Program Strategic Category Development Partner (LTE)

The Foundation

We are the largest nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Founded on a simple premise: people everywhere, regardless of identity or circumstances, should have the chance to live healthy, productive lives. We believe our employees should reflect the rich diversity of the global populations we aim to serve. We provide an exceptional benefits package to employees and their families which include comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with no premiums, generous paid time off, paid family leave, foundation-paid retirement contribution, regional holidays, and opportunities to engage in several employee communities. As a workplace, we’re committed to creating an environment for you to thrive both personally and professionally.

The Team

The vision of Global Financial & Accounting Services (GFAS) is to provide innovative and scalable global business solutions in accounting, tax, payroll, treasury, sourcing, procurement and financial operations while safeguarding the reputation of the foundation and our related entities, with the highest standards of integrity and operational excellence.

GFAS is a team within the Finance organization at the foundation and an important part of the operations function. Operations supports and enables the six program divisions to make investments and to run effectively and efficiently. As a function, Finance employs approximately 200 full-time employees (FTEs). The GFAS team is significant (45+ FTEs) and continues to scale up to support the increasing breadth and complexity of global operations for the foundation and its affiliated entities.

As a new integral function of GFAS, Strategic Sourcing & Procurement (SS&P) is building a team that partners with the business to procure competitive vendors, drive negotiations, and align internal contracting requirements. SS&P is both a practice and function.

As a practice, SS&P is the evaluation and selection of vendors based on qualitative and measurable success metrics, rather than the simple cost of the product or service. SS&P connects spend analysis, data-driven vendor selection with diversity in mind, and ongoing engagement with vendors to increase purchasing power to deliver value and mitigate risk.

As a function, SS&P is a new business-enabling team who partners with Contract Services, Finance, Information Security, HR, Legal, Accounting and others to ensure our vendor procurement process is transparent, balances risk and gives time back to business partners to focus on their impactful work in the foundation.

Your Role

Reporting to the Head of Strategic Sourcing of SS&P, this role will join a team whose primary responsibilities include strategic sourcing, category and vendor management, ensure adherence to applicable procurement and foundation policies and processes and general contracting duties.

At a strategic level, especially on the earlier maturity phase, this role is responsible for designing, embedding strategic category management and driving category maturity across the foundation’s program spend. In close partnership with the SS&P Sourcing Head, the Principal Officer (Strategy & Implementation Management) and Program Sourcing Partner(s), this role will develop successful stakeholder and vendor engagement frameworks, establish a clear maturity roadmap, and act as change catalyst to effectively foster sourcing as a trusted, value-adding partner to the program teams. As prioritized by the SS&P Sourcing Head, this role also has strategic sourcing responsibilities to support business stakeholders and collaborate with Legal to manage, negotiate and execute contracts, as necessary run RFPs (Request for Proposal) and/or facilitate the vendor selection process.

The ideal candidate has strategic sourcing experience, excellent communication skills, especially with senior leadership, and proven deep expertise in Management Consulting and/or other Consulting categories (i.e. Communications, Technology etc.). The ideal candidate is a self-starter who works independently, communicates effectively, and can influence others without needing formal authority. They are passionate about delivering high-quality work individually and through others. The SS&P team is looking for someone who can hit the ground running to manage multiple responsibilities while producing high-quality work.

This is a 2-year Limited Term Employment position located in Seattle, WA. Relocation support will be provided.

What You’ll Do

Category Strategy & Vision

• Define and operationalize the category management framework for consulting and professional services across the foundation’s program spend.
• Develop and execute a multi-year category strategy aligned with SS&P’s long-term objectives and the foundation’s mission.
• Build adoption strategies for sourcing practices in a non-mandated environment, demonstrating value to drive voluntary engagement.
• Partner with the Foundation Strategy Office to develop the internal and external (vendors) engagement strategy and to prioritize the maturity roadmap

Change Leadership & Influence

• Act as a champion of change, orchestrating transformation across a diverse partner base to embed sourcing as a strategic enabler.
• Build consensus and secure executive sponsorship through data-driven insights, business cases, and clear value articulation.
• Educate and advise senior leaders on the Source-to-Contract process, positioning sourcing as a trusted advisor.

Insights & Strategic Sourcing/RFX

• Partner with the Program Sourcing Partner to execute against the engagement plan, including negotiating large complex vendor agreements
• Leverage spend analytics, market intelligence, and benchmarking to find opportunities, shape strategy, and influence key decisions.
• Define and track key performance indicators to measure adoption, efficiency, and value creation, reporting results to senior management.
• Anticipate market and industry trends, including adopting AI, to proactively adapt sourcing strategies.

What success looks like

• A clearly defined and adopted sourcing framework across program spend (i.e. consulting).
• Strong partner alignment and trust in sourcing as a strategic partner in a non-mandated culture.
• Demonstrable value delivered through complex strategic sourcing RFX, improved vendor management with strategic top-spend vendors, optimized spend, and measurable business outcomes.
• A scalable, future-ready program sourcing practice embedded within the foundation’s SS&P operating model, incorporating responsible sourcing practices (i.e. inclusive procurement and sustainability).

Your Experience

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience combined with minimum 10+ years of procurement experience (Sourcing & Procurement experience) with strong negotiating, contracting and category management expertise
• Demonstrated SME (Subject Matter Expert) in management consultant category, ideally in areas of global health and strategy
• Solid understanding of systems like Coupa, D&B (Dun & Bradstreet), DocuSign, Concur, Dynamics, etc.
• Analytical and data focused approach that can provide actionable insights via dashboards
• Comfortable using AI tools (i.e. ChatGPT, Co-Pilot)
• Ability to work well in a fast-paced environment while managing various priorities to meet multiple deadlines
• Must exhibit strong service excellence, detail orientation, and excel in problem solving
• Experience with discovering new vendors and negotiating contracts with established or new vendors across corporate services
• Strong customer service mentality & project management skills
• Experience and success in partnering with legal teams to execute and negotiate vendor contracts
• Collaboration approach; helps reinforce a “we” not a “me” culture
• Experience in presenting to different audiences (from individual teams to executive level); communicates in a clear, concise and timely manner

Must be able to legally work in the country where this position is located without visa sponsorship.

The salary range for this role is $154,200 to $ 231,400 USD. We recognize high-wage market differences in Seattle and Washington D.C., where our offices are located. The range for this role in these locations is $168,200 to $252,200 USD. As a mission-driven organization, we strive to balance competitive pay with our mission. New hires salaries are typically between the range minimum and the salary range midpoint. Actual placement in the range will depend on a candidate’s job-related skills, experience, and expertise, as evaluated during the interview process.

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Hiring Requirements

As part of our standard hiring process for new employees, employment will be contingent upon successful completion of a background check.

Candidate Accommodations

If you require assistance due to a disability in the application or recruitment process, please submit a request here.

Inclusion Statement

We are dedicated to the belief that all lives have equal value. We strive for a global and cultural workplace that supports ever greater diversity, equity, and inclusion — of voices, ideas, and approaches — and we support this diversity through all our employment practices.

All applicants and employees who are drawn to serve our mission will enjoy equality of opportunity and fair treatment without regard to race, color, age, religion, pregnancy, sex, sexual orientation, disability, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, and prior protected activity.