Strategic Sourcing Manager - Business Services & Marketing
HybridSydney, New South Wales, Australia
Job Summary
Own commercial strategy and sourcing execution across indirect spend categories including professional services, staffing, BPO, and system integration. Lead sophisticated negotiations with external providers while embedding with senior stakeholders to shape supplier decisions and provide commercial counsel. Build and maintain category strategies that connect short-term activity to longer-term business outcomes, proactively managing contract pipelines and spend visibility. Identify opportunities for supplier consolidation and cost optimisation through data-led analysis, bringing market benchmarks to sharpen internal positioning. Partner with Legal, Finance, and Risk to balance speed, value, and governance across the portfolio. Roll up sleeves during an initial 6–12 month groundwork phase focused on operational volume and process clean-up, shifting toward targeted strategic work as your ZIP AI agent absorbs routine tasks.
Required Qualifications
- 7+ years of experience in strategic sourcing, procurement, or a related commercial discipline
- Experience as an indirect procurement generalist with breadth across professional services, BPO, contingent workforce, workplace, insurance or Marketing
- Specific depth in one of those categories
- Strong analytical and influencing skills
- Ability to read and assess a portfolio, spot where the biggest opportunities are, and build the case for where to focus
- Experience setting up processes, playbooks, or ways of working from scratch
- Experience improving how a team operates
- Strong commercial instincts
- Track record of delivering measurable outcomes in complex, high-value negotiations
- Ability to build leverage, manage supplier dynamics, and hold a position under pressure
- Capability to operate at both a strategic and executional level
- Ability to set category direction and build a plan
- Ability to roll up your sleeves and get things done
- Intellectual curiosity to category management
- Ability to stay close to market developments, benchmark against peers, and contribute insight
- Ability to build trusted relationships across stakeholder groups
- Ability to influence without authority
- Ability to anticipate needs rather than just respond to requests
- Comfort working independently in ambiguous settings
- Ability to create structure and momentum where there isn't a clear playbook
- Experience in a high-growth technology company, professional services firm, or consulting environment
Desired Qualifications
- Experience in a high-growth technology company, professional services firm, or consulting environment is a strong advantage
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