Assistant Director, Sourcing & Procurement

Northwestern Mutual•Milwaukee, WI

About The Position

The Assistant Director of Sourcing & Procurement serves as a trusted advisor responsible for strategic sourcing, procurement services, vendor management, market insights, and vendor initiatives for technical professional services and labor. The role develops business and vendor strategies, leads complex negotiations, advances enterprise vendor-management practices, and supports regulatory and compliance requirements. The position covers a broad professional services and labor portfolio, including infrastructure, cloud services, data, architecture, and risk groups across business functions. It operates as a category manager, consultant, and project leader across multiple concurrent initiatives; develops contracts in partnership with Legal, Risk, Privacy, and Security; and partners with IT leadership to connect technology roadmaps with contract strategy and market capabilities. The role also creates concise executive-level PowerPoint presentations that frame issues and recommended direction. It may lead at least one direct report, with potential for future team growth.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Business, Information Technology, Legal, or a related field preferred, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
Minimum eight years of leadership experience in financial services, preferably involving sourcing, vendor management, or strategic vendor negotiations.
Ability to build influential relationships, communicate a vision, persuade varied audiences, and guide senior-leader decisions.
Strong cross-functional leadership, financial analysis and modeling, research, analytical problem-solving, planning, and organizational skills.
Experience with contract development and execution.
Strong communication skills and comfort discussing technology with business partners.
Ability to ask probing questions, guide stakeholders, and manage numerous priorities.
Strong Excel, PowerPoint storytelling, and executive communication skills.

Nice To Haves

Technical acumen related to the delivery of infrastructure and software services.
MBA or JD.
Software or infrastructure category/background experience; related sourcing-category experience may be transferable.

Responsibilities

Partner with senior leaders and enterprise teams to establish vendor strategies, goals, and execution plans for critical, high-risk, and strategic relationships.
Advise executive relationship owners on using strategic vendors to achieve innovation, efficiency, and sound financial management.
Identify sourcing opportunities across strategic vendor relationships and anticipated enterprise needs.
Lead sophisticated, sensitive, and technology-focused contract negotiations.
Lead cross-departmental projects while managing scope, risk, business value, schedules, and budgets.
Research vendor-management trends and help ensure applicable regulatory and compliance expectations are addressed.
Recommend and implement significant process, workflow, organizational, and system improvements.
Provide leadership and mentoring to vendor managers throughout the vendor-management lifecycle.
Manage a broad professional services and labor portfolio as a category manager, consultant, and project leader across concurrent initiatives.
Develop contracts in partnership with Legal, Risk, Privacy, and Security.
Partner with IT leadership to connect technology roadmaps with contract strategy and market capabilities.
Create concise executive-level PowerPoint presentations that frame issues and recommended direction.
Potentially lead at least one direct report, with potential for future team growth.