Principal, Strategic Procurement

The Vendor Procurement Principal is a senior-level role responsible for driving complex vendor negotiation and acquisition that align with enterprise strategy transformation objectives. This position ensures that procurement activities support modernization initiatives, regulatory compliance, and operational efficiency under the Strategic Transformation Officer (STO). This role promotes critical advisory and sourcing to ensure support for business initiatives ensuring operational efficiency, scalability, and innovation.

This role collaborates with existing organizational vendor-related roles and external consultants to champion and ensure vendor expectations are met or exceeded. This role will consult with and support stakeholders to ensure that vendors and their products promote sustainable technology modernization that adheres to regulatory obligations, accelerates enterprise transformation, ensures business alignment and supports the organization's multi-year growth strategy.
The Vendor Procurement Principal is accountable for initiating the lifecycle of this strategic value stream including governance, intake, prioritization, capacity alignment, budget stewardship, risk/issue controls, vendor selection, change management and transparent reporting to ensure decision clarity, market readiness, investment accountability, and organizational performance.

* Embed procurement strategies within the five-year roadmap, ensuring vendor partnerships accelerate technology modernization, margin improvement, and operational scalability.
* Support initiatives tied to the Board-approved plan, including investments in enterprise platforms and services that deliver a tech-enabled, human-centered experience.
* Lead end-to-end vendor acquisition processes, including RFP development, ROI analysis, and negotiation.
* Partner with internal stakeholders and external consultants to ensure vendor solutions align with transformation goals and regulatory obligations.
* Draft and review statements of work and service-level agreements (SLAs) tailored to business needs.
* In collaboration with business owners, establish and enforce SLAs and performance guarantees within vendor contracts to ensure measurable service delivery standards, including defining KPIs, monitoring compliance, and driving corrective actions when commitments are not met.
* Develop and issue RFIs to applicable vendors and coordinate applicable demos, proofs of concept and implementation needs for efficient and effective product selection and manageable cost structure.
* Collaborate with Legal, Compliance, and Vendor Risk teams to mitigate risks and ensure adherence to contract requirements, vendor policies and business Associate and First Tier, Downstream and Related Entity (FDR) criteria.
* Maintain procurement documentation and provide transparent reporting on vendor performance, financial impact, and risk controls.
* Support governance processes for prioritization, capacity alignment, and budget stewardship.
* Align with vendor business owners to install vendor performance oversight and monitoring.
* Identify opportunities for contract consolidation and renegotiation to optimize cost and service delivery.
* Support and recommend KPIs for transformation success (e.g., cost efficiency, speed-to-market).and recommend objectives and key results for stakeholders.
* Analyze data to pinpoint issues, assess risks, and make data-driven decisions.
* Participate in, adhere to, and support compliance, people and culture, and learning programs.
* Perform other duties as assigned.

Essential Background Requirements:

Education: Bachelor's degree in business administration, supply chain, operations management, or other directly applicable field or equivalent education/experience. Procurement certification, MBA or advanced degree preferred.

Experience:
o 8+ years of experience in procurement, vendor management, contract management, and strategic sourcing preferably within a regulated industry.
o Strong knowledge of contract requirements, SLA development, and risk management frameworks.
o Proven ability to lead cross-functional teams and influence senior stakeholders.
o Exceptional negotiation, analytical, and communication skills.
o Proven experience with services and products using artificial intelligence and progressive technologies

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