VP, Head of Technology Cost Management

The Head of Technology Cost & Expense Management is the Technology organization’s single-point owner for expense discipline, cost optimization, and savings delivery. This role is exclusively focused on reducing Technology spend; challenging assumptions, surfacing inefficiencies, eliminating waste, optimizing consumption, and improving vendor economics to drive durable run-rate reductions.
 

Operating as an independent cost challenger, the role establishes a measurable cost-management operating rhythm, builds executive-ready transparency into spend drivers, and partners with IT leaders, Procurement, and Finance to ensure savings are real, realized, attributable, and sustained. This is not a traditional FP&A or budget administration role; it exists internal to Technology to interrogate spend, pressure-test value, and convert insight into measurable cost outcomes.
 

Key Responsibilities:

Technology Expense & Cost Optimization 
Own the Technology cost optimization agenda end-to-end, with accountability for: 

• Pipeline management (idea intake → sizing → business case → execution → realization tracking)
• Expense visibility and cost-driver transparency
• Savings tracking, validation, and sustainability control
   

Conduct recurring deep-dive reviews across all major Tech spend categories, including: 

• Run vs. change spend, Managed services / outsourcing / consultants, Vendor contracts, software licensing, SaaS, Infrastructure/cloud consumption (compute, storage, network)
• Non-compensation operating expenses
• Proactively identify and remediate: duplication, excess capacity, under-utilized services, shelfware, fragmented vendors, idle environments, low-value subscriptions, and structural waste
• Establish and monitor cost drivers, unit economics, and consumption metrics (where applicable) to enable fact-based challenge of spend levels
• Drive run-rate reduction initiatives with clear owners, milestones, and realized outcomes (not just cost avoidance)
   

Spend Transparency & Executive Management Reporting
Build and maintain clear, executive-ready views of Technology spend by: 

• Domain, product/service, platform
• Vendor/contract, category, run-rate
• Cost center, run vs. change
   

Produce monthly executive reporting that highlights: 

• Run-rate movements, key drivers, exceptions, and actions required
• Savings pipeline health (planned vs. in-flight vs. realized)
• Top cost risks, emerging pressure points, and decision points
• Translate complex cost data into decision-ready narratives that drive action, accountability, and prioritization (not reporting for reporting’s sake)
   

Financial Governance & Expense Controls (Cost-Focused)
Serve as the Technology expense governance lead (in partnership with Tech Finance), ensuring spend is: 

• Intentional, justified, and optimized
• Evaluated against lower-cost alternatives and reuse options
• Aligned to cost reduction objectives and standards to prevent proliferation
   

Own a monthly operating cadence for expense discipline, including: 

Non-compensation expense deep dives and variance explanations

• Vendor run-rate reviews, renewal/true-up readiness, and accrual accuracy checks (expense-focused)
• Corrective action plans for run-rate creep and emerging cost risks
• Implement/strengthen key controls where appropriate (e.g., approval workflows, purchasing standards, “no PO/no pay”, renewal calendars, usage validation)
   

Vendor & Third Party Cost Optimization

• Partner with Procurement and Technology leadership to improve vendor economics through contract renegotiation, consolidation, and usage optimization. 
• Act as a senior review point for major vendor spend and commercial decisions.
• Continuous Cost Improvement
• Drive ongoing identification of cost optimization opportunities and recommend structural changes that prevent spend re accumulation. 
• Promote sustained expense discipline through repeatable review processes and accountability.

 

Qualifications & Experience

• Significant experience in technology expense management, cost optimization, financial governance, procurement/COO functions, preferably in financial services 
• Demonstrated track record of delivering realized savings through vendor and consumption optimization 
• Strong commercial judgment and comfort challenging vendor economics and internal assumptions 
• Highly analytical; able to isolate cost drivers