Director - SAM - W2 - Remote

Position Title: Director SAM (Software Asset Management)
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Duration: 6 Months Contract

Job Description:
SAM Strategic commercial leader to build and lead the "buy" side of Software Asset Management (SAM).
This Director will be accountable for the commercial performance, continuity, and optimization of DIRECTV's enterprise software portfolio as vendor relationships and obligations transition from AT&T-supported arrangements to direct DIRECTV

ownership.
The role will lead renewals, new software purchases, vendor negotiations, commercial governance, and ongoing spend optimization while partnering closely with the existing Director of SAM Operations, who leads day-to-day operational services.
Role Scope and Decision Rights:

Primary accountability:

Own the commercial lifecycle for enterprise software: portfolio strategy, renewals, sourcing, negotiations, contracting coordination, vendor relationships, spend governance, and optimization.
Shared decisions: Develop buy, renew, consolidate, renegotiate, or exit recommendations with business owners, SAM Operations, Finance, Procurement, Legal, Enterprise Architecture, Security, Privacy, and other control functions.
Operational boundary: Daily tickets, request-queue administration, SaaS product administration, provisioning, and day-to-day user support remain with the Director of SAM Operations.

This role converts approved demand, entitlement, usage, and operational data into commercial action.

Key Responsibilities:
Portfolio strategy and governance: Establish the commercial-management operating model, decision rights, publisher tiering, policies, executive checkpoints, and multi-year roadmap aligned to the IOP, technology strategy, and post-TSA environment.
Strategic renewals: Lead end-to-end commercial preparation and execution for material renewals, using 12- to 24-month planning windows for Tier-1 agreements and a disciplined 30-60-90-day dashboard, decision calendar, and escalation process.
Business continuity: Surface expirations, dependencies, negotiation risks, and decision deadlines early enough to avoid preventable lapses, emergency extensions, or unfavorable commercial outcomes.
Vendor negotiations and relationships: Lead negotiation strategy across pricing, volume tiers, term, renewal protections, usage rights, audit provisions, service levels, and exit rights; serve as the senior commercial escalation point for strategic publishers and supporting Sourcing team.
New software acquisition: Move approved demand from decision through sourcing, negotiation, contracting, and purchase execution while coordinating commercial, financial, legal, security, privacy, architecture, integration, and operational inputs.
Enterprise leverage: Challenge duplicate capabilities, fragmented buying, non-standard terms, and isolated purchases; promote reuse of existing agreements and portfolio-level negotiation leverage.
Continuous optimization: Use contract, entitlement, usage, demand, and financial data to drive rightsizing, consolidation, tier changes, reclamation, bundling, and retirement; track Finance-validated savings and cost avoidance.
Commercial intelligence: Develop should-cost views, benchmarks, scenarios, and negotiation levers for SaaS, cloud, AI, desktop, consumption-based, and legacy licensing models.
Financial governance and reporting: Partner with Finance and business owners on IOP inputs, run-rate forecasts, accruals, renewal scenarios, budget variances, and executive reporting of decisions, value, risks, and commitments.
Controls and risk: Ensure purchases and renewals follow delegated authority, approval, procurement, contracting, security, privacy, records, and audit requirements.
Leadership and operating model: Build the team's skills, capacity, playbooks, and measures; coach assigned staff and operate as a peer to the Director of SAM Operations with coordinated priorities and clean handoffs between "run" and "buy."

Required Qualifications:
Experience: 10+ years in software commercial management, software asset management, strategic sourcing, vendor management, technology procurement, IT finance, or a related discipline, including 5+ years leading teams or complex enterprise programs.
Portfolio leadership: Demonstrated success managing a large, complex, multi-publisher enterprise software portfolio with material financial and operational impact.
Negotiation depth: Proven leadership of high-value software negotiations and renewals with strategic or Tier-1 publishers.
Licensing knowledge: Strong command of SaaS, subscription, consumption, cloud, AI, desktop, perpetual, maintenance, and enterprise-agreement commercial models.
Financial acumen: Ability to build business cases, analyze total cost and unit economics, model scenarios, establish baselines, validate savings, and manage forecasts.
Contract fluency: Working knowledge of software commercial terms, licensing and usage rights, audit exposure, renewal and termination protections, service levels, data-related obligations, and supplier risk.
Executive influence: Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, executive presence, and the ability to align stakeholders with competing priorities.

Education:
Bachelor's degree in business, finance, supply chain, information technology, engineering, or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience.