JOB SUMMARY: The IT Contract & Vendor Manager is responsible for end-to-end ownership of IT vendor contracts and strategic supplier relationships. This role ensures vendors deliver measurable value, comply with contractual and regulatory requirements, and align with the organization's financial, operational, and risk management objectives. The position plays a critical role in optimizing the IT vendor portfolio, governing external labor usage, and providing executive level insights on cost, performance, and risk.
ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Contract Lifecycle Ownership:
- Owns the full IT contract lifecycle, including intake, negotiation support, execution, amendments, renewals, and termination.
- Partners with Legal, Procurement, Finance, and IT stakeholders to ensure contracts are commercially sound and operationally executable.
- Maintains accurate contract records, key terms, expirations, financial commitments, and renewal obligations.
Vendor Relationship & Performance Management:
- Acts as the primary point of accountability for strategic IT vendors and service providers.
- Establishes and manages vendor performance frameworks, including SLAs, KPIs, scorecards, and remediation plans.
- Leads periodic business reviews to assess performance, risks, and opportunities for improvement or cost optimization.
IT Vendor Portfolio Optimization:
- Evaluates the IT vendor landscape to identify redundancies, consolidation opportunities, and sourcing improvements.
- Supports sourcing strategies that balance cost efficiency, service quality, scalability, and risk.
- Drives continuous improvement across the vendor portfolio to maximize value delivered to the business.
Financial & Commercial Oversight:
- Oversee vendor financial performance, including rate cards, invoicing accuracy, budget adherence, and commercial compliance.
- Tracks contract value, committed spend, savings, cost avoidance, and financial risks.
- Partners with IT Finance and Procurement to support budgeting, forecasting, and financial transparency.
Governance, Risk & Compliance Leadership:
- Ensures IT vendors comply with contractual, regulatory, security, and risk management requirements.
- Supports audits, risk assessments, and third-party risk management activities.
- Maintains strong governance controls across vendor onboarding, offboarding, and changing management.
Vendor Labor & Workforce Governance:
- Tracks, governs, and reports vendor labor usage, including contractors, consultants, and managed services.
- Produces equivalent to FTE (E FTE) metrics to provide visibility into external labor dependency and cost.
- Ensures alignment between vendor labor usage, approved funding, and workforce strategies.
KPI Management & Reporting:
- Defines, manages, and continuously improves vendor management KPIs across cost, performance, risk, and compliance.
- Delivers clear, actionable reporting and insights to IT leadership, Finance, and executive stakeholders.
- Translates complex vendor data into concise executive ready narratives and recommendations.
Process Improvement & Change Leadership:
- Identifies gaps and inefficiencies in contract and vendor management processes.
- Leads or supports process improvements, tooling enhancements, and standardization initiatives.
- Acts as a change agent to embed best practices and strengthen vendor management maturity.
- Adheres to and complies with applicable, federal and state laws, regulations and guidance, including those related to anti-money laundering (i.e. Bank Secrecy Act, US PATRIOT Act, etc.).
- Adheres to Bank policies and procedures and completes required training.
- Identifies and reports suspicious activity.
SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES
QUALIFICATIONS
Education
- Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Information Technology, or a related field (or equivalent experience) required
Experience
- 5-8+ years of experience in IT vendor management, contract management, procurement, or IT financial management.
- Proven experience managing contracts, SLAs, commercial terms, and vendor performance frameworks.
- Experience in regulated industries (e.g., financial services, healthcare).
- Experience tracking external labor, contractor spending, or workforce metrics.
Licenses and Certifications
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
- Strong understanding of IT services, software licensing, consulting models, and managed services, required.
- Contract and commercial acumen
- Vendor performance and relationship management
- Financial analysis and cost management
- Governance, risk, and compliance focus
- Executive level communication and presentation
- Strong analytical, organizational, and stakeholder management capabilities
- Familiarity with vendor management, contract lifecycle and ITSM tools (e.g., ServiceNow, Coupa, iCertis), preferred.
Additional Information
- Candidates residing in locations within BankUnited's footprint may be given preference.