Senior Director, Technology Strategic Sourcing & Category Management

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Job Details

Serves as the single accountable owner for one or more technology categories within Cencora's global data and technology indirect spend portfolio, covering sourcing strategy, negotiation, supplier management, and portfolio and demand management for that scope. Owns the category roadmap for both near-term execution and multi-year delivery, and establishes clear sub-category ownership so every area of spend has a named owner. Directs enterprise-wide negotiations with major technology providers and owns the supplier performance, risk, and value agenda for assigned categories. Leads a team of Director-level category owners and sourcing professionals, building capability and a culture of accountability and commercial rigor. Acts as the defined sourcing business partner to assigned Technology senior leaders, translating their roadmaps and budgets into a forward demand plan so sourcing gets ahead of requirements rather than reacting to them. Establishes the governance, controls, and performance measures that convert category strategy into realized savings, improved service levels, and managed third-party risk.

Responsibilities

• Directs technology category strategies for assigned spend areas, including demand assessment, sourcing approach, supplier segmentation, risk evaluation, and value engineering initiatives.

• Leads category planning and sourcing execution by aligning business and technology requirements, market intelligence, financial objectives, and procurement priorities into actionable multi-year strategies.

• Oversees supplier selection, negotiation, and contracting to improve commercial outcomes, service performance, and total cost of ownership.

• Establishes governance, controls, and performance measures that strengthen policy compliance, implementation discipline, and realization of sourcing benefits.

• Leads team performance, capability development, workforce planning, and talent management activities to support business priorities and sustained functional effectiveness.

Category Ownership and Operating Model

• Acts as the single accountable owner for assigned technology categories, including the category roadmap, in-year execution plan, and multi-year strategy.

• Defines and maintains sub-category ownership within the team so every area of spend has a named owner with clear scope, decision rights, and accountability.

• Operates the category-based model rather than a vendor-tier model, segmenting suppliers within each category by value, risk, and criticality instead of by relationship status.

• Leads completion of the transition from the legacy vendor-tier structure for assigned scope, including scope boundaries, handoffs, knowledge transfer, and stabilization of new ways of working.

• Publishes and refreshes the category roadmap on a defined cadence, covering priorities, savings commitments, renewal timing, supplier strategy, and risk posture.

• Represents assigned categories in functional planning and coordinates with peer category owners, including the MA&D category, where scope, suppliers, or agreements intersect.

Portfolio and Demand Management

• Serves as the defined sourcing business partner to assigned Technology senior leadership team members, acting as their single point of contact for category sourcing.

• Runs a standing cadence with business partners to capture roadmap, budget, and demand signals well ahead of need, typically 6 to 12 months in advance of requirement or renewal dates.

• Maintains a rolling demand, renewal, and pipeline forecast for the category so spend is planned and proactively managed rather than processed tactically as it arrives.

• Aggregates requirements across business units and regions to build leverage, reduce duplication, and rationalize overlapping suppliers and licenses.

• Owns designated strategic vendor relationships within the category, including executive cadence, business reviews, roadmap alignment, innovation discussions, and escalation.

• Challenges demand, specifications, and consumption with business partners before sourcing begins, using market intelligence, benchmarking, and should-cost analysis.

Category Strategy and Sourcing

• Develops and executes multi-year sourcing strategies for assigned categories that align to enterprise priorities, technology roadmaps, and the annual financial plan.

• Owns the sourcing pipeline and savings commitments for the assigned portfolio, and sequences initiatives to balance value capture against business capacity.

• Directs evaluation of vendor solutions to confirm they meet business requirements, technical specifications, security standards, and compliance obligations.

• Builds a pipeline of innovative suppliers and emerging technologies, including AI and data solutions, to support growth and digital transformation.

Negotiation and Contracting

• Leads complex, enterprise-wide negotiations with major technology providers to secure favorable commercial and legal terms that optimize total cost of ownership, quality, and service delivery.

• Directs structuring of master agreements, statements of work, service level commitments, subscription and license terms, renewal and true-up provisions, benchmarking clauses, and exit and termination rights.

• Partners with Legal, Information Security, and Privacy to secure protections for data, intellectual property, audit rights, and regulatory requirements in technology contracts.

• Serves as escalation point for contentious negotiations, supplier disputes, and commercial risk decisions within the assigned categories.

Supplier and Vendor Management

• Holds suppliers in the assigned categories to agreed performance metrics and service levels.

• Implements the vendor management framework for assigned categories, including performance reviews, scorecards, issue resolution, and continuous improvement plans.

• Directs supplier assessments to confirm compliance with contractual obligations, security standards, and regulatory requirements.

• Manages supplier risk across financial, operational, cyber, continuity, and reputational dimensions, and drives mitigation and remediation plans.

• Advances supplier development, consolidation, and rationalization strategies, and leads commercial response to supplier audits and claims.

Financial Oversight and Value Delivery

• Oversees spend for the assigned categories, tracks and analyzes category and supplier spend, and identifies cost savings, efficiency, and value creation opportunities.

• Builds and applies financial models, ROI analysis, and cost structure analysis to support data-driven sourcing decisions and negotiations.

• Validates savings with Finance and business partners, and reports realized value, pipeline coverage, and category performance to senior leadership.

Stakeholder Engagement

• Acts as a trusted advisor to senior leadership, providing insight into supplier capabilities, market trends, and sourcing opportunities for the category.

• Partners with Information Security, Legal, Finance, and business leaders to align sourcing and supplier strategies with organizational needs.

