Vendor Management Lead

Vendor M anagement Lead

Are you enthusiastic about building strong partnerships? Do you thrive on negotiating deals and driving value through vendor relationships?

The SAM and Sourcing team leads our technology & tooling purchasing with a focus on value for money, compliance and technology selection processes. The team is geographically dispersed across multiple time zones with hubs in the UK, US and Philippines to support our customer base and end users during their working day. The team works closely with Legal, Finance, Architecture, Global Procurement and our Technology Leadership.

You will join a broader team focused on software and service management, taking ownership of Elsevier’s technology services vendor management strategy. Your mission is to ensure third-party providers are selected, governed, and optimised to deliver maximum value, mitigate risk, and support long-term business objectives.

This role centres on outsourcing, staff augmentation, and black-box service contracts, requiring strong leadership and strategic thinking to manage complex vendor relationships effectively.

• Defin ing and owning the vendor selection and governance strategy across staff augmentation, external development, and managed/ black box staffing services in Technology.
• Develop ing vendor location strategy (e.g., onshore/offshore/nearshore balance) to optimise cost, time zones, and talent quality; in synergy with our Technology location strategy and our broader RELX sister companies’ vendor strategy.
• Partner ing with Global Procurement and Legal to establish and maintain a preferred vendor shortlist, including standardised contracts and compliance checks.
• Collaborat ing with Global Procurement & Legal to lead the full RFP lifecycle—from requirements and evaluation through to vendor selection and tough negotiations.
• Build ing and run ning governance processes for ongoing performance management, financial oversight, and risk control.
• Lead ing regular strategic and operational vendor reviews to confirm contractual compliance and performance, identify and track improvement actions and opportunities to deliver additional value from the relationship.
• Engag ing with relevant IT stakeholders, ensuring a level of due diligence and governance is in place for the onboarding, service introduction and ongoing management of vendors.
• Partner ing with senior IT leaders to design bold sourcing strategies and identify/lead vendor consolidation initiatives to reduce fragmentation and cost inefficiencies.
• Engag ing wi th vendors to drive and invite thought leadership, innovation, and specialist added value by leveraging a strong working relationship.
• Driv ing measurable value through proposed renegotiations, rationalisation, and innovative sourcing models (multi-vendor, offshoring, managed services) in partnership with Global Procurement and Legal.
• Provid ing transparency and communication across the technology organisation regarding approved vendors, processes, and guidelines.
• Benchmar king and introduc ing best practices from leading technology organisations.
• Establish ing reporting metrics (cost savings, vendor performance, risk reduction, and satisfaction).
• Partner ing with Business Continuity, ISDP and Technical Resilience to ensure vendor compliance with our risk and security management standards and policies, and Architecture to ensure compliance with our Technology standardsli>

• Extensive experience in IT sourcing, vendor strategy, technology vendor management and transformation—ideally from a top-tier firm.
• Strong leadership experience running RFPs, vendor selections, and high-stakes contract negotiations.
• Deep understanding of the IT services landscape (cloud, infrastructure, A W S, managed services).
• Proven results in driving cost savings, vendor rationalisation, and performance uplift.
• Experience managing large-scale external supplier portfolios (>$100M spend).
• Excellent stakeholder engagement across technology, procurement, and executive leadership.
• Understanding of financial governance, compliance, and risk management in vendor engagements.

Join our team and…