Senior Director - IT Procurement

We are seeking an accomplished and strategic IT Procurement Category Senior Director to lead our global IT Procurement. This pivotal role acts as a strategic business partner to AZ IT as well as the various digital functional leadership teams —translating technology roadmaps and product priorities into commercial strategies and supplier outcomes. You will steer category management excellence, implement groundbreaking initiatives, and collaborate with cross-functional teams to enable speed, innovation, resilience, and compliant value creation across the AZ IT portfolio. You will develop a high-performing, partnership oriented culture that supports our IT and Procurement teams in realizing their ambitious goals. 

Key Responsibilities:

• Category Management Excellence: Develop and complete an innovative global category strategy for IT procurement that drives continuous improvement and delivers balanced value—co-shaped with AZ IT to align with technology roadmaps, architecture standards, and service delivery needs. 

• Leadership and Team Development: Lead, mentor, and develop a team of procurement professionals. Encourage a culture of excellence, collaboration, and professional growth, embedding a business partnering mentality and proactive engagement model with AZ IT 

• Functional Leadership team: Play a key role on the IT and Infrastructure Procurement Leadership team, giving to the overall success of the function as well as lead / mentor functional teams to deliver scorecard objectives. 

• Strategic Sourcing: Identify and complete strategic sourcing opportunities that align with company and product goals. Leverage deep market insights and benchmarking to optimize and innovate procurement processes, timing sourcing events to IT delivery cadences (e.g., sprint/PI planning) and supporting rapid proofs-of-concept through to scale-up. 

• Supplier Relationship Management: Build and maintain positive relationships with key suppliers and strategic technology partners (cloud, SaaS, data/AI, engineering services, niche R&D platforms). Drive joint value creation for AZIT use cases, negotiate commercial models that fit consumption patterns, and ensure measurable outcomes. 

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Collaborate closely with AZIT and Digital  product owners, engineering, architecture, cybersecurity, finance, and senior leadership to align procurement strategies with business objectives. Facilitate portfolio planning and demand shaping to optimize total cost, risk, and speed-to-value. 

• Risk Management: Identify, assess, and manage risks associated with IT procurement. Partner with Legal, Privacy, InfoSec, QA, and IT to ensure compliant contracting and robust supplier controls for regulated R&D environments; implement operational resilience and continuity plans for critical services. 

• Performance Metrics and Reporting: Define and manage benchmarks and goals and breakthroughs (operational key reports) in partnership with IT (e.g., availability, velocity, unit economics, adoption). Run joint