Senior Strategic Sourcing Specialist

Job Overview

Working under limited supervision, the Senior Strategic Sourcing Specialist is responsible for assisting Strategic Sourcing Managers by helping to manage vendor category management, independently managing assigned vendor categories, and overseeing day to day operational third-party risk management within their team. This includes sourcing, evaluation, negotiation, contract management, and third-party risk assessment activities as well as contributing to internal communication mediums and material. This role contributes to the Strategic Sourcing team success by collaborating and providing a high level of customer service, mentorship, and guidance to the internal team, internal stakeholders, and vendors. They are a team player and skilled multi-tasker who is detail oriented, organized, and comfortable with managing a large volume of work and tight deadlines.

Job Responsibilities

• Adheres to and supports existing Strategic Sourcing processes while working with relevant stakeholders.
• Builds and maintains excellent relationships with internal stakeholders, colleagues, and external vendors.
• Provides input to and independently promotes and completes continual service improvement activities for Strategic Sourcing.
• Independently executes or contributes to vendor sourcing, evaluation, selection, contract reviews and negotiation activities in collaboration with relevant stakeholders.
• Keep current on market research, industry trends and practices, and supply chain disruption.
• Manages assigned vendor categories including negotiations, and contract development and execution as well as overall category management.
• Contributes to the definition and development of strategy for supplier programs based on business need.
• Contributes to the operation and continuous improvement of the Strategic Sourcing Center of Excellence.
• Provides training, mentorship for junior team members.
• Manages applicable sourcing record and contract entry in enterprise third party management platform.
• Manages applicable intake process and queue assignments.
• Produces sourcing activity and category spend reports.
• Develops and delivers training material and training for the enterprise on the third-party management platform where applicable.
• Adhere to and support the Wawanesa Procurement policy.
• Performs other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Post-secondary education and a minimum of 7 years  experience in a procurement, vendor management or sourcing related role. A combination of education and experience will be considered.
• Proven contract management experience related to a variety of agreements including but not limited to resource, technical (software, SaaS, hardware), technical and non technical professional service, and master services agreements.
• Strong customer service and communication skills with the ability to effectively deal with both internal stakeholders and external vendors verbally and in writing, in a persuasive and business friendly manner.
• Excellent organizational skills with the ability to manage large amounts of complex information in a fast-paced environment.
• Excellent attention to detail and capable of conducting comprehensive information reviews.
• SCMP or related procurement, vendor management, or sourcing education or certification is considered an asset.
• Knowledge of the P&C insurance industry is considered an asset including any related certifications.
• Knowledge of IT terminology and concepts is considered an asset.
• Experience with Wawanesa s specific methodologies and technologies is considered an asset.
• Experience with Microsoft PowerBI is considered an asset.
• Strong demonstrated skills with MS Office (Excel and Word).