Strategic Sourcing Manager| Hybrid | Reston, VA

About Ellucian Ellucian powers innovation for higher education, partnering with approximately 3,000 customers across 50 countries, serving more than 21 million students. Ellucian's AI-powered platform, trained on the richest dataset available in higher education, drives efficiency, personalized experiences, and strengthened engagement for all students, faculty and staff. Fueled by decades of experience with a singular focus on the unique needs of learning institutions, the Ellucian platform features best-in-class SaaS capabilities and delivers insights needed now and into the future. These solutions and services span the entire student lifecycle, including data-rich tools for student recruitment, enrollment, and retention to workforce analytics, fundraising, and alumni engagement. Ellucian's innovative solutions, vast ecosystem of partners and user community of more than 45,000 provides best practices leading to greater institutional success and achieving better student outcomes. About The Opportunity Ellucian is seeking an individual contributor to join our Procurement Sourcing team - a professional who can readily develop strong cross-functional relationships and comfortably communicate across all levels of the organization with ability to positively influence and impact stakeholders. The strategic sourcing professional will lead and be responsible for sourcing projects spanning a variety of spend categories across the enterprise. The right candidate will bring attention to detail and a mindset toward continuous improvement, vendor optimization, risk mitigation, and organizational efficiency. Where you will make an impact Lead the development, implementation, and alignment of sourcing strategies and projects to achieve broad business objectives. Influencing and managing stakeholders, understanding their needs, aligning procurement and business objectives, and planning/executing effective and timely communications. Facilitate discussions and make recommendations around business requirements, supplier strategy, and spend category implications. Leading cross-functional teams to generate and implement process improvement, spend optimization, and operational efficiency ideas. Negotiate and implement sourcing initiatives, competitive bids, and contracts. Responsible for effectively negotiating, creating, and executing contracts with suppliers. Lead supplier relationship management (“SRM”) process, supplier performance reviews, and supplier development initiatives. Benchmark supplier performance and competitive position against external data and best practices. Identifying, selecting, and qualifying the most appropriate suppliers in the industry and/or geographical market. What You Will Bring 5+ years of procurement/strategic sourcing experience and expertise, specifically, across these areas: Software License models, including AI-related variable costs Professional Services Event planning and related services Spend analysis and benchmarking Competitive bids including RFP & RFI sourcing events Contract review & redlines Supplier Relationship Management Expert level negotiating skills; able to identify win-win solutions in a complex situation; able to keep cool under pressure and be able to find solutions in difficult situations. Proactive approach to stakeholder management with the ability to influence at all levels within an organization. Advanced problem-solving and quantitative skills; able to distill data and articulate findings. Strong interpersonal communication skills and the ability to work independently. Ability to understand and then challenge the status quo, as appropriate. Requires the ability to change the thinking of or gain acceptance from others in sensitive situations without damage to the relationship. Responsiveness to other roles within company that depend upon this key function for successful performance; able to resolve potentially conflicting objectives across functions and with outside provider(s) Strong ins…

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