D&IT Vendor Relationship Manager

Location: Overland Park, KS, US

Company: Black & Veatch Family of Companies

Together, we own our company, our future, and our shared success.

As an employee-owned company, our people are Black & Veatch. We put them at the center of everything we do and empower them to grow, explore new possibilities and use their diverse talents and perspectives to solve humanity's biggest challenges in an ever-evolving world. With over 100 years of innovation in sustainable infrastructure and our expertise in engineering, procurement, consulting and construction, together we are building a world of difference.

Company : Black & Veatch Corporation

Opportunity Type : Staff

Project Only Hire : No

Why Black & Veatch?

At Black & Veatch, you’ll be part of work that matters—designing, creating, and building the infrastructure communities rely on every day, from concept through execution.

We care about how the work gets done as much as what we build. Safety is built into every decision, and people look out for each other—speaking up, collaborating, and doing the right thing because it affects real lives.

You’ll work alongside teams solving complex challenges and turning ideas into solutions that perform in the real world—gaining hands‑on experience across projects, technologies, and disciplines.

Ownership shows up in how we work. We take responsibility for outcomes, follow through on commitments, and take pride in what we deliver. As a 100% employee‑owned company, employees share in the long‑term success we build together.

With flexible ways of working and meaningful development opportunities, you’ll build a career you can be proud to stand behind.

The Opportunity

As the D&IT Vendor Relationship Manager, you will have the opportunity to:

• Manage assigned technology vendor relationships and supports commercial negotiations, governance, performance management, and contract value realization activities
• Partner with sourcing, legal, finance, cybersecurity, and business stakeholders to support approved vendor strategies and commercial objectives

Negotiation and Commercial

• Support and lead negotiations for assigned technology vendors within approved negotiation strategies. Supports development of negotiation strategies...using market intelligence, vendor economics, competitive alternatives, demand aggregation, consumption data, benchmarks, timing, switching costs, and executive relationships.
• Prepare negotiation plans defining objectives, opening positions, target outcomes, walk‑away recommendations, trade variables, concession strategies, approval boundaries, and escalation paths.
• Support or lead negotiations for new agreements, renewals, expansions, amendments, restructurings, disputes, audits, transitions, and exits for assigned vendors.
• Negotiate pricing, discount structures, price protections, renewal caps, enterprise metrics, audit provisions, licensing rights, cloud commitments, service levels, remedies, benchmarking rights, change controls, termination rights, and transition assistance.
• Navigate negotiations with dominant vendors where alternatives are constrained, balancing relationship continuity with disciplined commercial advocacy.
• Present proposed positions, tradeoffs, negotiated outcomes, residual risks, and decisions required to approval authorities.
• Support development and execution of vendor relationship and governance plans for assigned vendors within assigned portfolios consistent with the enterprise vendor‑management framework.
• Coordinate and facilitate quarterly business reviews, operational reviews, risk reviews, and commercial governance meetings for strategic vendors.
• Build productive multi‑level vendor relationships while preserving commercial independence, accountability, and appropriate channels of communication.
• Align vendor roadmaps, innovation opportunities, service capabilities, and improvement commitments with approved D&IT and business priorities.
• Drive vendor accountability through contractual obligations, scorecards, action plans, decision logs, and escalation protocols.
• Recommend vendor segmentation, governance intensity, relationship objectives, and remediation actions.

Commercial Optimization and Contract Restructuring

• Evaluate assigned agreements and consumption patterns to identify opportunities to improve economics, flexibility, service, and risk allocation.
• Support contract optimization and restructuring efforts in partnership with leadership and stakeholders involving licensing models, subscription metrics, cloud commitments, support structures, entitlements, service scope, or agreement consolidation.
• Develop sourcing and commercial alternatives that improve leverage and reduce lock‑in, excess capacity, unused entitlements, or unfavorable long‑term commitments.
• Quantify and pursue savings, cost avoidance, credits, rebates, service remedies, productivity improvements, and other negotiated value.
• Partner with technical and business owners to ensure commercial structures align with architecture, operational requirements, and forecast demand.

Key Responsibilities

Contract Governance and Value Realization

• Translate contract terms into actionable governance plans covering obligations, entitlements, milestones, notice dates, service levels, credits, reporting, and internal ownership.
• Monitor utilization, consumption, true‑ups, minimum commitments, renewals, price changes, and potential commercial leakage for assigned agreements.
• Validate that negotiated benefits and protections are implemented and sustained after signature.
• Provide concise contract summaries and decision‑ready reporting on commercial value, obligations, risks, and required actions.
• Maintain reliable contract, vendor, performance, risk, and value‑realization data in ServiceNow or other designated systems.

Vendor Performance, Risk, and Dispute Management

• Establish and monitor vendor scorecards, service levels, key performance indicators, business outcomes, risk indicators, and improvement commitments.
• Lead corrective action plans, cure activities, service‑credit recovery, and approved commercial remediation for assigned vendors.
• Partner with Legal, Information Security, Privacy, Risk, Finance, Architecture, operations, and business owners to assess contractual, financial, cybersecurity, privacy, compliance, concentration, continuity, and transition risks.
• Quantify vendor risks in financial and business terms and recommend mitigation, continuity, remediation, transition, or exit actions.
• Support fact‑based resolution of commercial disputes, performance failures, contractual disagreements, and escalations within delegated authority.
• Support or lead assigned vendor audit responses, licensing true‑up negotiations, compliance reviews, and settlement discussions under Legal and leadership guidance.

