Senior Manager Sourcing and Category Management Technology

Heidrick & Struggles•Chicago, IL

2d•$110,000 - $130,000

About The Position

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. 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. 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.

Requirements

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.

Nice To Haves

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.

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.