Cloud Strategic Sourcing Manager

Members of the Finance organization at select locations will generally be expected to follow a hybrid work model, which includes two days of in-office attendance each week, with limited exceptions.

Application window expected to close on 7/18/2025.

Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received.

Meet the Team

You will be part of a Cisco Global Procurement Team, working cross-functionally with our Strategic Partners team, Cloud Ops, IT, Engineering, Product Management, Sales, Security, Finance, Legal, Marketing, and other Supply Chain/Procurement teams.

Your Impact

We are seeking an innovative applicant with negotiation experience, and especially Cloud (IaaS / PaaS) sourcing/procurement experience. You are the relationship owner between Cisco and our strategic Cloud Service Providers (“CSP”), including AWS, GCP and Azure, and other major CSP’s. In this pivotal role, you will be responsible for driving the strategic direction of our CSP’s, governance frameworks, and cost optimization efforts. This includes collaborating across Cisco’s business units and ensuring our cloud-related processes and procedures are efficient, secure, and aligned with broader Cisco organizational goals and that our cloud workloads are suitably distributed to minimize contractual risk. This is an opportunity to join a new exciting team from the ground up and influence the processes and policies as the team grows underneath you in size and influence. Be a force for change and implement standardized processes globally.

In addition, you will manage a segment of technology suppliers and stakeholders by supporting the end-to-end procurement process, supplier risk assessments, contract negotiation, PO/PR review and approval, and ongoing contract/license compliance.

You will work closely with requestors and team members to negotiate commercial and contractual terms and conditions, SLAs (Availability, Performance, Downtime, etc.) and discounting agreements in strategic CSP agreements that are used globally across various Cisco functions and businesses. You will help develop and maintain strategies that include category elements of market/industry trends, benchmarking, spend analysis, preferred supplier categorization, supplier performance, and optimization.

Finally, in addition to these sourcing activities, you will also get the opportunity to support critical initiatives and transformation projects in relation to software savings, multi-year strategies/roadmaps, process improvement, business transformation, and acquisition integration.

Minimum Qualifications

• 5 to 7 years validated experience with technology related sourcing / procurement in Public Cloud (working with a wide range of Public Cloud providers and related services).
• Validated experience of leading negotiations with AWS, GCP, Microsoft Azure, or Oracle are desirable.
• Ability to work across diverse business areas to understand strategic direction and investment plans, and derive definitive consumption forecasts relating to cloud utility.
• Ability to mitigate risk and operationalize contracts with detailed appreciation of business use.
• Takes on leadership responsibility for relevant supplier relationships by implementing business reviews (i.e. , QBR’s) and other oversight and governance appropriate to the relationship.
• Define, develop and implement a three (3) year strategic sourcing category plan with the goal of maturing the category and optimizing costs through processes and procedures.
• Experience in leading procurement processes relating to the establishment of major cloud agreements, including planning, scheduling and overseeing/managing delivery against agreed timelines.
• Lead contract and commercial negotiations including drafting of documentation in consultation with Legal, InfoSec, and Privacy teams.
• Ability to analyze data relating to cloud consumption (including trend analysis), and work across major business functions to optimize workloads.
• Prepare and present risk profiles and financial analysis.
• Achievement of savings and non-financial targets for sourcing portfolio
• Experience with procurement-related tools (e.g., Ariba, SAP).
• Experience purchasing via Cloud (AWS, GCP, Azure) Marketplaces.
  
  

Preferred qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in Business, Supply Chain, or Law (JD) degree. MBA degree preferred.
• Minimum 5-7 years sourcing experience with 5 years passionate about cloud/software sourcing.
• Consistent track record to lead, empower and develop suppliers globally.
• Ability to work within a diverse multi-cultural environment.
• Consistent track record of developing and leading global vendor relationships.
• Demonstrates project management skills on large spend sourcing initiatives.
• Detailed understanding of Cloud services.
• Consistent record of delivering savings through better leveraging. contracting structure, relationship development and process efficiencies.
• Relevant cloud certifications are highly desirable (e.g., AWS Cloud Practitioner, Azure, MSFT Azure).
  
  

At Cisco, we’re revolutionizing how data and infrastructure connect and protect organizations in the AI era – and beyond. We’ve been innovating fearlessly for 40 years to create solutions that power how humans and technology work together across the physical and digital worlds. These solutions provide customers with unparalleled security, visibility, and insights across the entire digital footprint. Simply put – we power the future.

Fueled by the depth and breadth of our technology, we experiment and create meaningful solutions. Add to that our worldwide network of doers and experts, and you’ll see that the opportunities to grow and build are limitless. We work as a team, collaborating with empathy to make really big things happen on a global scale. Because our solutions are everywhere, our impact is everywhere.

We are Cisco, and our power starts with you.