Financial Analysis and Market Intelligence

• Assist in development of financial analyses, benchmarks, financial models, and business‑case support materials. Assess the financial and operational impact of vendor proposals, licensing changes, consumption commitments, pricing adjustments, contract modifications, and audit positions.
• Use independent market intelligence and vendor data to challenge assumptions, test competitiveness, and anticipate changes in licensing or monetization models.
• Track spend, negotiated value, forecast exposure, credits, rebates, and variance to approved plans in partnership with Finance and portfolio owners.
• Provide transparent analysis that distinguishes recurring savings, cost avoidance, recovered value, risk reduction, and nonfinancial benefits.

Cross‑Functional Leadership

• Participate in cross‑functional deal and governance teams and align stakeholders around an approved negotiation mandate, roles, decision rights, and escalation process.
• Collaborate with stakeholders and provide recommendations to support vendor‑management decisions. May provide guidance and knowledge sharing to peers and junior team members. May supervise designated staff, establish work priorities, support development plans, and provide feedback consistent with company practices.
• Demonstrates strategic thinking, executive communication, sound judgment, people development, and enterprise perspective when leading vendor and commercial initiatives.

Management Responsibilities

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Supply Chain, Finance, Information Systems, Engineering, Law, or a related field preferred. Equivalent directly relevant experience may be considered.
• Typically 7 or more years of progressive experience in technology sourcing, strategic vendor management, commercial contracting, vendor management, software asset or licensing management, or a related discipline.
• Demonstrated experience supporting complex, high‑value technology negotiations and presenting commercial recommendations.
• Experience with enterprise software, SaaS, cloud, engineering technology, managed services, professional services, or outsourcing agreements.
• Experience working in cross‑functional teams in a matrixed organization and operating within formal governance and delegated‑authority frameworks.
• Demonstrated financial and analytical capability, including scenario modeling, total cost of ownership, benchmarking, forecasting, and value measurement.
• Experience negotiating with major global technology providers or comparable dominant vendors, such as Microsoft, Oracle, Autodesk, Bentley, Octave, ServiceNow, Adobe, ESRI, SAP, Salesforce, AWS, or Google.
• Deep understanding of enterprise licensing, SaaS subscriptions, cloud consumption, maintenance and support, enterprise agreements, managed services, professional services, audits, true‑ups, and renewal economics.
• Experience with contract restructuring, audit defense, compliance negotiations, commercial dispute resolution, service remediation, or vendor transition planning.
• Experience using ServiceNow Vendor Management Workspace, contract lifecycle management, sourcing, procurement, spend analytics, or comparable platforms.
• Professional certification such as CPSM, CIPS, WorldCC, NCMA, PMP, or relevant negotiation training is desirable.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree (in any discipline) or equivalent experience.
• 2+ years of experience facilitating the development and implementation of business initiatives and projects, based on management objectives.
• All applicants must be able to complete pre‑employment onboarding requirements (if selected) which may include any/all of the following: criminal/civil background check, drug screen, and motor vehicle records search, in compliance with any applicable laws and regulations.

Certifications

Work Environment/Physical Demands

Typical office environment.

Salary Plan

Job Grade

018

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Black & Veatch is committed to being an employer of choice by creating a valuable work experience that keeps our people engaged, productive, safe and healthy.

Our comprehensive benefits portfolio is a key component of this commitment and offers an array of health care benefits including but not limited to medical, dental and vision insurances along with disability and a robust wellness program.

To support a healthy work‑life balance, we offer flexible work schedules, paid vacation and holiday time, sick time, and dependent sick time.

A variety of additional benefits are available to our professionals, including a company‑matched 401k plan, adoption reimbursement, tuition reimbursement, vendor discounts, an employment referral program, AD&D insurance, pre‑taxed accounts, voluntary legal plan and the B&V Credit Union. Professionals may also be eligible for a performance‑based bonus program.

We are proud to be a 100 percent ESOP‑owned company. As employee‑owners, our professionals are empowered to drive not only their personal growth, but the company's long‑term achievements - and they share in the financial rewards of the success through stock ownership.

By valuing diverse voices and perspectives, we cultivate an authentically inclusive environment for professionals and are able to provide innovative and effective solutions for clients.

BVH, Inc., its subsidiaries and its affiliated companies, complies with all Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) laws and regulations. Black & Veatch does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, religion, color, sex, national origin, marital status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender Identity and expression, disability, veteran status, pregnancy status or other status protected by law.

Notice to External Search Firms : Black & Veatch does not accept unsolicited resumes and will not be obligated to pay a placement fee for unsolicited resumes. Black & Veatch Talent Acquisition engages with search firms directly for hiring needs.