Telecom & IT Network Senior Category Manager

About the role

Northern Trust, a Fortune 500 company, is a globally recognized, award-winning financial institution with over 130 years of financial experience and over 22,000 partners. Northern Trust is dedicated to providing innovative financial services and guidance to the world’s most successful individuals, families, and institutions, while maintaining its core values of service, expertise, and integrity.

Major Duties

• Leads complex, end-to-end sourcing initiatives for telecommunications, network, and infrastructure.
• Collaborates with internal teams to align technology needs with vendor capabilities, ensuring high-quality performance.
• Develops, implements, and communicates an overall category strategy to meet both the Business Unit's and Corporation's strategic plans.
• Develops best-in-class procurement practices enterprise-wide, including effective category sourcing and overall procurement strategies; processes and infrastructure to effectively manage procurement activities across all assigned spending categories; sustainable purchasing methods; and programs to ensure a diverse supplier base including minority, small, women and disadvantaged businesses.
• Ledges and manages RFx (e.g., Request for Proposal, Request for Information, Request for Quote) process, including project management, development of RFx, negotiations and award process.
• Responsible for contract review, drafting and creation of various agreements, including NDAs, Master Agreements, Statements of Work, etc., and leading all aspects of contract & price negotiations and ongoing contract administration.
• Supports and monitors supplier adherence to contracts, manage suppliers via supplier activity reporting, escalations, and business/performance reviews, support and conduct supplier scorecards, supplier rationalization, and demand management opportunities.
• Manages and supports regulatory and compliance requirements (e.g., OFAC, FCPA, DORA, Spend Analysis, Client Relationships).
• Manages reporting of Procurement performance metrics and provides ongoing support for internal and external audit requests.
• Manages relationship with key partners, education on policy/guidelines and resolving related purchasing issues.
• Utilizes and maintains Contract Management System (Coupa) along with other supporting systems such as Zip, etc.
• Interacts with business and partners to formulate and implement strategy and solutions to enhance existing services, create new services or improve processes. Identifies impact of changes and processes; facilitates acceptance of change through training and communication. Provides ongoing support for the solution.

Knowledge

• Telecom, Network and Infrastructure knowledge and experience.
• Multitasking, working independently, and making decisions.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Highly flexible and adaptable to change.
• Excellent understanding of procurement philosophies and strategies along with in-depth knowledge of supply chain management and procurement.
• Leadership and organizational skills to develop objectives and goals.
• Proficiency in MS Office Suites with advanced Excel skills.

Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in business, Supply Chain Management or Finance is preferred.
• Eight or more years’ experience in Sourcing/Procurement and minimum five years in Telecom/Network 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) and Financial Industry experience are a strong plus.

Preferred Experience

• Presentation and communication with C-Level/senior executives.
• Lead projects with manageable risks and resource requirements.

Salary Range

$95,600 - 162,400 USD

Benefits

• Retirement benefits (401k and pension)
• Health and welfare benefits (medical, dental, vision, spending accounts and disability)
• Paid time off, parental and caregiver leave
• Life & accident insurance
• Other voluntary and well-being benefits
• Discretionary bonus program with an equity component

Working With Us

We offer 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 we are committed to assisting the communities we serve!

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.