Director, Supplier & Relationship Management

Position: Director, Supplier Performance & Relationship Management
Job Title

Director, Supplier Performance & Relationship Management

Job Description Summary

The Director of Supplier Performance & Relationship Management (SPRM) for Cushman & Wakefield is responsible for developing and executing a global strategy (standards & governance framework) to optimize supplier performance & relationships outcomes across a diverse range of procurement categories. The categories included goods, services, capital, technology, facilities management, to indirect expenses. This role designs and implements a centralized risk-aware supplier lifecycle from onboarding and qualification through contracting, scorecards, remediation, and continuous improvement to enhance asset and portfolio results while reducing total cost of ownership and advancing responsible sourcing goals.

Given the client-facing nature of FM delivery - where supplier performance directly influences client account outcomes, satisfaction, and retention - this role carries significant enterprise risk and commercial accountability. The Director will benchmark leading-practice SPRM models from across the CRE sector and adjacent industries, translating external intelligence into a cutting-edge, scalable program framework that integrates seamlessly with category-specific preferred supplier programs (PSPs).

The role serves as the connective tissue between Category Management, Risk Governance, and the business, ensuring supplier performance is managed proactively, not reactively; relationships at the strategic tier should be cultivated as a genuine source of competitive differentiation for C&W.

The Director provides enterprise leadership in supplier performance methodology, strategic supplier engagement practices, and performance improvement insights to help business units deliver consistent, measurable value to clients. This role operates within the Global Procurement function and reports to the Chief Procurement Officer. The Director will build the SPRM Centre of Excellence from the ground up - defining its methodology, governance, tooling, and talent model - and will be measured on the quality and adoption of the framework as much as on supplier performance outcomes.

Job Description

Responsibilities:

Strategic Leadership & Transformation:

* Conduct comprehensive benchmarking of SPRM leading practices across CRE, IFM, and adjacent sectors (financial services, healthcare, technology), identifying best-in-class methodologies for preferred supplier program performance scorecard design, and relationship governance, to land consistent quality performance & competitive edge.

* Shape and execute the multi-year strategy for SPRM across regional and operational teams.

* Successfully build a globally aligned SPRM program, reduce regional fragmentation, closing category ownership gaps, and increasing consistent supplier performance and client value delivery.

* Drive enterprise-wide change management initiatives, resulting in high stakeholder engagement, rapid adoption of new processes, and a culture of continuous improvement.

* Act as the organization's leading expert on supplier performance methodologies and value-based supplier management.

* Create and develop governance structure across business lines and regions for SPRM; embed supplier inclusion for impact, responsible sourcing, and regulatory obligations into the SPRM framework.

* Support enhancements to the preferred supplier network globally, regionally, and locally for empowered decision making.

Supplier Management:

* Equip field and regional teams with practical playbooks, training, templates, and decision-support tools to enhance day-to-day supplier management; influence the entire supplier performance and relationship management ecosystem to land target SPRM outcome

* Serve as a trusted advisor to frontline procurement, operations, and category teams to improve supplier engagement quality and client value delivery.

* Collaborate with category leaders to interpret supplier performance trends and identify opportunities to elevate strategic partners to preferred or address underperformance in the preferred supplier network.

* Bridge enterprise functions (technology, governance, risk, compliance) with decentralized operations teams ensuring enterprise standards are understood, usable, and effectively adopted.

* Capture feedback from stakeholders to inform continuous improvement and drive adoption of consistent practices across the enterprise.

* Lead the development and deployment of performance scorecards, supplier reviews, relationship assessments, and continuous improvement processes; collaborate with category management, to lead discussion and exploration of preferred supplier partnership value generation across strategic revenue growth enablement, cost take-out, process efficiency, and co-innovation scope

* Establish clear collaboration model incl. roles and responsibilities between the SPRM and Category Management - framework ownership vs. day-to-day relationship execution.

* Chair or co-chair…