Indirect Procurement Director

Indirect Procurement Director - Edelman Financial Engines

At Edelman Financial Engines (EFE), our purpose is to guide people with the financial advice they need to thrive. We believe that every dollar saved represents a lifetime of hard work and aspirations, and every dollar invested has job to do for our clients. That’s why we are committed to managing our clients’ investments by truly understanding them as people first and then delivering advice, strategies and solutions to help them feel confident about the plans they are making, whether for today, tomorrow, or in the great unknown future. Our goal is to build long-term relationships based on respect, integrity, and a belief that our responsibility is to help people make smart investments decisions in every stage of their lives.

Our culture is grounded in our CORE values: Client First, One Team, Respectful Candor, and Endless Curiosity. These values guide everything we do, for our clients and each other. We are committed to moving forward together. If you are inspired by purpose-driven work and a collaborative, values-led culture, we invite you to explore a career with us.

About the Role

As an Indirect Procurement Director within Edelman Financial Engines’ centralized Procurement function (FP&A), this role serves as a senior strategic leader responsible for shaping and executing enterprise-wide sourcing strategies across the Procure-to-Pay lifecycle. This position partners closely with executive stakeholders to translate complex business requirements into well thought out, detailed sourcing strategies, driving the selection and management of best-in-class vendors for non-production goods and services. This role requires deep expertise in strategic sourcing, supplier relationship management, and commercial structuring to consistently deliver optimal value, innovation, and risk mitigation.

The Director position will champion leadership oversight of procurement operations, ensuring alignment with financial plans, adherence to corporate policies, and the highest standards of governance and integrity. As a subject matter expert, this individual will execute high-impact initiatives involving value-added resellers (VARs), complex RFP processes, and enterprise budget planning, while applying advanced negotiation strategies to structure and close large-scale, high-value agreements.

This role demands expert-level command of contract business and legal terms and conditions and specifically commercial terms, including extensive experience redlining and negotiating software, SaaS, and hosting agreements to secure favorable pricing, contractual protections, and long-term value. In addition, the Procurement Director will leverage advanced analytics to assess spend, supplier performance SLA’s, and realized savings—presenting insightful dashboards and executive-level reporting. The role requires strong executive presence and the ability to confidently present complex sourcing strategies, financial outcomes, and risk considerations to senior and executive leadership.

This role calls for a highly skilled individual contributor who operates as a trusted advisor to the business, reporting to the Sr. Director of Procurement. The successful candidate will proactively build cross-functional alignment, drive strategic sourcing initiatives, and lead high-impact negotiations. Responsibilities include mitigating risk, structuring commercially sound agreements, and executing contracts that support critical functions such as HR, IT, Financial Market Data, Marketing, Operations, Wealth Planning, and Trading.

Responsibilities

• Excellent Communicator – demonstrates excellent written communication skills across all levels of the organization. Ability to present to the Head of Procurement and senior management ideas, issues and recommendations spearheading business change.
• Expert in contract redlining and commercial negotiations, working in close alignment with Legal to shape contract positions and leading discussions directly with vendor counsel and sales counterparts.
• Applies advanced critical thinking and assertive negotiation skills to structure contracts with measurable, flexible, and controllable fee models that drive cost containment, volume-based efficiencies, and downside protection in changing market conditions, including price escalation caps.
• Delivers enterprise-grade cost and savings analytics, delivering executive-ready insights on spend trends, value realization, and procurement impact to inform strategic and financial decisions.
• Proven excellence and leadership capabilities in contract negotiations with suppliers for optimal contract terms while mitigating financial and operational risk.
• Owns and Leads cross-functional initiatives to streamline the supplier base, influence stakeholder decision-making, and deliver quantifiable savings and operational efficiencies.
• Development of competitive tiered pricing models.
• Lead Indirect Procurement sourcing activities including RFP initiatives including initiation, creation, launch, tracking and analysis, competitive bid negotiation, drafting and redlining, to final contract execution.
• Audit and collaborate with business owner’s category specific inventories ensuring proper requirements are identified and adequate licensing/consumption is gained, and cost control measures are implemented.
• Lead meetings across multiple departments in driving change and consolidation of suppliers for cost savings and vendor optimization.
• Closely work with the Accounts Payable team in ensuring Purchase Orders are entered and Contracts are matched with invoices for timely and accurate invoice payment process.
• Ability to balance multiple priorities in a high-volume environment while ensuring excellent attention to detail; ability to establish and implement objectives and strategy.

Requirements

• Innovative and technically proficient in P2P systems (i.e. Oracle NetSuite).
• 10+ years’ Procurement experience in Indirect Sourcing.
• Knowledge of Microsoft Office Suite, intermediate level for excel and PowerPoint.
• Master’s/Bachelor’s degree.
• Certification in Procurement (i.e. CPM, CTPE, CPP, SPSM, CIPS) preferred.

Key skills/competency

• Indirect Procurement
• Strategic Sourcing
• Contract Negotiation
• Supplier Relationship Management
• RFP Process
• Commercial Structuring
• Risk Mitigation
• Spend Analytics
• Procurement Operations
• Financial Market Data