Senior Manager Sourcing and Category Management Technology

Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc.; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 110,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, Dental, Vision

Disability & Parental leave

401k & PTO

Job summary

Heidrick & Struggles is seeking an experienced Senior Sourcing Leader to drive technology spend strategies, improve supplier governance, and align procurement with IT, Security, Legal, and Finance. You will manage end-to-end sourcing events, lead major renewals, and deliver measurable savings across software, cloud, and enterprise platforms.

The role requires 8–12+ years in strategic sourcing with a strong negotiating track record and the ability to partner with senior stakeholders in a global

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required.
• 8-12+ years in strategic sourcing, procurement, category or supplier management with tech spend focus.
• Proven experience negotiating complex technology agreements (software/SaaS, cloud, IT services).
• Strong commercial judgment on licensing, renewals, pricing protections, and risk.

Responsibilities

• Develop multi-year category strategies for Technology spend (software, cloud, IT services, hardware, telecom).
• Own end-to-end sourcing events: market analysis, RFP/RFQ, supplier evaluation, negotiation, and contract handoff.
• Lead renewals and enterprise agreements with cost control and scope discipline.
• Collaborate with IT, Security, Finance, Legal and business owners to translate roadmaps into sourcing strategies.
• Build tools for supplier segmentation, renewal calendars, negotiation playbooks, and dashboards.
• Manage supplier relationships and governance including QBRs, KPI tracking, and risk management.
• Drive savings and value realization through competitive sourcing and vendor consolidation.
• Ensure contract reviews for data, security, privacy, IP, and regulatory risk.

Skills

Executive communication

Stakeholder collaboration

Negotiation

Sourcing strategy

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Tools

RFP/RFQ processes

Vendor governance

Spend analysis

Contract lifecycle

Job description

Heidrick & Struggles is the world's foremost advisor on executive leadership, driving superior client performance through premier human capital leadership advisory services. For more than 70 years, we've delivered value for our clients by leveraging unrivaled expertise to help organizations discover and enable outstanding leaders and teams. Learn more at www.heidrick.com

Who We Are

Heidrick & Struggles is a premier provider of executive search, leadership assessment and development, organization and team effectiveness, and culture shaping services globally. In our more than 60 year history, we have conducted some of the most high-profile C‑suite and board-level searches in the world. Today, we are working with our clients across 29 countries to help them accelerate their performance and respond with agility to new opportunities and challenges in every industry. We continue to raise the bar in serving our clients as trusted leadership advisors, and we are also providing an expanded range of data-driven, tech-enabled tools and platforms across our executive search and consulting businesses. Managing top talent isn’t just our business. It’s our passion, and we are committed to investing in and developing the careers of our own people. We look for people with experience from a variety of industries and diverse educational backgrounds who are passionate about partnering with innovative and influential organizations and share our commitment to our purpose – to help our clients change the world, one leadership team at a time. Additional information on the firm can be found at www.heidrick.com.

The Role

Technology spend is one of Heidrick’s most strategically important and risk-sensitive procurement areas, encompassing enterprise software, cloud platforms, infrastructure services, telecom, hardware, and strategic IT vendors. This role will help move Heidrick from reactive purchasing and renewal management to proactive category leadership, stronger supplier governance, disciplined sourcing, and measurable value delivery. Success in this role is measured by the ability to deliver savings and value against validated baselines, increase the percentage of addressable Technology spend under Procurement management, and provide visibility into the renewal pipeline 120 to 90 days before contract expiration. The role is also expected to reduce unmanaged renewals, late-stage negotiations, and supplier fragmentation, while strengthening supplier performance governance for strategic Technology vendors and driving strong stakeholder satisfaction across IT, Security, Finance, Legal, and business owners. In addition, success includes improving contract compliance, metadata quality, and sourcing documentation.

