Director, Strategic Procurement & Cost Optimization

Cardinal Group Companies; Denver (CO); On-site; USD 140,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Vision insurance

Dental insurance

Pet insurance

401(k) retirement plan

Student loan assistance

Licensing support

Continuing education reimbursement

Parental leave

Housing allowance

Job summary

Cardinal Group Companies in Denver, CO, seeks a Director, Procurement to lead a newly created department focused on centralizing contract procurement and expense control. You will manage a team of procurement managers and analysts, leverage an AI-powered warehousing and bidding platform, and ensure contracts comply with Cardinal’s SOPs and risk controls.

This role aims to remove day-to-day procurement burden from site operators and deliver meaningful cost savings across the portfolio.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a related field and a minimum of 5 years of procurement and vendor relations experience.
• Proven leadership experience managing a team across a large portfolio.
• Familiarity with property management systems (Entrata, Yardi) and enterprise procurement/compliance platforms such as VendorPM and SIB.
• Strong change management skills with the ability to build consensus and address concerns from operations teams regarding centralized processes.
• Outstanding leadership, organizational, and customer service skills.
• Proficiency in Google Suite and Microsoft office software applications; project management applications preferred.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Capability to write interdepartmental memos.
• Effective facilitation of team and client meetings.
• Strong interpersonal skills and problem-solving ability.
• Ability to travel when needed to fulfill project responsibilities.
• Meet strict deadlines and prioritize.
• Excellent analytical skills, attention to detail and a strong work ethic.
• Ability to solve problems and think outside-of-the-box.
• Build and maintain strong relationships and establish strong interpersonal connections.
• Ability to embody the Cardinal Culture and Cardinal Core Values every day.

Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and manage the specialized procurement team, including procurement managers and analysts.
• Drive expense savings at Cardinal Group communities, with specific focus on service contract categories.
• Oversee the entire workflow for recurring contracts across the portfolio, from bid procurement to contract assembly, execution, and centralized warehousing.
• Utilize VendorPM to house all property-level and HQ MSA agreements, monitor contract expirations, solicit competitive bids, and securely collect signatures from appropriate parties.
• Partner with re-procurement providers to negotiate and drive savings in select, high-leverage categories (e.g., Telecom, Elevators, Waste, Security, Laundry and others).
• Leverage AI technology to audit invoices against contract terms, ensure billing accuracy, flag anomalies, and reduce accounts payable workload.
• Review community spend to identify "rogue" spending and correct on-site purchasing behaviors by enforcing the use of preferred vendors and standard agreements.
• Act as a strategic consultant to Ops and On-Site teams, monitoring the bid queue for one-time service scopes to ensure compliance while supporting site-level operations.
• Partner with Legal to ensure all executed contracts include Cardinal's standard terms, conditions, and risk mitigation language.
• Work to improve risk management metrics related to vendor compliance and credentialing.
• Support Due Diligence and Acquisitions efforts by providing hard benchmarking data, warehousing contracts for DD readiness, and aggressively underwriting lower in-place expenses.
• Lead change management initiatives across the organization, ensuring site teams understand the value of centralized procurement and incorporating operator feedback into service recommendations to prevent resentment.
• Drive continuous improvement of the Cardinal platform by testing and implementing new technologies and delivering "quick wins" by attacking outlier or loss-leader contracts.
• Maintain excellent relationships with all internal stakeholders, including Legal, Treasury, Accounting, FP&A, and Client Services.
• Champion the Cardinal Culture and Cardinal’s Core Values every day.
• Other tasks, as assigned by the Team Leader.

Skills

Leadership

Vendor management

Cost optimization

Cross-functional collaboration

Change management

Contract negotiation

Analytical skills

Communication

Travel flexibility

Education

Bachelor’s degree in a related field

Tools

Entrata

Yardi

VendorPM

SIB

Google Suite

Microsoft Office

Job description

Cardinal Group Companies in Denver, CO, seeks a Director, Procurement to lead a newly created department focused on centralizing contract procurement and expense control. You will manage a team of procurement managers and analysts, leverage an AI-powered warehousing and bidding platform, and ensure contracts comply with Cardinal’s SOPs and risk controls.

This role aims to remove day-to-day procurement burden from site operators and deliver meaningful cost savings across the portfolio.