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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Cloud Vendor Manager

💰 $110,000 - $170,000

CloudVendor ManagementIT ProcurementSourcingVendor Risk

🎯 Role Definition

The Cloud Vendor Manager owns supplier relationships, contracts, commercial terms, and performance for cloud infrastructure and platform services. This role partners with cloud engineering, security, legal, finance (FinOps), procurement and business stakeholders to source, negotiate and govern cloud vendors (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, MSPs) while driving measurable cost, quality, and risk improvements across multi-cloud environments.

Key responsibilities include vendor selection (RFI/RFP), contract and SOW negotiation, SLA and KPI design, vendor performance management, commercial and cost reporting, security & compliance coordination, and lifecycle management of strategic cloud suppliers.

Primary target keywords: cloud vendor manager, cloud vendor management, cloud procurement, vendor performance, FinOps, contract negotiation, multi-cloud vendor governance, cloud cost optimization, cloud security vendor oversight.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Vendor Manager / Supplier Manager (IT or Cloud)
  • Cloud Procurement Specialist / IT Sourcing Analyst
  • Sourcing Manager with cloud/technology focus
  • Cloud Program Manager or Cloud Architect moving into vendor relationship ownership

Advancement To:

  • Senior Cloud Vendor Manager / Strategic Vendor Manager
  • Head of Cloud Procurement / Director, Vendor Management
  • Director of Cloud Operations / VP, Supplier Strategy
  • Chief Procurement Officer (with a cloud/technology remit)

Lateral Moves:

  • Cloud Program or Portfolio Manager
  • Cloud Cost / FinOps Lead
  • IT Sourcing / Strategic Sourcing Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Lead end-to-end vendor lifecycle management for cloud providers and managed service partners, including vendor selection, onboarding, contract negotiation, renewal strategy, and offboarding to ensure continuity of cloud services and minimize business risk.
  • Design, execute and manage formal RFI/RFP processes for IaaS, PaaS, SaaS and managed cloud services, driving competitive commercial terms, clear service scopes, and objective evaluation criteria aligned to business priorities.
  • Negotiate complex cloud contracts, master service agreements (MSAs), statements of work (SOWs) and pricing schedules to secure best-in-class commercial terms, discounts, committed spend incentives and favorable termination and liability clauses.
  • Build, negotiate and govern cloud-specific SLA frameworks and operational KPIs (availability, latency, incident MTTR, change windows) in collaboration with engineering, SRE and security teams to ensure measurable service delivery.
  • Own vendor performance management—establish scorecards, cadence of performance reviews, escalation playbooks and continuous improvement plans that drive vendor accountability and service quality.
  • Partner with finance and FinOps teams to analyze cloud spend, implement cost allocation models, enforce tagging and committed-use planning, and identify contractual levers to reduce total cost of ownership.
  • Work closely with security, compliance and legal to ensure vendor solutions meet regulatory requirements (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, SOC2), contractual security obligations, data residency constraints and third-party risk controls.
  • Maintain a strategic vendor portfolio map and supplier segmentation (strategic, preferred, transactional) to prioritize governance effort, consolidation opportunities and vendor relationship investments.
  • Act as the primary commercial interface with cloud hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, GCP) and major ISVs, building executive-level relationships to access enablement, roadmap influence, architectural guidance and commercial incentives.
  • Develop and maintain standardized contract templates, procurement playbooks, SOW templates and negotiation checklists to accelerate sourcing cycles and reduce legal review friction.
  • Drive vendor consolidation and rationalization initiatives—identify overlap, decommission redundant suppliers and negotiate enterprise licensing or volume discounts to realize scale economies.
  • Lead cross-functional stakeholder alignment for vendor selection decisions, balancing technical fit, cost, security, compliance and operational considerations with clear decision frameworks.
  • Implement vendor risk management practices: perform due diligence, assess financial viability, monitor cyber insurance coverage, track remediation plans and maintain vendor risk registers.
  • Create and present vendor performance and cost optimization reports to senior stakeholders and steering committees; translate vendor metrics into actionable recommendations and roadmaps.
  • Oversee contract renewals, option exercises and renegotiations well ahead of expiration, leveraging usage data and market intelligence to achieve improved pricing or contract terms.
  • Coordinate SLA and incident post-mortems with vendors and internal teams to capture root causes, corrective actions, and contractual remedies where service failures occur.
  • Lead or participate in commercial dispute resolution and escalation, working with legal and procurement to mitigate financial exposure and protect business continuity.
  • Manage vendor onboarding processes including security questionnaires, SOC/attestation collection, contractual signoff and operational integration to ensure timely service enablement.
  • Support cloud architecture and engineering teams with vendor-related technical clarifications, reference architectures and vendor-specific implementation constraints that affect delivery timelines and costs.
  • Run vendor scorecards and continuous improvement initiatives, including quarterly business reviews (QBRs), to measure SLA adherence, roadmap delivery, technical enablement and commercial performance.
  • Monitor market trends in cloud offerings, licensing models and commercial programs, and recommend changes to sourcing strategies to take advantage of new market levers and incentives.
  • Drive supplier diversity, sustainability and responsible sourcing initiatives within the cloud vendor base in partnership with procurement and corporate social responsibility teams.
  • Establish and enforce governance controls for third-party tools that integrate with cloud platforms, ensuring API security, least-privilege access patterns and documented operational ownership.
  • Mentor junior vendor management and procurement professionals, codify lessons learned into playbooks, and institutionalize vendor best practices across the IT organization.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc vendor performance data requests and exploratory analysis to help teams make timely sourcing and operational decisions.
  • Contribute to the organization's cloud vendor strategy and roadmap by providing commercial inputs and market intelligence.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate technical and business requirements into vendor selection criteria and contractual terms.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies when vendor dependencies impact cloud delivery timelines.
  • Maintain and update the vendor master database, contract repository and licensing inventories for auditability and reporting accuracy.
  • Assist compliance and internal audit teams during vendor audits by collecting evidence, organizing responses, and tracking remediation items.
  • Help develop training materials and internal guidance for stakeholders on vendor governance, procurement processes, and cloud contract best practices.
  • Coordinate proof-of-concepts and pilot agreements with vendors to de-risk procurement decisions prior to enterprise-wide rollouts.
  • Support legal and procurement in tailoring indemnity, liability and data protection clauses specific to cloud services and cross-border data transfers.
  • Facilitate workshops with SRE, security and finance to align on vendor KPIs, cost allocation, and operational handoffs.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Deep understanding of cloud platforms and services (AWS, Azure, GCP) including compute, storage, networking, managed services and marketplace procurement models.
  • Contract negotiation and commercial structuring experience for cloud & technology contracts, including MSAs, SOWs, enterprise licensing, committed spend and reseller agreements.
  • Strong FinOps and cloud cost optimization capabilities: usage analysis, pricing models, reserved/committed planning, cost allocation and tagging governance.
  • Vendor performance management: designing scorecards, SLAs, KPIs, QBRs and remediation plans.
  • Familiarity with cloud security and compliance frameworks (SOC2, ISO27001, GDPR, HIPAA) and ability to evaluate vendor attestations and security posture.
  • Experience running RFI/RFP processes, supplier evaluation matrices, TCO analyses and vendor selection documentation.
  • Knowledge of procurement and contract lifecycle systems (e.g., SAP Ariba, Coupa, Ivalua) and contract repositories.
  • Ability to interpret technical architecture documents and translate vendor offerings into operational impacts and contractual requirements.
  • Third-party risk assessment, due diligence, and vendor risk register management.
  • Data-driven decision-making: experience with analytics tools and dashboards (e.g., Looker, Power BI, Tableau) to present vendor and cost insights.
  • Familiarity with API integrations, identity & access management implications for third-party cloud services.
  • Understanding of licensing models for major ISVs and SaaS vendors and experience negotiating enterprise agreements.

