Category Manager - Consultancy

At LSEG, we are recruiting for a Category Manager for Business Consultancy.
Group Procurement is responsible for managing third-party supplier engagements, partnering with the business to drive quality and continued value from our supplier relationships.
We strive to make LSEG easier and more attractive to do business with, and we consider our suppliers as a source of competitive advantage and total cost of ownership.
We operate a business partnering and supplier relationship management (SRM) model, aligned to partner groups and spend categories, ensuring value through early and strategic engagement and insightful vendor spend analytics.
A number of key characteristics of the Group Procurement organisation:
- Suppliers spend c £2BN and c. 5,000 suppliers.
Team structured around:
- Three towers aligned to Technology, Services and Corporate spend, passionate about category management, sourcing, supplier relationship management and business partnering.
- A Strategy & Performance centre, enabling function to drive and implement the strategy of the Group Procurement function, outstanding procurement policy and processes.
- Key hubs for the category team in London, Bangalore and New York with a small amount of decentralised activity to support local markets which are in various global locations including Europe and Asia.
The purpose of this role is to build, develop and deliver an outstanding" category procurement service with the express intent of delivering year-on-year value to the Group in terms of innovation, speed to market, quality, efficiency, risk mitigation and lower cost.
This role sits in the Services tower, reporting to a Category Director, who is responsible for the global procurement activities including engagement and ongoing management of third-party suppliers, the sourcing, risk, vendor strategy, and roadmap for the Category.
The role will perform a combination of sourcing, supplier risk, relationship management and business partnering activities, with an emphasis on the ongoing management of our Consultancy suppliers across the assigned Category. The role is Group wide and Global so offers fantastic visibility across a wide range of partners across the business. You will also work closely with the rest of the Services Procurement and the wider Group Procurement team to support the evolution of the procurement strategy and transformation roadmap, ensuring this is reflected across all categories of spend within this remit.
Key interfaces:

• With line management (Category Director and Head of Services Procurement)
• Other Category Managers
• Group Procurement Centre of Excellence and Shared Services teams
• Finance Business Partners, Legal and Tax
• Business: supplier business owners and budget holders

The Consultancy Category is a broad category made up of Management Consulting and Professional Services activity, representing spend of c.£200m, examples include:

• Strategy advisory
• Operations consulting
• Business advisory
• M&A related services
• Project and program management

Key responsibilities of the role:
Developing and maintaining relationships
- Act as a business partner to the business leadership team and their direct reports in the Category, by understanding business strategy and providing creative challenge and thought leadership, which influences and supports business decision-making.
- Build relationships with key partners in the Group and business teams.
- Act as a point of reference, negotiation, and escalation for internal and external customers. Improve supplier communication to foster an environment of collaboration and innovation.
- Lead Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) of strategic supplier relationships (business critical and high spend), leading all key commercial and governance aspects. Facilitate regular supplier review meetings as well as joint steering group meetings with senior partners.
- Manage supplier risks and issues.
- Establishing a Group Procurement Strategy for the Category Working closely with the business to understand planned requirements, define, gain agreement to and implement strategic sourcing plans (including a pipeline of opportunities).
- Maintain Procurement systems and tools (e.g., pipeline management tool, savings tracker, supplier and contract databases, Category spend metrics).
- Lead the development of strategic and preferred suppliers for the Category with a focus on Consultancy vendors.
- Implementing the Group Procurement Strategy for the Category, develop and manage supplier performance improvement programs and develop strategies to effectively improve supply chain performance in quality, delivery, and cost management.
- Lead and drive strategic sourcing engagement for the Category, focusing on commercial and contractual negotiations, working with team members and legal to close negotiations with contracts which fully protect the Group's commercial interests and ensure mitigation of operational risk.
- Regularly run competitive RFI's/RFP's and lead on supplier negotiations as / when required.
- Provide an advisory service within a matrix orientated business by utilising an appropriate level of commercial expertise and competence to ensure cost management and functional excellence.
- Ongoing proactive review of existing Category arrangements in collaboration with business executives and responsibility centre owners, to include ownership of the Category policy to ensure full compliance and least cost.
- Manage the negotiations, tendering and selection of suppliers for all affiliate companies.
- Sourcing leadership on strategic projects including attendance at relevant project / programme board. Ensure appropriate risk mitigation strategies are an intrinsic part of sourcing decisions and contract management including contractual protections and ongoing supplier risk management.
- Ensure compliance with corporate product, procedural, regulatory, quality, environmental and corporate social responsibility policies.
Experience and skills required:
- Strong supplier management experience and industry / market knowledge relating to Consultancy and Services procurement.
- Demonstrable years dedicated to consultancy / professional services providers and associated services. This will include extensive knowledge of procurement principles and practices, contract negotiation experience with demonstrable impact across a wide variety of spend categories.
- Skilled in various types of pricing structures as well as associated contract terms and condi