Strategic Vendor Management Consultant - Consulting Category

About Northern Trust:

Northern Trust, a Fortune 500 company, is a globally recognized, award-winning financial institution that has been in continuous operation since 1889.

Northern Trust is proud to provide innovative financial services and guidance to the world's most successful individuals, families, and institutions by remaining true to our enduring principles of service, expertise, and integrity. With more than 130 years of financial experience and over 22,000 partners, we serve the world's most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.

This role will report into the Head of Business Services Procurement, with a dotted line to the Consulting Category Manager. This strategic role will be interacting with members of Northern's internal Executive Management team, our largest 3rd party consulting vendors, and numerous functional leaders within Northern Trust. Responsibilities include designing and monitoring our key Consulting Supplier Program (i.e. Big 4). This person will liaison with key stakeholders and our supply chain to support the organization's consulting portfolio of suppliers.

The right candidate will standup, own, and govern the vendor management function overseeing our most strategic consulting vendors.

Candidates should be well versed in vendor management, have experience presenting and advising to Executive Management teams, and have previously worked with 3rd party consulting vendors.

Major Duties:

• Optimize opportunities with our strategic consulting vendors, to increase buying power and reduce financial and non-financial risks

• Deliver a lower total cost of ownership

• Provide holistic vendor forecasting to enable strategic deal management

• Enhance stronger business and Procurement engagement to optimize outcomes

• Provide proactive monitoring of consulting statements of work, through scorecards and quarterly business reviews

• Create internal awareness of vendor sponsorships and donations that have potential commercial impacts on negotiations

• Strategic Relationship Management

• Build win-win partnership with select strategic consulting relationships - maintaining a constant dialogue with vendors that allows stakeholders to access any ongoing risk to make more informed purchasing decisions.

• Single point of contact for vendor escalation, include corrective actions

• Manage ongoing communication and feedback loop

• Facilitate regular performance management discussions with internal stakeholders

• Streamline financial approval process with finance stakeholders

• Education and Outreach

• Design and implement hub and spoke outreach model

• Setup training and education program for internal and external stakeholders

• Pipeline Planning

• Coordinate pipeline to enable strategic deal management

• Manage internal escalations and procurement policy non-compliance

• Monitoring & Performance Management

• Design and lead QBR sessions

• Design and implement vendor scorecards

• Design and implement vendor performance metrics and dashboards

• Facilitate regular performance management discussions with internal stakeholders and vendors to ensure issues are surfaced and mitigated real-time

• Balance of Trade

• Oversee reporting on vendor donations & sponsorships (request, commercial impacts)

• Monitor total revenue generated from Northern Trust for deal consideration

Knowledge/Skills:

• Confident communication, integrity, and authenticity to build strong, positive relationships based on trust

• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and presentation skills

• Ability to develop internal and external networks based on integrity and credibility through active listening and understanding

• Business acumen around the consulting category, with proven ability to interact with all levels of the organization

• Highly flexible and adaptable to change

• Requires specialized depth and/or breadth of expertise in Strategy Sourcing and Category Management best practices

• Interprets internal/external business challenges and recommends best practices to improve products, processes or services

Experience

• Proven experience in handling complex firmwide vendor relationships including prior experience with Consulting Firms (Big 4 a plus)

• A thorough understanding of third-party (i.e., vendor, supplier, etc.) risk management, performance monitoring and Procurement processes

• Prior experience working for a consulting firm is a plus

• Fifteen or more years' experience in Sourcing or Procurement related field or an equivalent combination of education and work experience. MBA or other advanced degree and a professional Procurement/ Supply Chain Management designation (e.g. CSCP, CPM) are a strong plus.

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills are required along with ability to be highly flexible, strategic, collaborative and adaptable to change

• Excellent understanding of procurement philosophies and strategies along with in-depth knowledge of supply chain management and procurement

• Leadership, mentorship and organizational skills are required to develop objectives and goals

• Proficiency in MS Office Suites with advanced Excel and Powerpoint skills

#LI-Hybrid

Working with Us:

As a Northern Trust partner, greater achievements await. You will be part of a flexible and collaborative work culture in an organization where financial strength and stability is an asset that emboldens us to explore new ideas.

Movement within the organization is encouraged, senior leaders are accessible, and you can take pride in working for a company committed to assisting the communities we serve! Join a workplace with a greater purpose.

We'd love to learn more about how your interests and experience could be a fit with one of the world's most admired and sustainable companies! Build your career with us and apply today. #MadeForGreater

Reasonable accommodation

Northern Trust is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please email our HR Service Center at MyHRHelp@ntrs.com.

We hope you're excited about the role and the opportunity to work with us. We value an inclusive workplace and understand flexibility means different things to different people.

Apply today and talk to us about your flexible working requirements and together we can achieve greater.