Soft Skills

  • Exceptional negotiation and influencing skills with demonstrated commercial outcomes.
  • Strong stakeholder management and cross-functional collaboration across engineering, security, finance and legal teams.
  • Strategic thinking with a results-oriented mindset and the ability to translate strategy into executable vendor programs.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication; able to present complex commercial and technical information to executives.
  • Problem-solving mindset with the ability to lead escalation and resolution under tight timelines.
  • Project and program management skills—organizes multi-party initiatives and manages competing priorities.
  • Leadership and mentoring capability to grow junior team members and embed vendor management practices.
  • High ethics and integrity when handling confidential commercial and security information.
  • Adaptability and resilience in a fast-paced cloud environment with shifting priorities.
  • Attention to detail for contract terms, SLA definitions and compliance evidence.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Information Technology, Computer Science, Supply Chain Management, Finance or related field.

Preferred Education:

  • Master's degree, MBA, or advanced degree in technology/business or certifications relevant to procurement/vendor management (e.g., CPSM, CIPS) or cloud (AWS/Azure/GCP certifications).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Business Administration
  • Information Technology / Computer Science
  • Supply Chain & Procurement
  • Finance / Economics
  • Cybersecurity / Information Security

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 5–10 years of experience in vendor management, IT procurement, or sourcing with at least 3+ years focused on cloud vendors or technology suppliers.

Preferred:

  • 7+ years managing strategic cloud or technology suppliers, experience negotiating hyperscaler agreements, demonstrated track record driving cost savings and vendor performance improvements, and experience working in multi-cloud environments.
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