Professional Services Category Leader

TP; Portugal; On-site; EUR 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

TP is seeking a seasoned Professional Services Category Leader to drive group-wide procurement strategies for consulting, legal, HR services, marketing and other outsourced services. You will consolidate demand, lead major negotiations, and implement scalable frameworks with regional teams to maximize savings and ensure governance.

You will partner with Finance, Legal, HR and Marketing to align procurement with business goals, manage supplier risk, and drive continuous improvement across global

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required; Master's degree or MBA preferred; CIPS certification is a plus.
• 10+ years of procurement experience, including significant experience managing Professional Services categories in a multi-country environment.
• Proven track record of sourcing and negotiating professional services contracts: master service agreements, statements of work, rate cards and supplier panels.
• Strong knowledge of professional services markets and commercial models (fixed fee, time and materials, success fee, outcome-based).
• Experience building category strategies, supplier panels and Group frameworks, deploying them through regional teams in a matrixed global organization.
• Solid expertise in supplier performance and risk management.
• Ability to influence without direct authority; excellent communication skills with senior and C-level stakeholders.
• Industry experience in professional services, outsourced services, BPO or similar complex multi-region environment is strongly preferred.
• Fluent English required; additional languages are a plus. Willingness to travel.
• High integrity with an unwavering commitment to compliance, transparency, and ethical sourcing.

Responsibilities

• Define, build and maintain group category strategies for Professional Services aligned with corporate objectives.
• Lead end-to-end negotiations and tenders (master service agreements, statements of work, rate cards, group frameworks).
• Consolidate demand and create scalable regional and global contracts and supplier panels.
• Monitor savings, cost avoidance and contract coverage; report to senior stakeholders.
• Advise regional procurement teams on scoping, buying and managing professional services engagements.
• Share market intelligence on supplier landscapes and rate evolution to drive value.

Job description

Shape the Future with TP

Welcome to TP, a global leader in AI-powered digital business services where technology meets human empathy. Generating over €10 billion in annual revenue and backed by a global team of nearly 500,000 passionate experts, we partner with the world’s most iconic brands across nearly 100 countries in over 300 languages. By combining advanced artificial intelligence, proprietary technology, and high-touch human care, we redefine digital customer experience, process automation, and enterprise solutions.

Shape the Future with TP

Welcome to TP, a global leader in AI-powered digital business services where technology meets human empathy. Generating over €10 billion in annual revenue and backed by a global team of nearly 500,000 passionate experts, we partner with the world’s most iconic brands across nearly 100 countries in over 300 languages. By combining advanced artificial intelligence, proprietary technology, and high-touch human care, we redefine digital customer experience, process automation, and enterprise solutions.

As a certified Great Place to Work® across almost 100 countries, our foundation is built on an inclusive culture and a genuine sense of belonging. Whether you are driving digital transformation, elevating client success, or building cutting-edge solutions, your talent is the key to unlocking what’s next.

Why This Role Matters

TP is seeking a Professional Services Category Leader to lead TP's Professional Services categories at Group level, covering consulting and advisory, legal, finance, tax and audit, HR services (recruitment, temporary labour, training, benefits and HR advisory), marketing and communication, and other outsourced business services, excluding IT and AI. Reporting to the Non-IT Global Category Procurement Director, this leader will define groupwide category strategies, manage the Professional Services supplier panels, and act as the Group's reference for expertise, frameworks and best practices on these categories, working closely with Finance, Legal, HR, Marketing, Operations and regional procurement teams.

Professional Services spend at TP is highly fragmented across regions, functions and budget holders. The leader will therefore consolidate demand where scale creates value, transition suitable spend areas to Group agreements (e.g. training), and ensure that category strategies, preferred supplier panels, rate cards and commercial models are consistently deployed by regional and local procurement teams, for the benefit of both the Group and the regions, in terms of cost, quality of service and supplier risk.

