apex is seeking an experienced, confident, and proactive International Vendor Manager to lead the charge.

Who are we?

Apex is a leading provider of high-performance automotive wheels and wheel accessories, catering to the motorsport and performance car enthusiast community. We have a strong vision for the future, a powerful narrative about our brand, and an enthusiastic team to execute our plans. We’ve been in business for over 17 years and our team of 40+ staff are spread out remotely across the USA. 

Objective

The Vendor Manager at Apex is responsible for the health of relationships with our long-term contract manufacturing partners. Success in this role is measured by how well our vendors perform with respect to quality, timeliness, and cost, while maintaining long-term healthy partnerships that scale with us. Our current team members lack the bandwidth to communicate timely and consistently, and to overcome vendor issues with ease. This role would free our team up to focus on their core areas and make us less dependent on our negotiating consultants. 

Job Summary

At Apex, the International Vendor Manager will play a pivotal role in leading and nurturing key existing relationships with a small group of Southeast Asian contract manufacturers, and with time adding a few more. This is not a traditional supply chain role focused on managing purchase orders or rotating through a high volume of suppliers. Instead, the core of this position is about building long-term, strategic partnerships where trust, cultural understanding, and consistent execution are essential. The ideal candidate will bring a proven track record in supplier relationship management - not just in title, but through direct, hands-on ownership of vendor performance and accountability. This role is not well-suited for candidates whose experience has been within large teams where responsibilities are highly distributed and individual impact is difficult to assess. Similarly, those accustomed to managing high volumes of interchangeable suppliers producing generic, off-the-shelf products will find our environment fundamentally different. At Apex, we work with a select group of critical manufacturing suppliers to produce custom, highly technical products and the strength of those relationships is everything.  

Because we cannot afford to simply walk away from a supplier or pressure them with price competition, success in this role requires a nuanced, relationship-first approach. You’ll need to understand what motivates our manufacturing partners, gain their buy-in on shared success, and maintain open, respectful, and proactive communication. At the same time, we are looking for someone who can help us take these relationships to the next level by formalizing expectations and accountability through thoughtfully structured supplier contracts, and constantly improving terms and practices that are mutually agreed upon. You must have direct experience drafting, implementing, and upholding supplier agreements, ideally in collaboration with internal leadership and legal council. These contracts will serve as a framework to protect our interests, minimize risk, and define clear standards around lead times, quality, communication, and corrective actions.

While our international suppliers generally communicate in English, it is typically not their first language, which is why Mandarin verbal fluency is required and represents one of the most valuable contributions you can bring to this role. We need you to bridge language barriers on behalf of engineering and production teams. Your communication will help reduce problems to a few short calls instead of weeks of back and forth emails. On key negotiation calls that include our executives and the leadership of our supplier, you will lead meetings and translate our team's communication. We want you to speak directly to their leadership so that our team’s English is not being misrepresented by their translators. Just as important, the ideal candidate will have firsthand experience with Southeast Asian business culture, ideally gained through travel or extended stays in the region. At a minimum, you will be expected to visit our suppliers annually, though more frequent trips may be necessary to build trust, resolve issues, and provide boots-on-the-ground visibility during new system setup. Travel to tradeshows such as the SEMA show would also be needed. Although we envision building a local support presence in the near future, this role will be solely responsible for managing these relationships today.

Keeping our suppliers aligned on timelines, product quality, and communication standards will require diligence, strong organization, and consistent follow-through. You must be the kind of person who sets regular check-ins and follows up even when it’s inconvenient. A reactive approach will not suffice, and if you are not proactively managing deliverables, checking status without being prompted, and holding both internal and external stakeholders accountable, things will quickly fall apart. 

While you will work remotely from your home within the contiguous United States, you will need to be available for early morning or late evening calls to accommodate time zone differences. You’ll also be expected to participate in occasional in-person team-building events, either at our headquarters in Pleasanton, California or at another US-based location.

This position reports directly to the COO and, eventually, to the CFO. You will work closely with our Inventory & Demand Manager and his team, who oversee forecasting, purchasing, and logistics. While those responsibilities are handled by others, collaboration will be critical to ensure that our manufacturing partners are aligned and capable of meeting shifting demand. This role may evolve to include people-management as we grow, but we’ll expect you to create efficiencies, maybe even the use of AI tools, before we add to our headcount. You will also partner with our Engineering and Customer Service teams to identify, investigate, and resolve quality issues. 

Our contract manufacturers are not accustomed to our level of scrutiny, and your role will be to install the safeguards that prevent recurring problems, while also addressing issues with tact, firmness, and clarity. You’ll need to anticipate risks, create and enforce contract-based expectations, and negotiate fair resolutions that protect Apex from unnecessary cost or disruption. Success in this role means being respected by both our suppliers and internal teams for your accountability, cultural fluency, problem-solving, and execution. In many ways you are our key problem solver, helping others overcome their issues where the vendor is the core problem.

Who are you?

