Strategic Sourcing Manager - Technology (Indirect)

Together we fight for everyone’s opportunity for a better financial future.

We will do this together — with customers, partners and colleagues. We will fight for others, not against: We will stand up for and champion everyone’s access to opportunities. The status quo is not good enough … we believe every individual and every community deserves access to financial opportunities. We are determined to support both individuals and communities in reaching a better financial future.  We know that reaching this future depends on our actions today.

Like our Purpose Statement, Voya believes in being bold and committed to action.  We are committed to a work environment where the differences that we are born with — and those we acquire throughout our lives — are understood, valued and intentionally pursued. We believe that our employees own our culture and have a responsibility to foster an environment where we all feel comfortable bringing our whole selves to work. Purposefully bringing our differences together to positively influence our culture, serve our clients and enrich our communities is essential to our vision.

Are you ready to join a company with a strong purpose and a winning culture? Start your Voyage – Apply Now

GET TO KNOW THE OPPORTUNITY

As a senior negotiator and team lead in Voya’s Strategic Sourcing (indirect) department you will develop and execute sourcing strategies for complex/risky indirect technology (SaaS, software, hardware, data center, cloud, end user computing, telecommunications, network, etc) and related professional services from Voya’s suppliers in order to minimize risk and maximize value. Conduct category management for assigned internal customer areas and create and clearly articulate negotiation strategies and ensure internal customer alignment.  Lead other activities to drive cost savings that include but are not limited to: influencing RFPs, demand management initiatives, supplier rationalization programs, and converting business as usual renewals to strategic renewals.  Recommend process and policy changes to improve efficiency, reduce cycle time, and enhance customer satisfaction.  Provide thought leadership and negotiation subject matter expertise to customers and direct reports.  Develop strong value-add relationships with customers in order to establish yourself as a trusted advisor.  Lead, mentor, and develop a team of Sourcing professionals to ensure the effectiveness of their negotiations and contracts.

Please Note:  Work location for this role is FLEXIBLE! This position allows 100% remote work from home or allows work to be performed in any of our major office locations with a hybrid schedule. 

The Contributions You'll Make:

• Apply Voya’s best practices for negotiating technology and services deals to achieve Voya’s enterprise objectives and specific business unit strategic plans. 
• Concurrently negotiate multiple complex deals (average concurrency of 5-7 deals)
• Develop and maintain strong relationships with assigned internal customer area(s) and key suppliers
• Lead collaborative long term planning sessions with internal customers to provide enough time for building leverage and effective negotiations
• Develop advanced planning for future new deals and strategic renewals to permit sufficient time for expected disposition
• Tactfully influence and convert sole sourcing requests into competitive bidding (RFP) events 
• Review supplier contract redlines, provide responsive edits, and negotiate all contract terms to completion for governing agreements, amendments, amended/restated agreements, SOWs, and order forms
• Lead real time video calls with suppliers to negotiate commercial terms and contracts
• Act as a subject matter expert to organization and senior management across multiple functions, divisions, and geographic locations.
• Interact with customers, matrix partners (legal, risk, info-sec, privacy, etc), and suppliers at all levels of management to support resolution of complex business issues requiring a balance of assertiveness, tact, business acumen and diplomacy. 
• Engage in strategic planning efforts at the business unit and enterprise level.
• Participate in program, process and policy setting for the Strategic Sourcing organization.
• Achieve annual savings targets and other performance metrics as defined.
• Hire, train, and develop direct reports to achieve Sourcing’s objectives.  Conducts performance reviews and recurring 1:1’s.
• Ownership and leadership mentality to ensure deals are negotiated with expected outcomes and according to customer driven timelines
• Conduct necessary research on prior contracts and spend
• Leverage AI technologies for efficient research of spend data including contracts and purchase orders
• Other duties as assigned.

