Category Manager, Technology

Company

Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond

When you join the Federal Reserve—the nation's central bank—you’ll play a key role, collaborating with a dynamic and diverse team of mission-driven professionals to strengthen and protect our economy and our communities.

Bring your passion and expertise, and we’ll provide the opportunities that will challenge you and propel your growth—along with a wide range of benefits and perks that support your health, wealth, and life. In addition to competitive compensation, we offer a comprehensive benefits package that includes tuition assistance, generous paid time off, top-notch health care benefits, child and family care leave, professional development opportunities, a 401(k) match, pension, and more. All brought together in a flexible work environment where you can truly find balance.

About the Opportunity

The National Procurement Office (NPO) has an immediate opening for a Category Manager. In this role, you will transform the traditional procurement model by forging value-added partnerships with stakeholders across the Federal Reserve System. Bringing your knowledge of market trends and experience negotiating complex, mission-critical sourcing opportunities, you will serve as a thought partner delivering value-added solutions.  You will lead the sourcing lifecycle, executing targeted sourcing strategies for business partners in the Technology product categories.  You’ll collaborate across the NPO and with Legal and Third-Party Risk Management teams to develop contracts meeting stakeholder requirements and achieve organizational cost savings goals.  You will work independently and serve as an ambassador and single point of contact for assigned business partners. You will use your experience and strategic sourcing best practices to balance value, demand management, risk reduction, supplier performance, and contract and category management. 

What You Will Do:

• Build and maintain deep understanding of business priorities, risks and responsibilities for assigned Technology business lines to identify key strategic sourcing opportunities.
• Serve as NPO point of contact and a thought partner, communicating value-added recommendations and solutions leveraging current and future spend across the Federal Reserve System.
• Identify effective sourcing and category management strategies for the Technology category through a variety of procurement tools and best practices, including spend analysis, market analysis and business intelligence.
• Lead the sourcing lifecycle (requirements gathering, RFI, RFP, contract negotiation) for System-wide acquisitions of IT equipment, software licensing, consulting services, and other more complex Technology and service acquisitions in alignment with the System’s Model Acquisition Guidelines and the Richmond Fed's acquisition guidelines.
• Advance supplier diversity initiatives increasing access, outreach, accountability, and education in order to meet System diversity goals.
• Engage the Vendor Management organization in monitoring of vendor performance to ensure services meet or exceed expectations, taking feedback on vendor performance into account during current and future negotiations.
• Partner with key stakeholders to understand internal requirements, review supplier performance, and build sourcing and renewal strategies to achieve targeted savings goals.
• Collaborate across the NPO, leveraging NPO-developed analytics and reporting data to identify trends, contract consolidation and cost savings opportunities across business partners.
• Serve as an ambassador for the System Procurement Strategic Plan, fulfilling service-level commitments to stakeholders and the System procurement community.
• Collaborate with Legal to develop and refine contracts.

Qualifications:

• Minimum 3 years of strategic sourcing/procurement experience, project management and contract negotiation experience.
• Experience sourcing datacenter equipment and services, including, but not limited to: platform server and storage, networking infrastructure and circuits, enterprise software, and technology labor and staffing support.
• Experience reviewing and drafting requirements for competitive sourcing events (RFP, RFQ, RFI) and statements of work.
• Experience in a Category Management driven procurement organization.
• Proven track record of delivering value through successful contract negotiations.
• Experience working collaboratively and supporting multiple sourcing initiatives.
• Experience managing and maintaining strong supplier relationships.
• Experience using procurement data to identify strategic opportunities to improve value.
• Experience providing consultative sourcing support to internal stakeholders.
• Outstanding interpersonal, customer relati