• Communication is your superpower. You can clearly articulate expectations and ensure understanding, even across language barriers. You embrace conflict as a tool to build relationships.
• You see the value in long-term partnerships and know what it takes to build and maintain them.
• Your motivation to work isn’t dependent on being in an office around others. You can concentrate and avoid distractions when working from home.
• You balance kindness and curiosity and are not afraid to ask questions, stick your nose in, or stick your neck out.
• You naturally want to use tools to keep projects well organized and it won’t take pressure from a manager to do so.
• Proactive and adaptable, you anticipate problems before they arise and implement solutions to keep operations running smoothly.
• Improving the efficiency of a process or automating it all together puts a huge smile on your face.
• You’d rather go slow and deliberate than suffer poor quality or outcomes.
• Your ability to promote a vision or idea can convince vendors to make investments and concessions on our behalf.

How to Apply:

When submitting your application, please include a cover letter that answers the following question: How have you tailored your vendor management approach when dealing with single or dual sourcing suppliers? Mention specific challenges you've faced and how you've overcome them. If you've never used single or dual sourcing before, tell us about your experience onboarding new suppliers. Mention specific challenges you've faced and how you've overcome them.

Responsibilities

• Vendor Relationship Management: Lead morning or early evening group calls to check in with vendors and solve problems. Maintain timely, clear, and thorough communication with all suppliers, tracking all deliverables due for both sides. Own vendor relationships and consistently and proactively follow up with suppliers for their deliverables to ensure production objectives are not delayed by any supplier-side disorganization.
• Contracts and Negotiation: Manage supplier contracts and pricing negotiations. Help onboard new suppliers and improve contracts and standards with existing suppliers.
• Quality Management: Hold vendors accountable by improving our contract language and following up on all issues and credits until they’re resolved/paid.  Reduce product issues by pushing each vendor to improve quality control. Own each problem and work with vendors and various department heads to catch issues and find solutions. Chase vendors down for compensation for errors and implement solutions to prevent repeats.
• Continuous Improvement: Improve our current processes and results using APICS or another similar methodology. Establish department-level KPIs in alignment with organizational goals.
• Project Management: Project manage team’s deliverables for better clarity and delegation. Use software tools to stay well organized. Prioritize projects and issues in line with Apex's goals and strategy.

• Collaboration: Act as a liaison to Engineering, Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, and fulfillment teams to ensure that information is being disseminated to relevant team members and the factory. Support engineering by keeping your finger on the pulse around run-rates of molds and provide for future projects.
• People-Management: Eventually you may participate in people-management from hiring to termination. Conduct performance evaluations and provide consistent and regular feedback (we like Radical Candor) both verbally and through Employee Engagement software. Provide coaching and mentoring to team members in pursuit of their Objectives and Key Results, and help them course correct when necessary. 

• Excellent English written and verbal communication skills.
• Excellent Mandarin verbal skills required, but reading/writing skills is an optional plus
• A bachelors degree in Supply Chain Management, Materials Management, Business or another relevant area is highly preferred.
• APICS certification or similar supply chain certification is preferred.
• 5+ years experience in purchasing, production and manufacturing with significant responsibilities related to vendor management.
• 5+ years experience managing relationships with Mandarin speaking contract manufacturers is required.
• 3+ years of experience managing vendor relationships where products are single or dual-sourced.
• Ability to travel up to 15%, domestic and international.
• Detail-oriented and a proclivity towards analytical and critical thinking.
• Proficiency in ERP systems (such as Netsuite) and forecasting software is a plus
• Slack, Gmail experience preferred.
• Project Management experience and the use of PM software is a plus (Click-Up).
• Car enthusiasts get bonus points

• Compensation: Full-time, salaried exempt, position $100K - 130K total comp depending on location and experience.
• Medical Benefits: We cover 100% of monthly premiums for employees and their dependents under the age of 14 on our base plans and geneous contributions towards premiums for your other dependents. Plus, we have a wide variety of other medical plans, so you can contribute to a more robust plan if it suits your needs. Several plans include access to an HSA account!
• Dental and Vision: We cover 100% of the monthly premiums for employees on our base plans, plus affordable buy up options including orthodontic coverage.
• 401(k) with Company Match: We make generous matching contributions after 6 months of full-time employment.
• Paid Time Off: Vacation begins accruing immediately, increasing over time and with career growth. Sick leave accrues beginning on your first day. Enjoy 11 paid holidays including Juneteenth and Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
• Track-Day Reimbursements: Support your track addiction with reimbursements for HPDE, autocross event registration fees, and more.
• Employee Discounts: Get employee discounts and freebies on Apex products and swag (did we mention friends and family discounts?).
• Work Remote: Work remotely from your home, anywhere in the contiguous US.
• Casual Environment: Casual in-office dress environment where T-shirts, jeans, and shorts are welcome. Participate in company activities including karting, spectating at races, sim racing, and more.

About the work environment:

While performing the duties of this job, you will be regularly required to stand, sit, talk, hear, reach, stoop, kneel, and use hands and fingers to operate a computer, telephone, and keyboard. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision requirements due to computer work. Ability to sit at a computer terminal for an extended period. Light lifting may be required. Occasional travel, domestic and international, is estimated to be about 15% of the time. Regular, predictable attendance is required. You’ll have a high degree of control over your working environment, as you’ll be primarily working from your home-office.