Strategic Procurement Specialist

** Job Description
** NAIT is seeking a Strategic Procurement Specialist to provide advanced procurement, commercial, and contracting expertise for complex and high-value initiatives across the institution.

As a senior individual contributor, the Strategic Procurement Specialist independently manages procurement initiatives from early planning and stakeholder engagement through competitive solicitation, evaluation, negotiation, contract execution, and transition to contract management.

The successful candidate will proactively engage academic, administrative, and operational areas to understand their needs, upcoming initiatives, existing contracts, and procurement priorities. This position will help stakeholders assess procurement readiness, develop sourcing strategies, manage procurement and contractual risks, and establish realistic timelines.

This opportunity is well suited to an experienced procurement professional with strong attention to detail, sound commercial judgment, and demonstrated ability to interpret and negotiate services levels and contract terms and conditions.

This position does not have formal people-leadership or supervisory responsibilities.
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* Key Responsibilities:

*** Proactively engage assigned business areas to understand operational requirements, upcoming procurements, contract expiries, supplier concerns, and sourcing opportunities.
* Lead competitive procurement processes, including RFPs, negotiated RFPs, RFQs, requests for standing offers, public tenders, and other approved procurement methods.
* Develop procurement strategies, solicitation documents, evaluation methodologies, pricing structures, negotiation plans, timelines, and award recommendations.
* Work with stakeholders to clarify requirements, assess procurement readiness, identify risks, and select appropriate sourcing and contracting approaches.
* Facilitate evaluation committees, consensus meetings, supplier presentations, clarifications, negotiations, approvals, awards, and supplier debriefings.
* Independently review, analyze, draft, and negotiate commercial contract terms and conditions within approved authorities, templates, standards, and risk parameters.
* Identify procurement, commercial, contractual, financial, and operational risks and recommend practical mitigation strategies.
* Coordinate specialized reviews with General Counsel, Risk, Privacy, Information Security, Finance, Insurance, and other subject-matter experts when required.
* Ensure that negotiated commitments and approved deviations are accurately reflected in final contracts and schedules.
* Support contract implementation, amendments, renewals, supplier-performance matters, corrective actions, disputes, and contract closeout.
* Maintain complete, accurate, and defensible procurement and contract records.
* Ensure compliance with applicable trade agreements, legislation, NAIT policies, delegated authorities, procurement procedures, and public-sector procurement principles.
* Identify opportunities to consolidate requirements, improve competition, reduce total cost, strengthen contractual protections, enhance supplier performance or otherwise improve procurements outcomes.
** Knowledge of:**
* ** Public-sector procurement principles**, including fairness, openness, transparency, accountability, confidentiality, consistency, defensibility, and the appropriate management of actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest.
* ** Applicable trade agreements, legislation, and regulatory requirements
** governing procurement in a Canadian public-sector or broader public-sector environment, including thresholds, posting obligations, limited tendering considerations, supplier debriefings, and procurement challenge risk.
* ** Competitive procurement methods and sourcing strategies**, including Requests for Proposals, Negotiated Requests for Proposals, Requests for Information, Requests for Quotations, Requests for Standing Offers, public tenders, invitational processes, evaluation methodologies, pricing structures, and award documentation.
* ** Contract law, commercial contracting principles, and contract-risk allocation**, including scope and deliverables, pricing and payment terms, warranties, indemnities, insurance, limitation of liability, intellectual property, confidentiality, privacy, information security, termination rights, remedies, amendments, and dispute resolution.
* ** Procurement governance, delegated authorities, policy compliance, and audit-ready documentation…