Director, Procurement (12-month contract)

Position Summary

The Procurement Director leads the execution and continued development of the enterprise procurement and vendor management function. The role owns procurement strategy, category planning, strategic sourcing, complex commercial negotiations, supplier governance, and procurement performance reporting, while ensuring alignment with business priorities, financial objectives, risk requirements, and company policies.

Working closely with business leaders, Legal, Finance, Information Security, Risk, and operational teams, the Director converts business demand and spend insights into actionable sourcing plans, measurable savings, stronger supplier performance, and timely contract outcomes. The role also provides day-to-day leadership, coaching, and prioritization for Procurement team members.

Key Responsibilities

Procurement Strategy and Category Leadership (25%)

• Execute the annual procurement plan, category strategies, sourcing pipeline, and savings roadmap in alignment with business and financial priorities.
• Use spend, market, supplier, and demand analysis to identify consolidation, cost optimization, competitive sourcing, and contract improvement opportunities.
• Establish sourcing approaches and negotiation strategies for key IT, software, cloud, telecom, Hardware and operational categories.
• Advise senior leadership on market trends, procurement risks, commercial options, investment trade-offs, and supplier strategies.

Strategic Sourcing and Commercial Leadership (30%)

• Lead high-value, complex, and business-critical sourcing engagements from intake and market assessment through competitive process, negotiation, approval, and contract execution.
• Direct RFIs, RFQs, and RFPs; establish evaluation criteria; facilitate stakeholder scoring; conduct commercial analysis; and present recommendations and business cases to decision-makers.
• Lead negotiations with strategic suppliers on pricing, service levels, liability, risk allocation, implementation commitments, renewal protections, and other key commercial and contractual terms.
• Partner with Legal and control functions to resolve complex issues, document risk-based recommendations, and escalate material decisions to the appropriate executives.
• Oversee renewals, amendments, change orders, and Statements of Work to ensure commercial value, clear deliverables, acceptance criteria, and appropriate governance.

Governance Vendor Risk and Performance (20%)

• Own procurement policies, approval standards, sourcing and contracting playbooks, and compliance controls; monitor adoption and address process gaps.
• Ensure supplier onboarding, due diligence, and contracting activities are coordinated with Legal, Information Security, Risk, Finance, and other required reviewers.
• Follow the risk-based vendor governance and performance framework, including service reviews, scorecards, remediation plans, executive escalation, and renewal decisions for critical suppliers.
• Maintain visibility into key contract obligations, renewals, concentration risks, service issues, and commercial exposures, and provide clear recommendations to leadership.

Operations Analytics and Transformation (15%)

• Own the procurement engagement tracker, contract pipeline, renewal calendar, spend reporting, and leadership dashboards, ensuring data is accurate, timely, and decision-useful.
• Define and report procurement KPIs, including savings and cost avoidance, cycle time, sourcing activity, contract completion, renewal readiness, supplier performance, and onboarding progress.
• Drive process improvement through workflow redesign, automation, standardized templates, user guidance, and effective use of source-to-contract, CLM, ERP, and reporting tools.

Team and Stakeholder Leadership (10%)

• Lead, coach, and develop Procurement team members; allocate work, set priorities, review quality, and build consistent sourcing, contracting, analytics, and stakeholder-management capabilities.
• Build trusted relationships with business leaders, clarify procurement accountabilities, and ensure stakeholders receive timely, practical, and commercially sound support.
• Represent Procurement in cross-functional governance forums and lead supplier executive engagements, QBRs and escalations when required.

Qualifications and Experience

• 12 or more years of progressive experience in procurement, strategic sourcing, vendor management, or commercial contracting, including leadership of complex and high-value engagements.
• Demonstrated people leadership, coaching, work allocation, and quality oversight experience; formal team-management experience is strongly preferred.
• Strong experience negotiating IT agreements, including SaaS, AI, cloud, hardware, telecom, and professional services, as well as operational supplier agreements.
• At least five years of procurement experience in financial services, with sound understanding of third-party risk, governance, privacy, information security, and regulatory considerations.
• Proven ability to develop category strategies, lead competitive sourcing events, build executive-ready business cases, and deliver measurable savings and cost avoidance.
• Strong commercial judgment and working knowledge of contract structures, service levels, pricing models, liability allocation, implementation commitments, and supplier remedies.
• Advanced analytical and financial skills, including spend analysis, forecasting, total-cost-of-ownership analysis, benchmarking, and executive dashboards; advanced Excel proficiency is expected.
• Excellent executive communication, influencing, negotiation, and stakeholder-management skills, with the ability to make clear recommendations and manage competing priorities.
• Experience with CLM, ERP, source-to-contract, or procurement platforms such as GEP, Coupa, SAP Ariba, or Ivalua; experience implementing or optimizing these tools is an asset.
• Bachelor's degree in Business, Supply Chain, Finance, Law, or a related discipline is required. A relevant master's degree or professional designation such as SCMP, CPSM, or equivalent is an asset.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with stakeholders across North American time zones in a remote working environment.

Leadership Profile

• Strategic and commercially minded, with the ability to translate business objectives into executable procurement priorities.
• Decisive and accountable, with sound judgment on when to resolve issues independently and when to escalate material risk.
• Analytical, organized, and execution-focused, with strong attention to contractual, financial, and operational detail.
• Collaborative and service-oriented, while maintaining appropriate challenge, governance, and negotiation discipline.