Partnership & Vendor Management Support Officer

General Job Description

The Partnership & Vendor Management Support Officer provides support to the Partnership and Vendor Management Lead in managing strategic relationships with vendors, system integrators, technology partners, and service providers supporting digital platform delivery and operations.

The role ensures that external partners deliver against contractual commitments, architectural and operational standards, and agreed business outcomes across platform capabilities and digital initiatives. Working closely with product, project, architecture, procurement, legal, and operations teams, the role supports vendor governance, performance management, commercial alignment, and issue resolution.

The position also contributes to partnership development, identifies opportunities for collaboration and reuse, and ensures that vendor contributions align with strategic objectives, cloud-agnostic principles, and service quality expectations.

Duties & Responsibilities

• Support the end-to-end vendor governance model, including operating cadence, review forums, KPIs, obligations, and escalation paths
• Assist in managing relationships with vendors, system integrators, technology partners, and service providers
• Track vendor delivery performance against contractual milestones, SLAs, quality standards, and support commitments
• Coordinate with procurement and legal teams on contract interpretation, change requests, renewals, disputes, and compliance
• Support cross-vendor coordination for dependencies, integration points, and shared responsibilities across workstreams
• Assist in vendor performance reviews, service improvement plans, risk assessments, and corrective action tracking
• Ensure vendors comply with governance requirements including security, data access, documentation, training, and handover obligations
• Support evaluation and onboarding of new partners, including capability and strategic fit assessments
• Maintain visibility of vendor-related risks and escalate issues with mitigation recommendations
• Identify opportunities for optimization, reuse, and improved commercial models across the partner ecosystem

Skills & Abilities

• Strong vendor and partner management capability in complex, multi-vendor environments
• Good understanding of technology delivery contracts, SLAs, KPIs, and governance mechanisms
• Ability to manage commercial, delivery, and relationship aspects simultaneously
• Strong negotiation, conflict resolution, and performance management skills
• Ability to understand technical and operational delivery aspects to coordinate effectively with stakeholders
• Excellent communication and reporting skills, including executive-level updates

Potential Background

• 3+ years of experience in vendor management, partner management, procurement support, or program governance
• Experience working with technology vendors, system integrators, or managed service providers in enterprise, government, or telecom environments
• Familiarity with contract-based delivery models (milestones, service credits, KPIs, SLAs)
• Experience in digital transformation, platform, cloud, or managed services programs
• Exposure to regulated environments with governance, compliance, and security requirements
• Experience working with legal, procurement, architecture, and operations teams is preferred

Preferred Tools

• Vendor and delivery governance tools: Jira, Azure DevOps, Confluence, SharePoint
• Reporting and tracking: Excel, Power BI, MS Project
• Collaboration tools: MS Teams, PowerPoint, document management systems
• Contract and performance tracking tools (RAID logs, KPI/SLA dashboards)

Soft Skills

• Strong relationship management and negotiation skills
• Ability to handle conflicts and difficult conversations effectively
• Structured thinking with strong follow-through
• Good commercial awareness with focus on delivery quality
• Clear and confident communication across technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Strong ownership mindset with balance between governance and partnership building