Director, Technology Strategic Sourcing & Category Management

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Responsibilities

• Direct technology category strategies, sourcing plans, renewal calendars, and pipeline priorities for assigned spend areas, aligning with business and technology demand, service, quality, and cost objectives.
• Lead sourcing events, supplier evaluations, negotiations, and award recommendations to secure commercial value and category continuity while adhering to policy and control requirements.
• Oversee supplier performance, contract compliance, and issue resolution to address service, quality, risk, and continuity concerns across the assigned portfolio.
• Manage category budgets, savings tracking, resource utilization, and delivery plans using financial, consumption, and quality metrics.
• Provide team leadership: assign and review work, coach development, support talent decisions, and maintain clear routines, accountability, and escalation paths.
• Act as the single accountable owner for the assigned sub‑category, defining its roadmap, spend baseline, supplier landscape, and risk assessment.
• Support transition from legacy vendor‑tier structures, coordinating with peer category owners where overlap exists.
• Serve as the defined sourcing business partner to Technology leaders, running standing cadences to capture project plans, budgets, and demand signals, and maintaining a rolling demand and renewal forecast.
• Aggregate and challenge requirements across teams to reduce duplication, consolidate suppliers and licenses, and right‑size specifications before sourcing begins.
• Build and maintain the category plan, including sourcing approach, supplier strategy, savings targets, and sequencing of initiatives.
• Run competitive sourcing events end‑to‑end, including RFx design, supplier evaluation against business requirements, technical specifications, security standards, scenario analysis, and award recommendation.
• Identify alternative supplier models, licensing and consumption constructs, and demand‑management opportunities that reduce total cost of ownership.
• Lead negotiations for assigned agreements, securing commercial and legal terms that optimize total cost of ownership, quality, and service delivery; coordinate with Legal, Information Security, Privacy, and Risk.
• Manage supplier performance through scorecards, performance reviews, service‑level tracking, and corrective‑action plans; monitor contract compliance, consumption, invoicing, true‑up, and audit exposure.
• Execute supplier risk assessments and remediation in line with the third‑party risk framework; identify contract improvement, renegotiation, consolidation, and development opportunities.
• Track and report category spend, savings pipeline, and realized value; build cost models, bid analyses, and business cases to support fact‑based recommendations.
• Partner with Technology, Information Security, Legal, Finance, and business stakeholders to align requirements, specifications, timelines, and handoffs, providing timely status updates with risks and recommendations.
• Apply procurement governance, delegation of authority, and code of conduct requirements consistently; drive process improvement, standardization, onboarding, and cross‑training.
• Utilize AI and automation in sourcing workflows where approved to reduce administrative effort and increase strategic work.
• Support supplier diversity, ESG, and responsible sourcing objectives within the category supply base.
• Maintain accurate data in procurement systems, ensuring reliable category and demand reporting.

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 related field) preferred.
• 10+ years of experience in strategic sourcing, procurement, and category management, including 4+ years in technology or data sourcing (required).
• 5+ years of experience in a management capacity (required).
• Demonstrated track record negotiating and managing complex technology supplier contracts and portfolios of $50M+ in annual spend (required).
• Experience owning a defined category or sub‑category within a category‑based procurement or category management operating model (required).
• Experience acting as a procurement business partner to technology or business leaders, building forward demand and renewal visibility (preferred).
• Experience in a large, matrixed global organization (preferred).
• Certification in procurement, supply management, or project management (e.g., CPSM, CIPS, PMP) preferred.

Skills and Knowledge

• Hands‑on expertise in strategic sourcing and contract development for technology and data categories, including SaaS, cloud services, infrastructure, IT services, telecom, packaged software, cyber security, data solutions, and emerging technologies.
• Ability to build and maintain a category roadmap covering both near‑term execution and multi‑year strategy.
• Strong negotiation skills with a working command of commercial and legal terms in technology agreements.
• Skilled at business partnering, including running a demand and renewal cadence with stakeholders and influencing requirements early.
• Knowledge of vendor management, compliance, governance, and risk management frameworks, including third‑party and cyber risk requirements.
• Knowledge of the technology supplier landscape, licensing and consumption models, and industry trends relevant to the assigned categories.
• Ability to translate business and technology requirements into category strategies, sourcing plans, and executable initiatives.
• Strong financial and analytical skills, including cost modeling, bid analysis, ROI evaluation, and data‑driven recommendations.
• Effective communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence without authority across functions.
• Ability to manage multiple concurrent initiatives to deadline in a matrixed global environment, and comfort operating while an operating model is still maturing.
• Ability to establish spend baselines, category profiles, risk assessments, controls, performance measures, and KPI reporting.
• Proficiency in procurement tools (such as SAP Ariba or Coupa), contract lifecycle management systems, and data analytics platforms.
• Proficiency in English for business communication across global stakeholders and suppliers.

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage.
• Wellness programs addressing physical, emotional, financial, and social health.
• Support for working families, including backup dependent care, adoption assistance, infertility coverage, family‑building support, behavioral health solutions, paid parental leave, and paid caregiver leave.
• Training programs, professional development resources, mentorship opportunities, employee resource groups, and volunteer activities.
• Additional resources that enable an inclusive culture and support employees’ ability to live with purpose every day.
• For full details, visit Cencora benefits page.

Pay

Salary Range: $119,100 – $186,560 (National Average). The actual range may vary based on locale; state‑specific locations may be up to 10 % lower than the minimum or 12 % higher than the maximum.