Vendor Manager - Strategic Procurement & Vendor Management

About This Role

This senior individual contributor role is central to managing Sprout's global vendor and partner network, transforming ad hoc decisions into a proactive, managed system. The role involves building and overseeing a vendor portfolio that supports growth with strong compliance, competitive costs, high quality and speed, and appropriate redundancy and risk management. It acts as a procurement and escalation point for various internal teams, balancing volume and cost leverage in the US with the higher risk and complexity of international markets.

Responsibilities

• Own the global vendor portfolio (who is used, where, for what)
• Design redundancy plans by region/service based on measured risk and opportunity (e.g., avoiding single points of failure where it matters most)
• Pay particular attention to international markets, where regulatory, tax, and operational complexity are highest
• Design and coordinate a central onboarding workflow for all vendors (steps, owners, requirements)
• Coordinate with Compliance, Trade, Legal, Finance, Ops, and functional owners to ensure compliance requirements are met (certs, data, export, environment) and insurance and risk standards are met
• Ensure that once SMEs approve a vendor for their respective qualification items, they are correctly reflected in the central system of record and visible for use
• Lead negotiation of MSAs, rate cards, SLAs, rebates, and commercial terms, and hold vendors accountable to terms
• Establish geographic rate cards and standard vendor SOW templates so CSMs and project teams can execute repeatable work without re-negotiating every time
• Support functional owners in driving savings and cost avoidance, while staying aligned to customer/program needs
• Build and own a single source of truth for vendors, including where they operate, capability, status, pricing, insurance, and performance
• Monitor document/cert validity (e.g., insurance, licenses) and set alerts when items are due for renewal
• Partner with IT/BI to create simple, self-serve views and scorecards for quick vendor identification and pricing assumptions
• Define and maintain vendor scorecards and review cadence (MBRs/QBRs)
• Gather performance inputs from Service Delivery, Logistics, CSM, Outbound Sales, Compliance, etc.
• Lead corrective action / escalation conversations with vendors, together with the relevant functional experts
• Recommend de-prioritization or shut-off of vendors that consistently underperform or fail to meet agreed standards
• Coordinate approvals centrally (Compliance, Trade, Legal, Finance, functional leaders) and reflect decisions in the vendor system of record
• Use vendor performance, cost, and risk data to drive portfolio, rate card, and redundancy recommendations