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute multi-year category strategies for Technology spend, including software, cloud, IT services, hardware, telecom, security tools, and enterprise platforms.
• Own end-to-end sourcing events, including market analysis, stakeholder alignment, RFP/RFQ strategy, supplier evaluation, negotiation, award recommendation, and contract handoff.
• Lead major renewals and enterprise agreements, with emphasis on cost control, usage optimization, scope discipline, price increase mitigation, and commercial flexibility.
• Partner with IT, Security, Finance, Legal, and business owners to translate technology roadmaps, security requirements, platform dependencies, usage trends, and business needs into sourcing strategies.
• Build and maintain category tools, including supplier segmentation, renewal calendars, negotiation playbooks, category plans, savings pipeline, contract risk views, and executive-ready reporting.
• Manage strategic supplier relationships and governance, including QBRs, KPI tracking, escalation management, performance improvement plans, and executive-level supplier engagement.
• Drive savings and value realization through competitive sourcing, demand management, vendor consolidation, commercial restructuring, license optimization, payment-term improvements, and TCO reduction.
• Ensure Procurement and Legal review for technology contracts involving data, PII, security, privacy, IP, regulatory, non-standard terms, or other elevated risk.
• Identify and mitigate supplier, renewal, commercial, operational, and contract risks, especially for auto-renewals, expired contracts, legacy suppliers, and high-dependency platforms.
• Partner with Finance to validate savings against credible baselines and ensure savings are tracked from identified to confirmed and realized.
• Improve Procurement operating discipline by strengthening intake, documentation, approval routing, supplier onboarding, contract metadata, and renewal visibility.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to senior stakeholders by presenting clear deal narratives, options, risks, financial impact, tradeoffs, and recommendations.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree.
• 8-12+ years of experience in strategic sourcing, procurement, category management, vendor management, or supplier management, with significant experience in Technology spend.
• Demonstrated experience negotiating complex technology agreements, including software/SaaS, cloud, IT services, telecom, infrastructure, security, hardware, or enterprise platform contracts.
• Strong commercial judgment across enterprise licensing, usage-based models, renewals, multi-year commitments, price protections, service levels, and contractual risk.
• Proven ability to partner with IT, Security, Finance, Legal, and senior business stakeholders in a matrixed environment.
• Strong sourcing toolkit, including category strategy, market analysis, RFP design, supplier evaluation, negotiation strategy, contracting support, and supplier governance.
• Ability to analyze spend, contracts, supplier performance, usage data, and renewal pipelines to identify risks and value opportunities.
• Strong executive communication skills, including the ability to summarize complex commercial issues into clear recommendations.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in business, supply chain, finance, engineering, technology, or related field preferred.
• Experience supporting a global, professional services, technology, consulting, or knowledge-based enterprise.
• Experience with major enterprise suppliers such as Salesforce, Microsoft, Workday, Oracle, AWS, Box, HCL, Verizon, Zoom, or similar providers.
• Experience building category management practices, supplier governance routines, sourcing playbooks, dashboards, or renewal management processes.
• Familiarity with procurement platforms, CLM tools, contract repositories, ERP/P2P systems, and spend analytics.
• Experience managing or mentoring sourcing professionals is preferred but not required if the role is scoped as an individual contributor senior manager.

Pay Range Guidelines for this Position

The salary range for this position is 110000 USD to 130000 USD. Compensation is based on several factors including but not limited to education, work experience and skills.

Benefits

In addition to your salary, Heidrick & Struggles offers discretionary bonuses (subject to eligibility requirements) and a comprehensive benefits package including: medical, dental, vision, disability leave, parental leave, paid time off and 401k contribution (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements).

Note: we have a location based compensation structure; there may be a different range for candidates in other locations.

Heidrick & Struggles is an equal opportunity employer committed to hiring qualified protected veterans and individuals with disabilities.

All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, religion, creed, age, sex, national origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, disability, marital status, veteran or military status, or citizenship status.

Heidrick & Struggles is committed to providing reasonable accommodations and/or adjustments during our recruitment process.

If you are selected for an interview and require an accommodation and/or adjustment, please inform your Talent Acquisition professional.