Minimum Knowledge and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree
• Minimum 5 years extensive, broad-based experience in directly leading supplier negotiations for high complexity categories including technology and professional services in the indirect space.
• Acts with a sense of urgency with ability to simultaneously lead multiple complex initiatives while consistently meeting timelines, milestones, and effective negotiations. 
• Previous experience leading a Sourcing team is required.
• Comprehensive knowledge of business principles, contract law, contract construction, software/SaaS licensing, intellectual property, finance, and accounting.
• Interpret contracts and provide accurate interpretation to department leadership, customers, matrix partners, and colleagues. 
• Draft custom contract language/documents including license order forms and SOWs.
• Experience using intake/case management, ERP, contracts database, and e-signature applications
• Advanced Microsoft Word/Excel/PowerPoint skills required
• Know how to accurately and clearly model deals in Excel including data normalization, apples-to-apples comparisons, and expense views vs cash views
• Using formulas in Excel to prevent result errors and allow for deal modeling with variable inputs
• This individual must be able to effectively negotiate commercial terms and conditions with suppliers according to Voya’s best practices, templates, and standard operating procedures including strict ethical compliance.
• By virtue of breadth and/or depth of experience, is recognized as a key technical advisor highly capable of translating business objectives into finite project management plans with clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and completion targets. 
• Demonstrates knowledge of cost and price analysis techniques, proposal/contracting skills, project management, business management and strategic category management techniques.
• Strong interpersonal, oral, and written communication skills are required. 
• Strong team building skills are essential including collaboration and teaming with colleagues
• Demonstrating full accountability for personal and team performance
• Commercial risk identification and mitigation strategies
• Ability to successfully negotiate with large Fortune 200 suppliers

Preferred Knowledge and Experience

• Advanced ability to modify supplier paper (for limited circumstances when Voya paper is not used) to reduce risk and improve rights for Voya through intelligent redlining of supplier terms while also understanding what is missing from the supplier’s template and adding in the necessary Voya standard terms.
• Significant experience handling ambiguity, nuance, and changes in direction on negotiations
• Negotiating enterprise-wide agreements across business units, different cost centers, affiliates, and newly acquired entities.
• Demonstrated ability to lead by example including having direct reports learn through shadowing your negotiations and contracts editing
• Identifying both cost take out (reduction to budget) opportunities and net new incremental savings on new purchases
• Knowing when to escalate issues and risks to leadership
• Follows the ‘no surprises’ rule – better to correct mistakes before contracts are signed
• Can synthesis complex deals into executive level email summaries and PowerPoints
• Highly credible – You give the right answer, not just a quick answer.
• Deep understanding of commercial negotiation strategies with specific knowledge of technology deal strategies
• Application of Voya specific contracting standards when agreeing to changes in Voya’s standard template language

#LI-SS1 #LI-Remote

Compensation Pay Disclosure:

Voya is committed to pay that’s fair and equitable, which means comparable pay for comparable roles and responsibilities.

The below annual base salary range reflects the expected hiring range(s) for this position in the location(s) listed. In addition to base salary, Voya offers incentive opportunities (i.e., annual cash incentives, sales incentives, and/or long-term incentives) based on the role to reward the achievement of annual performance objectives. Please note that this salary information is solely for candidates hired to perform work within one of these locations, and refers to the amount Voya Financial is willing to pay at the time of this posting.

Actual compensation offered may vary from the posted salary range based upon the candidate’s geographic location, work experience, education, licensure requirements and/or skill level and will be finalized at the time of offer. Salaries for part-time roles will be prorated based upon the agreed upon number of hours to be regularly worked.

Be Well. Stay Well.

Voya provides the resources that can make a difference in your lives. To us, this means thriving physically, financially, socially and emotionally. Voya benefits are designed to help you do just that. That’s why we offer an array of plans, programs, tools and resources with one goal in mind: To help you and your family be well and stay well.

What We Offer

• Health, dental, vision and life insurance plans
• 401(k) Savings plan – with generous company matching contributions (up to 6%)
• Voya Retirement Plan – employer paid cash balance retirement plan (4%)
• Tuition reimbursement up to $5,250/year
• Paid time off – including 20 days paid time off, nine paid company holidays and a flexible Diversity Celebration Day.
• Paid volunteer time — 40 hours per calendar year

Learn more about Voya benefits (download PDF)

Critical Skills

At Voya, we have identified the following critical skills which are key to success in our culture:

• Customer Focused: Passionate drive to delight our customers and offer unique solutions that deliver on their expectations.
• Critical Thinking: Thoughtful process of analyzing data and problem solving data to reach a well-reasoned solution.
• Team Mentality: Partnering effectively to drive our culture and execute on our common goals.
• Business Acumen: Appreciation and understanding of the financial services industry in order to make sound business decisions.
• Learning Agility: Openness to new ways of thinking and acquiring new skills to retain a competitive advantage.

Learn more about Critical Skills

Equal Employment Opportunity

Voya Financial is an equal-opportunity employer. Voya Financial provides equal opportunity to qualified individuals regardless of race, color, sex, national origin, citizenship status, religion, age, disability, veteran status, creed, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, or any other status protected by state or local law.