Senior Category Management Analyst

About the Opportunity

The Procure-to-Pay (P2P) department’s primary goal is to delight customers, optimize service offerings, deploy leading P2P capabilities, and execute with agility and a global mindset.

As a Senior Category Management Analyst, you will assist the Category Management function within the P2P department in developing and maintaining a multi‑year category plan, including planning and executing strategic sourcing projects for assigned spend commodities.

You will collaborate with cross‑functional and regional teams across Northeastern University’s global network of campuses to develop, plan, and execute category plan initiatives that deliver best value, manage competitive bid events, facilitate supplier selection, negotiate business terms, and manage supplier performance in centrally managed spend categories.

The role requires a self‑starter, flexible mindset, agility, and the ability to multi‑task and pivot as business needs evolve. Contributions will provide ample growth opportunities within Category Management.

• Bachelor’s degree and 5+ years of relevant sourcing and/or project management experience.
• Prior experience with category planning activities, collaborating with stakeholders and leaders to monitor and report progress and results.
• Self‑motivated, flexible, and agile project manager able to prioritize, multi‑task, and work horizontally and vertically across a decentralized organization to drive value.
• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to influence and build trusted advisor relationships through data‑driven decision‑making and customer empathy.
• Prior experience planning and executing competitive RFx events, including pricing/bid analysis and negotiating business terms.
• Prior experience with supplier management programs, coordinating business reviews and developing supplier scorecards.
• Strong presentation skills to update stakeholders and executives on assigned projects and P2P initiatives.
• Strong data fluency to articulate data requirements and build compelling business cases.
• Proficiency with Microsoft business programs (Outlook, Excel, Word, Power Point).

• Experience with e‑sourcing platforms (e.g., Jaggaer Sourcing).
• Project management and/or Lean Six Sigma process frameworks and relevant certifications (e.g., PMP, Lean Six Sigma).
• Experience utilizing data warehouse, analytics, and reporting tools (Cognos, SQL, R, Python, Tableau, Power BI).

• Lead cross‑functional category projects that comply with sourcing strategies and deliver best value.
• Develop strategies and prepare for supplier negotiations for assigned projects.
• Analyze supplier proposals and recommend next steps in negotiation and selection.
• Negotiate price, service targets, payments terms, and other business and legal terms for contracts.
• Support and implement supplier sustainability (ESG) and diversity strategies.
• Lead change management strategies for assigned projects.

• Leverage spend and contract data, market insights, and stakeholder input to recommend adjustments to the multi‑year category plan.
• Support ongoing maintenance of the annual category plan and report progress against goals.

• Develop and manage internal client relationships.
• Participate in business reviews with stakeholders to influence category plan.
• Report value generated from category, including cost savings from projects.
• Present results to P2P leadership and other stakeholders.

• Support execution of supplier relationship management framework, building performance scorecard program.
• Monitor supplier performance for centrally managed strategic suppliers using reviews and scorecards.
• Serve as trusted advisor to assist internal clients with supplier discovery and performance.

• Promote use of e‑Procurement tools, including Jaggaer Sourcing.
• Promote other procurement technology initiatives, including tail spend management and automated quoting.

• Proactively develop commodity expertise and professional skills using industry reports, trade associations, and…