How You Will Make An Impact

• Develop and maintain the Group category strategies for Professional Services: consulting and advisory, legal services, finance, tax and audit, HR services (recruitment, temporary labour, training, benefits and HR advisory), marketing and communication (agencies, events, research, production) and other outsourced business services, aligned with TP's corporate, financial and operational objectives.
• Analyze global and regional Professional Services spend, supplier fragmentation, contract renewals, statements of work, rate cards, demand drivers and market trends to build and deliver the category savings and cost optimization pipeline.
• Identify the spend areas where scale creates value and consolidate demand and suppliers into Group or regional contracts and panels, progressively bringing to global level the contracts that benefit from it (e.g. training).
• Track and report category performance (savings, cost avoidance, contract coverage, panel compliance) to the Non-IT Global Category Procurement Director.
• Define, build and maintain the preferred supplier panels for priority Professional Services categories at Group and regional level, including selection criteria, rate cards, onboarding and periodic panel reviews.
• Run supplier performance management with key suppliers: KPIs and SLAs, quality of deliverables, business reviews and continuous improvement plans.
• Manage supplier risk (financial, regulatory, data privacy, confidentiality, independence and conflict of interest, co-employment risk for temporary labour) in partnership with Legal and Risk.
• Monitor off-panel spend and drive the adoption of panel suppliers across regions and functions.
• Provide the regions and business functions with a common toolkit: sourcing playbooks, statement-of-work and scoping templates, rate card benchmarks, commercial models (e.g. fixed fee, capped time and materials, success fee, outcome-based), contract and RFP templates.
• Establish demand-management controls, intake and approval processes and off-panel governance for Professional Services, in partnership with Finance.
• Advise regional procurement teams and budget holders on how to scope, buy and manage professional services, acting as a sparring partner on their major sourcing events.
• Share market intelligence on supplier landscapes, fee levels and rate evolution, and build capabilities within regional procurement teams through training and a community of practice.
• Lead end to end, from request for proposal to award, the largest Professional Services negotiations and tenders (master service agreements, statements of work, rate cards, Group frameworks).
• Act as procurement business partner to senior stakeholders in Finance, Legal, HR and Marketing on their major engagements (e.g. strategy consulting, audit, recruitment process outsourcing, agency rosters).
• Take over selected local contracts that regional teams are not in a position to manage, due to capacity or expertise, and ensure knowledge transfer where relevant.
• Apply the agreed split of roles with regional and local procurement teams: the global team sets category strategies, frameworks and Group contracts, while regional and local teams manage local contracts within these frameworks.
• Partner with Finance, Legal, HR, Marketing, Operations and business leaders to ensure Professional Services procurement is integrated into business planning and demand governance.
• Ensure compliance with security, data privacy, regulatory and contractual requirements across Professional Services contracts, in partnership with Legal and Risk.

Your Roadmap to Success

• Complete a baseline Professional Services spend and leakage diagnostic across regions and sub-categories, including supplier fragmentation, off-panel spend, statement-of-work and rate-card quality, and a mapping of contracts by level (Group, regional, local).
• Translate the diagnostic into a prioritized Professional Services savings pipeline with confirmed initiatives, accountable owners, implementation milestones and value tracking mechanisms.
• Agree with the Non-IT Global Category Procurement Director and regional procurement leads on the split of roles and the distribution of contracts between global, regional and local levels.
• Build and maintain a contract renewal, statement-of-work and rate-card review calendar across major Professional Services suppliers to anticipate negotiation windows.
• Establish preferred supplier panels and standardized rate cards for the priority sub-categories (e.g. consulting, recruitment and temporary labour, marketing agencies), and transition training to a Group agreement.
• Renegotiate terms with the top Professional Services suppliers.
• Deploy the first frameworks and guidelines (statement-of-work templates, intake and approval process, off-panel governance) in partnership with Finance and Legal.
• Launch supplier performance and risk management routines with key suppliers, and a community of practice with regional teams.

What You Bring To The Team

• Bachelor's degree required; Master's degree or MBA in Business, Supply Chain, Finance or a related field preferred. CIPS certification is a plus.
• 10+ years of procurement experience, including significant experience managing Professional Services categories (consulting, legal, HR services, marketing) in a multi-country environment.
• Proven track record of sourcing and negotiating professional services contracts: master service agreements, statements of work, rate cards and supplier panels.
• Sound knowledge of professional services markets and commercial models (fixed fee, time and materials, success fee, outcome-based), and of specific risks such as co-employment, independence and confidentiality.
• Experience building category strategies, supplier panels and Group frameworks, and deploying them through regional teams in a matrixed global organization.
• Strong experience building and delivering savings pipelines, demand management initiatives and business cases.
• Solid expertise in supplier performance and risk management.
• Ability to influence without direct authority and to challenge senior budget holders; excellent communication skills with senior and C-level stakeholders.
• Industry experience in professional services, outsourced services, BPO or a similar complex multi-region environment is strongly preferred.
• Fluent English required; additional languages are a plus. Willingness to travel.
• High integrity with an unwavering commitment to compliance, transparency, and ethical sourcing.

Pre-Employment Screenings

By TP policy, employment in this position will be contingent on your successful completion of and passage of a comprehensive background check, including global sanctions and watchlist screening.

Important | Policy on Unsolicited Third-Party Candidate Submissions

TP does not accept candidate submissions from unsolicited third parties, including recruiters or headhunters. Applications will not be considered, and no contractual association will be established through such submissions.

Culture & Belonging

At TP, we are committed to fostering a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace. We welcome individuals from all backgrounds and lifestyles and do not discriminate on the basis of gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, race, religion, age, national origin, citizenship, disability, pregnancy status, veteran status, or other differences.