Senior IT Vendor Manager

3M•Maplewood, MN

3d•Onsite

About The Position

The Senior IT Vendor Manager leads a global portfolio of strategic technology suppliers across hardware, software, SaaS, cloud, infrastructure, and managed services. This role serves as the primary IT relationship owner for assigned suppliers and is accountable for vendor strategy, commercial governance, contract lifecycle management, performance, financial optimization, risk mitigation, compliance, and measurable value realization. The successful candidate will be a trusted advisor to IT and business leaders and will partner closely with Corporate Procurement, Finance, Legal, Information Security, Enterprise Architecture, IT Asset Management, and technology delivery teams. The role requires strong commercial judgment, executive communication, cross-functional leadership, and the ability to manage complex supplier relationships in a global environment.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree or higher in information technology, business, supply chain, finance, engineering, or a technology discipline (completed and verified prior to start)
Ten (10) years of experience in IT vendor management, technology sourcing, IT asset management, technology procurement, contract management, supplier governance in a private, public, government or military environment.
Seven (7) years of experience managing enterprise technology suppliers and complex commercial relationships in a private, public, government or military environment.

Nice To Haves

Demonstrated experience with complex software, SaaS, cloud, hardware, managed services, or professional services agreements.
Demonstrated experience managing multimillion-dollar technology portfolios, renewals, negotiations, supplier performance, and executive escalations.
Master’s degree or MBA preferred.
Experience with enterprise software licensing, publisher audits, SaaS optimization, cloud consumption agreements, infrastructure suppliers, and managed services.
Knowledge of Technology Business Management, FinOps, IT Asset Management, ITIL, strategic sourcing, and supplier-risk practices.
Experience using platforms such as GEP, SAP, Flexera One, ServiceNow, Apptio, Power BI, or comparable enterprise tools.
Professional certifications such as TBM, FinOps, IAITAM, ITIL, CPSM, CSCP, or relevant cloud certifications.
Experience working in a global, highly matrixed technology organization.

Responsibilities

Develop and execute vendor strategies aligned with enterprise technology roadmaps, sourcing objectives, architecture standards, and business priorities.
Serve as the IT relationship owner and escalation point for assigned strategic technology suppliers.
Lead executive governance meetings, quarterly business reviews, supplier scorecards, and performance improvement plans.
Drive supplier accountability for committed outcomes, innovation, service quality, commercial value, and continuous improvement.
Identify opportunities for vendor consolidation, rationalization, demand management, and improved competitive leverage.
Lead IT business participation across the contract lifecycle, including new agreements, renewals, amendments, statements of work, cloud commitments, SaaS subscriptions, enterprise license agreements, managed services, and professional services engagements.
Partner with Corporate Procurement on sourcing strategies, RFQs, RFPs, competitive events, negotiations, and supplier selection.
Define clear business requirements, deliverables, service levels, acceptance criteria, milestones, pricing structures, termination rights, and commercial protections.
Maintain forward-looking visibility to renewals, commitments, risks, dependencies, and decision dates.
Resolve complex commercial, contractual, service, and relationship escalations through coordinated cross-functional action.
Manage strategic software publishers, SaaS providers, cloud providers, infrastructure suppliers, endpoint manufacturers, resellers, and technology service partners.
Partner with IT Asset Management to improve software entitlement, utilization, compliance, audit readiness, lifecycle management, and retirement decisions.
Partner with cloud engineering, architecture, FinOps, and Finance teams to improve cloud consumption visibility, commitment utilization, forecasting, and cost optimization.
Coordinate hardware lifecycle, technology refresh, warranty, support, inventory, logistics, and supplier performance considerations with asset and operations teams.
Ensure commercial models support portability, scalability, resiliency, security, and practical exit options.
Establish and monitor SLAs, KPIs, operational metrics, financial commitments, deliverables, and corrective actions.
Manage a significant portfolio of technology spend and identify measurable savings, demand avoidance, cost optimization, and value realization opportunities.
Provide concise executive reporting on spend, forecast, savings, commitments, supplier performance, renewal exposure, and material risks.
Ensure supplier compliance with corporate policies, security requirements, privacy obligations, regulatory expectations, contractual requirements, and audit controls.
Lead supplier risk mitigation and continuity planning in partnership with appropriate control functions.
Coordinate IT stakeholders and Corporate Procurement through a clear, integrated operating model with defined ownership and governance gates.
Influence senior stakeholders across IT, Finance, Legal, Security, Procurement, Architecture, Operations, and business functions.
Provide coaching, and subject-matter leadership to managers, analysts, project teams, and external partners.
Improve standard processes, data quality, reporting, contract repositories, workflow adoption, and vendor-management maturity.
Support technology transformation initiatives requiring complex supplier, licensing, cloud, asset, sourcing, and commercial decisions.