Vendor Management Lead

Location: Basingstoke (Hybrid working, 3 office days per week)

Employment Type: Permanent, Full Time

Why Join Us?

• Annual bonus, cash car allowance and private medical insurance
• Shape and embed The AA’s critical data governance operating model across a large, complex organisation
• Build a meaningful Group wide capability with strong executive sponsorship and the opportunity to influence how data is governed from an early stage
• Play a key role in ensuring trusted, high-quality data supports better decision making, customer outcomes and our growing Data and AI ambitions

For over a century, The AA has been keeping Britain moving. Today, millions of drivers trust us to be there when it matters most, and we're equally committed to supporting the people who make that possible. With a 4.5-star Glassdoor rating, we've built a culture where colleagues are empowered to grow, collaborate and make a real impact for our customers on every journey. Which has been recognised by Sunday Times “Best Places to Work” for the last two years. 

This is the Job

We’re looking for a Vendor Management Lead to join our Transformation business area, working within our enterprise Portfolio Management Office.

This is a newly created role and an opportunity to shape how vendor management operates across a complex organisation. You’ll establish and develop our central vendor management framework, bringing greater consistency, transparency and control across the full vendor lifecycle. With strategic and critical vendors supporting multiple functions, contracts and services, you’ll create a consolidated view of performance, risk, commercial exposure, contractual obligations, resilience and key dependencies.

Working across Procurement, Risk, Legal, Finance, Cyber, Technology and business teams, you’ll bring together information and insight to ensure our most important third party relationships are managed effectively. You’ll provide senior stakeholders with clear visibility of vendor performance and risk while driving continuous improvement in governance, reporting and vendor management practices.

What You’ll Do

• Establish, own and continuously evolve the central vendor management framework, including appropriate standards, lifecycle controls, governance, roles and minimum requirements.
• Provide portfolio level oversight of strategic, critical and high risk vendors, maintaining a clear view across performance, contracts, spend, risk, issues, dependencies and criticality.
• Establish effective vendor governance, performance measures, KPIs, SLAs and scorecards, challenging persistent underperformance and ensuring material issues and recovery actions are driven through to closure.
• Maintain oversight of contract milestones, renewals and key obligations, working closely with Procurement and other functions to identify commercial opportunities, risks and required actions.
• Identify and manage portfolio wide vendor risks and dependencies, including concentration, resilience, continuity and exit considerations across critical third parties.
• Produce clear vendor MI, dashboards and executive insight, bringing together inputs from across the organisation to support informed decisions and continuously improve the maturity of vendor management.

What You’ll Bring

• Strong experience across vendor management, supplier management, third party management, procurement governance or outsourcing oversight within a large, complex organisation.
• Experience managing or providing oversight across a portfolio of strategic or critical vendors, rather than focusing solely on individual suppliers or contracts.
• Strong understanding of the end to end vendor lifecycle, including governance, performance management, contractual oversight, risk, resilience and escalation.
• The ability to interpret commercial, contractual, operational and risk information and translate this into clear, actionable management insight.
• Experience producing meaningful dashboards, scorecards and management information for senior stakeholders, with strong analytical and organisational capability.
• Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills, with the ability to coordinate effectively across Procurement, Risk, Legal, Finance, Technology and business teams without relying on direct authority.

Nice to Have

• Experience establishing, designing or maturing an enterprise vendor management framework or capability.
• Knowledge of third party risk management, operational resilience, vendor segmentation, criticality assessment and exit planning.
• Experience using vendor repositories, contract management tools or third party risk platforms.

Belonging at The AA

At The AA, we value the unique perspectives, experiences and ideas that our people bring. We've nurtured a workplace where everyone feels valued, respected and empowered to do their best work.

Through our employee communities and inclusion initiatives, we’ve created opportunities for people to connect, share experiences and influence positive change across the business. This is a place where your voice matters and where you can belong, grow and succeed.

Driven by People, Rewarded by Benefits

We believe in rewarding our people. That's why we offer a comprehensive benefits package including;

• 25 days' annual leave plus bank holidays, the option to buy additional holiday
• Up to 7% employer pension contribution
• Free AA breakdown membership from Day One with 50% discount for family and friends, discounts on AA products including car and home insurance
• 24/7 GP access and wellbeing support for you and your family
• A wide range of employee discounts, including our popular car salary sacrifice scheme

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