• Facilitates cross-functional collaboration on supplier onboarding, integration, adoption, and contract implementation to secure compliance and value capture.

• Supports technology sourcing requirements for mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and integration activity, including transition service arrangements and contract disposition.

Governance, Process, and Digital Enablement

• Implements policies, procedures, and governance frameworks for technology sourcing and vendor management, including delegation of authority and code of conduct requirements.

• Drives process improvement to streamline procurement workflows and improve cycle time, quality, and stakeholder experience.

• Adopts AI and automation within the team's workflows to reduce administrative effort and shift capacity toward strategic category work.

• Champions supplier diversity, ESG goals, and responsible sourcing practices across the technology supply base.

• Strengthens use of procurement systems and analytics, including sourcing, contract lifecycle, and spend platforms, so category roadmaps and demand plans rest on reliable data.

Team Leadership

• Builds, leads, and mentors a team of Director-level category owners and sourcing professionals, fostering collaboration, accountability, and excellence.

• Sets objectives, manages performance, and provides coaching, development, and career pathing so the team has the skills and resources to succeed.

• Manages workforce planning, resource allocation, and succession for the assigned categories, including capability build in the new operating model.

Education and Work Experience

• Bachelor's degree in business, supply chain, computer science, information systems, or a related field, or equivalent experience required.

• Advanced degree (MBA, or master's in supply chain, computer science, or a related field) preferred.

• 12+ years of progressive experience in strategic sourcing, procurement, and vendor management, including 6+ years in technology or data sourcing, or a related field required.

• 8+ years of experience in a management capacity required, including experience leading managers or senior individual contributors.

• Demonstrated track record negotiating and managing complex technology supplier contracts and portfolios of $100M+ in annual spend required.

• Experience owning a technology category end to end within a category-based procurement or category management operating model required.

• Experience leading teams through organizational or operating model change, including transition from a vendor or account-based structure to a category-based structure, preferred.

• Experience in a Fortune 500 or similarly complex, large matrixed global organization preferred.

• Certification in procurement, supply management, or project management (such as CPSM, CIPS, or PMP) preferred.

Skills and Knowledge

• Deep expertise in strategic sourcing, outsourcing, and contract development across technology and data categories, including SaaS, cloud services, infrastructure, IT services, telecom, packaged software, cyber security, data solutions, and emerging technologies.

• Proven ability to build and own a multi-year category roadmap and hold it current against shifting business and technology demand.

• Exceptional negotiation and contract optimization skills with a strong command of commercial and legal terms.

• Skilled at operating as a business partner to senior technology leaders, building forward demand visibility and converting roadmaps into sourcing plans.

• Deep understanding of global sourcing practices, vendor management, compliance, governance, and risk management frameworks, including third-party and cyber risk.

• Strong knowledge of the technology supplier landscape, licensing and consumption models, industry trends, and emerging technologies and their impact on sourcing strategy.

• Strategic thinker able to translate business and technology needs into sourcing strategies and drive operational excellence through process optimization.

• Strong financial acumen, including analysis of complex cost structures and ROI models, evaluation of supplier proposals, and data-driven decision making.

• Excellent leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to build and sustain senior business relationships.

• Ability to lead change, influence at all levels, and drive cross-functional alignment across a global matrixed organization.

• Comfort operating with evolving scope and clarifying ownership boundaries while an operating model is still maturing.

• Outstanding problem solving skills, applying the appropriate tools and level of analysis to the situation.

• Proficiency in procurement tools (such as SAP Ariba or Coupa), contract lifecycle management systems, and data analytics platforms.

• Ability to establish spend baselines, category profiles, risk assessments, controls, performance measures, and KPI reporting.

• Proficiency in English for business communication across global stakeholders and suppliers.

What Cencora offers

We provide compensation, benefits, and resources that enable a highly inclusive culture and support our team members’ ability to live with purpose every day. In addition to traditional offerings like medical, dental, and vision care, we also provide a comprehensive suite of benefits that focus on the physical, emotional, financial, and social aspects of wellness. This encompasses support for working families, which may include backup dependent care, adoption assistance, infertility coverage, family building support, behavioral health solutions, paid parental leave, and paid caregiver leave. To encourage your personal growth, we also offer a variety of training programs, professional development resources, and opportunities to participate in mentorship programs, employee resource groups, volunteer activities, and much more. For details, visit https://www.virtualfairhub.com/cencora

Full time

Salary Range*

$150,000 - 235,070

*This Salary Range reflects a National Average for this job. The actual range may vary based on your locale. Ranges in Colorado/California/Washington/New York/Hawaii/Vermont/Minnesota/Massachusetts/Illinois State-specific locations may be up to 10% lower than the minimum salary range, and 12% higher than the maximum salary range.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Cencora is committed to providing equal employment opportunity without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, age, disability, veteran status or membership in any other class protected by federal, state or local law.

The company’s continued success depends on the full and effective utilization of qualified individuals. Therefore, harassment is prohibited and all matters related to recruiting, training, compensation, benefits, promotions and transfers comply with equal opportunity principles and are non-discriminatory.

Cencora is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities during the employment process which are consistent with legal requirements. If you wish to request an accommodation while seeking employment, please call 888.692.2272 or email [email protected]. We will make accommodation determinations on a request-by-request basis. Messages and emails regarding anything other than accommodations requests will not be returned

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Affiliated Companies:

Affiliated Companies: AmerisourceBergen Services Corporation