Job Title:
Vice President, Strategic Sourcing and Contracts
Title Reporting To:
Senior VP, Enterprise Development Strategy & Services
Division / Department:
CORE / Enterprise Development Strategy & Services
ROLE SUMMARY
Describes the main purpose and significance of the role i.e. why it exists. This section differentiates the role from the Manager’s job, from the jobs that report to it and from other jobs reporting to the manager in the same grade/level.
The Vice President, Strategic Sourcing and Contracts, (VP-SSC) is responsible for implementing and overseeing the execution of HMH’s content development supplier partnerships, translations strategy and support, and contracting agreements. The successful candidate has extensive experience in negotiations, sourcing, and overseeing high profile, complex multi discipline and multilingual programs with multiple dependencies, delivering them on time and within budget.
The VP-SSC is the authority and responsible for the oversight of the HMH’s relationships with partners and suppliers, including establishing and vetting new partners, and is ultimately accountable for the program’s success, particularly in ensuring compliance and mitigating risk. Works collaboratively with the SVP, Enterprise Development Strategy & Services, and across the full organization including Development Teams, Legal and Finance, prioritizing needs and management of the necessary resources, including budgets, staff, relations with suppliers and partners, etc. Ensures that standards for contracts (including Author, Vendor, Distribution Agreements, Adaptation Licensing, Marketplace Developer Agreements, etc), translations/transadaptations, and supplier relationships are in line with industry best practices and HMH’s business requirements.
Ensures that team members are trained, coached, and given development opportunities and project assignments that meet professional and personal development needs as well as organizational and business needs. The successful candidate has an excellent understanding of digital development process, including the intricacies of educational tech publishing. Candidate also possesses professional and executive gravitas with a successful track record of outside in strategic viewpoints while driving newer digital first best in class approaches over otherwise static business models
PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES
% TIME
This section formally defines the major end results of the job and should include only major responsibilities. It is not necessary to list every single responsibility of the job. Indicate in the right-hand column the average amount of time an employee may spend on the responsibility.
1
Establish Strategic Direction for Sourcing, Translations, Multilingual Services, and Contracts. Direct the development of business strategies and implementation of standards for best Contract Management, Multilingual Strategies, and Sourcing operations. Define and drive continual process improvement and go forward industry leading best practices creating a best in class organization, high performing center of excellence for HMH. Ensure all business collateral (contracts, statements of work, development terms, deal sheets, partnership terms, etc.) are executed accurately and in a timely manner, and that terms and other data are maintained in appropriate databases/tools.
30%
2
Ensure High Quality, Automation, and Risk Mitigate. Ensure that risk related to intellectual property, licensing, royalty obligations, and related contractual matters are mitigated. Ensure that costs, terms, and conditions are fair, align with policy, and maximize business potential and beneficial to HMH and overall compliance. Define and drive automation throughout the business and work of the team. Ensure enterprise-wide needs for partnership/supplier due diligence, risk assessment, and continuous monitoring of partnerships are being accomplished.
20%
3
Manage People, Performance and Stakeholder Relationships: Experienced in leading, building, and managing a high-performance team through coaching and mentorship. Oversees and manages professional career development for a team of sourcing, multilingual supports, and contracting professionals by conducting performance reviews and regular check-ins with functional team. Exhibits strong people-leading skills, with the ability to develop, coach, and provide timely and effective feedback in a strong-matrix environment. Creates supportive, collegial, and customer focused environment with key stakeholders across HMH, including SLT and ELT teams. Works to ensure that the training and skills development needs of the team are well understood and met. Provides necessary resources and helps remove obstacles to team success, accomplishments, and in support of building strong cross business relationships.
20%
5
Customer Success Focus: Uses functional expertise, best practice communication, and leadership skills to manage complex relationships and influence positive change. Resolves escalated translations-, supplier- or contract-related issues and/or escalates them to SVP as needed. Drives the importance of quality and accuracy with the internal and external stakeholders at every stage of the development process. Clearly conveys information and ideas through a variety of media to individuals or groups in a manner that engages the audience and helps them understand and retain the message. Meets regularly with functional team to keep them apprised of our strategic direction and how it may be supported by current and future industry evolution.
10%
TOTAL
100%
EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE
Indicates the minimum required education level, previous experience, specific knowledge, skills and abilities as well as preferred experiences / skills for this position.
Required
Preferred
Education Level and or relevant experience
- BS/BA in a related field or Equivalent work experience.
- 15+ years of progressive management experience in related industry or functional area
- A minimum of 10 years of relevant job experience
Master’s or postgraduate degree
Knowledge and skills
(General and technical)
- Must be a highly skilled communicator. Verbal and written communication must be professional, comprehensive, clear, direct, and accurate. Must demonstrate expertise in educating and communicating practices and processes to internal and external stakeholders, with a proven background in creating and modeling change.
- Must be able to build and maintain lasting cooperative partnerships with internal and external stakeholders and leverages relationships to meet organizational objectives within functional framework.
- Must have exceptional organizational skills and knowledge of content/product development lines of business, strategic functions such as finance, legal, technology, content development, corporate partnerships, and proven experience collaborating with these cross-discipline teams.
- Must have demonstrated success in leading direct reports and non-direct reports through influence. Strong people-leading skills, with demonstrated ability to influence, develop, coach, and provide support effectively in a matrix environment, working with large cross-functional, multifaceted teams.
- Must demonstrate initiative and innovation to successfully lead automation/process improvement efforts, to develop and motivate staff and stakeholders to implement change, to problem solve effectively, and to successfully address changing business conditions.
- Must be able to prioritize, delegate and oversee schedules as necessary
- Must demonstrate proactive problem-solving and risk-mitigation skills as well as clear accounting, appropriate escalation, and resolution communication to stakeholders and leadership.
- Must be highly organized and able to manage multiple projects simultaneously and to prioritize. Must have demonstrated track record of delivering successful, complex assignments.
- Must be able to use strong analytic skills to interpret data and the associated impact on learning and development.
- Must possess the vision to anticipate changes in industry and translate potential changes to strategies to position HMH for success. Must be able to establish and execute strategies that support company objectives. Must achieve revenue, delivery, and expense targets.
- Must have experience interpreting and implementing legal guidelines and policies; making decisions that incorporate sound contractual/legal principles that protect the integrity of HMH assets and intellectual property rights.
- Must be functional expert in some/all of the following disciplines: EdTech, procurement, multilingual and linguistic supports, contracts, licensing and sourcing processes.
- Must demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of publishing industry business practices, and guides company management in setting policies and strategies to anticipate the company's future business needs with a clear understanding of associated contractual/legal and/or financial risk.
- Ideally possesses expert knowledge of HMH best practices and standards.
Salary range: 155K+ base + VP annual bonus
Other requirements
(Licenses, certifications, specialized training, physical or mental abilities required)
