Executive Director, IT Vendor Management

Executive Director, It Vendor Management

This role has been designed as 'Hybrid' with an expectation that you will work on average 2 days per week from an HPE office.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is the global edge-to-cloud company advancing the way people live and work. We help companies connect, protect, analyze, and act on their data and applications wherever they live, from edge to cloud, so they can turn insights into outcomes at the speed required to thrive in today's complex world. Our culture thrives on finding new and better ways to accelerate what's next. We know varied backgrounds are valued and succeed here. We have the flexibility to manage our work and personal needs. We make bold moves, together, and are a force for good. If you are looking to stretch and grow your career our culture will embrace you. Open up opportunities with HPE.

Job Description:

Primary Responsibilities:

Software Spend Audit and Cost Takeout:

• Own a comprehensive audit of HPE's global IT software portfolio across all SaaS subscriptions, on-premises licenses, maintenance agreements, and acquired-entity software obligations, establishing a total cost of ownership baseline within 90 days
• Identify and quantify all redundancy: overlapping tools serving identical functions, duplicate licenses across business units, shelfware, and orphaned subscriptions from prior M&A activity
• Build and sustain a consumption and utilization analysis capability to match actual usage to contracted entitlements and surface overpayment on a continuous basis
• Execute a multi-year portfolio rationalization plan that consolidates the software vendor landscape and structurally reduces the cost base

Labor and Professional Services Cost Management:

• Establish commercial governance over all IT-managed labor spend including managed service agreements, staff augmentation contracts, and third-party consulting and professional services engagements
• Implement utilization controls and performance accountability frameworks across all managed service and staff augmentation relationships to eliminate cost creep and ensure value delivery
• Benchmark labor rates against market and renegotiate agreements where HPE is paying above competitive levels
• Build a consolidated view of total IT labor spend across internal and external sources to enable fact-based workforce and vendor mix decisions

Telecommunications Cost Rationalization:

• Own commercial oversight of all HPE enterprise telecommunications obligations including network services, voice and data contracts, carrier agreements, colocation, and connectivity at the enterprise and site level
• Conduct a comprehensive telecommunications audit to identify rate optimization opportunities, underutilized services, redundant circuits, and contracts renewing at uncompetitive pricing
• Renegotiate carrier and network service agreements using benchmarked market rates and consolidated spend leverage
• Build a forward-looking telco contract pipeline with full visibility to every renewal and expiry, eliminating auto-renewal exposure across the carrier portfolio

Vendor Commercial Management:

• Own all major IT vendor relationships across software, labor, and telecommunications, negotiating renewals, renegotiating pricing on existing agreements, and challenging incumbents with competitive alternatives
• Implement a contract lifecycle management discipline that treats every renewal as a commercial renegotiation opportunity with full preparation, benchmarking, and leverage strategy
• Develop and enforce standard commercial terms, pricing benchmarks, and total-cost-of-ownership models across all three spend categories and vendor tiers
• Establish a vendor performance management program with SLA frameworks, quarterly business reviews, and executive scorecards for all Strategic and Preferred tier vendors

M&A Integration:

• Create and own HPE's standard playbook for assessing and rationalizing software, labor, and telecommunications obligations from acquired entities, preventing inherited complexity from compounding over time
• Partner with Corporate Development and IT Architecture to conduct commercial due diligence on future transactions, quantifying integration cost and rationalization opportunity prior to close
• Actively manage the post-acquisition rationalization backlog across all three spend categories, prioritizing consolidation based on cost impact, integration complexity, and business continuity risk

Governance, Policy and Vendor Management Office:

• Design and implement HPE's IT Vendor Management Office including decision rights, approval workflows, procurement policies, and executive escalation paths for all technology purchasing decisions across software, labor, and telecommunications
• Establish and enforce an enterprise-wide IT procurement policy ensuring no new software, managed service, or telecommunications commitment is approved without VMO review, redundancy check, and commercial benchmarking
• Build a Technology Business Management or IT FinOps capability that creates a transparent, business-visible view of IT cost by category, function, product line, and cost center
• Lead, hire, and develop a high-performing team of 3 to 5 professionals; build the capability and culture that sustains commercial discipline at enterprise scale

Executive Partnership and Reporting:

• Serve as the CIO's primary advisor on IT vendor cost strategy across software, labor, and telecommunications, translating commercial complexity into clear narratives that connect vendor decisions to P&L impact
• Partner with the CFO and IT Finance to integrate multi-category vendor cost management into HPE's annual planning and budgeting cycle
• Report monthly on portfolio health, savings delivered, renewal pipeline status, and rationalization milestones across all three spend categories with clear variance analysis and forward-looking risk visibility
• Build trusted relationships across IT, Finance, Legal, Procurement, and Business Unit leadership to ensure the VMO is seen as a strategic enabler

Experience and Skills:

Required:

• 12+ years of experience in IT vendor management, technology procurement, or IT finance, with 4+ years in a Director or VP-level leadership role
• Demonstrated, quantifiable track record of extracting cost savings across at least two of the following spend categories: software, labor, or telecommunications. Must be able to cite specific examples with dollar impact, timeline, and commercial approach
• Direct experience negotiating with Tier-1 enterprise software vendors at scale including Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Workday, or equivalent
• Experience managing enterprise telecommunications contracts including carrier renegotiations, network services optimization, and site-level connectivity cost reduction
• Experience governing managed services and staff augmentation spend including utilization controls, rate benchmarking, and performance accountability frameworks
• Proven experience leading vendor portfolio rationalization across multiple spend categories including identifying redundancy, managing stakeholder resistance, and executing consolidation
• Experience managing the commercial dimension of M&A integration across software, labor, and telecommunications categories
• Demonstrated ability to build a Vendor Management Office or IT procurement governance capability from early-stage to operating maturity
• Familiarity with FinOps, Technology Business Management (TBM), or IT cost transparency frameworks
• Executive presence and communication skills with the ability to operate credibly at the CIO and CFO level

Preferred:

• Experience with Contract Lifecycle Management platforms including Ironclad, Icertis, Coupa, or equivalent - highly preferred
• Exposure to IT Asset Management or Software Asset Management tools including Flexera, Snow Software, or ServiceNow SAM - highly preferred
• Prior experience in a large-cap technology or enterprise infrastructure company with significant M&A activity - strongly preferred
• Telecommunications industry knowledge including carrier pricing models, network services commercial structures, and colocation market dynamics - preferred
• FinOps Certified Practitioner or ITAM certification preferred
• First level university degree in business, finance, or a related field; MBA or advanced degree preferred

What We Can Offer You:

Health & Wellbeing

We strive to provide our team members and their loved ones with a comprehensive suite of benefits that supports their physical, financial and emotional wellbeing.

Personal & Professional Development

We also invest in your career because the better you are, the better we all are. We have specific programs catered to helping you reach any career goals you have — whether you want to become a knowledge expert in your field or apply your skills to another division.

Unconditional Inclusion

We are unconditionally inclusive in the way we work and celebrate individual uniqueness. We know varied backgrounds are valued and succeed here. We have the flexibility to manage our work and personal needs. We make bold moves, together, and are a force for good.