Senior Category Manager

Vertage; United States; On-site; USD 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Vertage Inc. is seeking a Lead Category Manager to drive strategic sourcing, supplier selection, and contract negotiations across high-value spend categories. You will partner with internal stakeholders to align business goals with supplier capabilities and market insights.

The role emphasizes leading initiatives, mentoring teammates, and overseeing lifecycle management to maximize cost savings and reduce third-party risk in a fast-paced environment.

Qualifications

• Strategic sourcing across multiple spend categories.
• Experience negotiating high-value contracts.
• Leads category strategies with stakeholders.
• Mentors team members and manages projects.

Responsibilities

• Drive strategic sourcing including market analysis, supplier selection, RFX development, bidding and contract execution.
• Develop and implement category strategies aligned with cost reduction objectives.
• Mentor team members and manage supplier relationships across IT, Facilities, Travel, Marketing, etc.
• Lead initiatives to track progress and present strategic documentation to leadership.
• Manage contracts lifecycle, ensure value and mitigate risk.

Skills

Strategic sourcing

Negotiation

Stakeholder management

Leadership

Category strategy

Project management

Analytics

Communication

Tools

Spend analytics tools

Job description

This person is a professional buyer for the company’s back-office spending: software, consulting, marketing agencies, facilities and travel. Client issues store and co-brand credit cards, and like any large company it buys a lot of services that aren’t its product. This role decides who client buys from, and negotiates the deal.

• Finds and picks suppliers: runs the bidding process, compares proposals and recommends a winner.
• Negotiates contracts: gets better prices and terms, often on large-dollar deals.
• Plans by category: reviews spend in an area (IT, Facilities, Marketing, Travel), spots overpaying and builds a savings plan.
• Works with internal teams: turns what they need into a purchase, then manages supplier performance and contracts.
• Why “Lead”: a senior, low-supervision role on a team of five tenured strategists. Whether they formally manage anyone is still unclear.
• First priority: buying what the company needs for the year-end rush and the busy early-2027 period.

The Lead Category Manager is responsible for developing and implementing fact-based, comprehensive, and well-communicated strategies that deliver superior financial returns and competitive advantages. This role ensures the strategy is dynamic and responsive to market, customer, supplier, and company needs. The Category Manager oversees supplier relationships, selection, development, and management, partnering with internal stakeholders to align business objectives. They lead strategic sourcing activities across high value diverse spend categories to drive cost reduction, maximize value, and minimize third-party risks. Acts independently (minimal supervision) to develop methods and procedures on new or special assignments

Essential Job Functions: (character limit of 350/each; minimum of 3, maximum of 10)

• Strategic Sourcing: Drive strategic sourcing including strategy development, market analysis, supplier selection, RFX development, management and bid analysis, negotiation and contract execution. Strong negotiation skills and experience negotiating complex, high value dollar contracts. Lead communication with stakeholders and suppliers regarding business requirements throughout the sourcing lifecycle. Act as primary point of contact for suppliers during the selection process driving supplier interactions to ensure stakeholders’ understanding of product or service. Use sourcing templates, spend analytics tools and scorecards to provide supplier analysis and recommendations. 25%
• Category Strategy: Leads stakeholders to develop and implement category strategies that are aligned with business requirements and cost reduction objectives. Leads analysis of spend data, benchmarks and other key metrics to identify savings and maximize value. Drives multiyear category roadmap with stakeholders and senior leaders. Must have experience managing multiple and diverse categories including IT, Facilities, Marketing, Travel, etc. 20%
• Talent Management: Acts as a mentor and coach to team members. Leads by example. 5%
• Relationship Management: Must be able to interact with stakeholders and supplier personnel at all levels in the organization. Must have the ability to influence the direction of the business, align and engage resources outside area of responsibility. Establish processes to monitor performance and ensure continuous improvement with suppliers. The individual must demonstrate leadership and commitment to ensure continued strengthening of partnerships. 15%
• Initiative Support: Lead development and implementation of strategies and processes to track and monitor progress across the teams’ initiatives and special projects to ensure targeted value is achieved. Create and present strategic documents to leadership, outlining the progress and impact. of initiatives. 5%
• Contract Management: Expertise in contract lifecycle management. Review, negotiate and manage commercial issues relating to contracts, payments and supplier non-performance. Provide guidance to stakeholders on commercial contract issues and proactively drive lifecycle management to drive value and mitigate risk. Advise internal constituents on the full contract lifecycle management process and best practices. 5%
• Project Management: Initiate, lead, plan, execute, monitor and drive projects to closure, escalating issues at appropriate times to ensure resolution among stakeholders and/or suppliers. Develop strong relationships with the project team. Identify risk, measure the impact, and communicate proactively for risk mitigation to ensure desired outcome. 10%
• Procurement Process Support: Develop, improve and implement strategic sourcing processes to increase efficiency. Lead department and activities ensuring all KPIs are maintained, and goals are met. Champion consistent processes across broader org and drive change management 10%
• Reporting: Foster and build reports that help Category strategists and internal stakeholders drive efficiency within their category. Strong understanding of the category market conditions and intelligence reporting to develop addressable opportunities in the areas of sourcing, demand management, contracts negotiations etc.; Clearly articulate and present improvement opportunities to all levels of the organization. 5%