Software Portfolio Strategist

Sunnyvale, California, United States Corporate Functions

Business Operations, Employee Engagement, and Strategy is part of IS&T and shapes the strategy, operations, and culture of IS&T. The team oversees business planning, IS&T's partnership strategy across Apple, and the technology tools that support the organization's day-to-day operations. This team also leads IS&T's enterprise generative AI strategy and manages compliance across systems. Through its communications and employee programs, it champions the growth, inclusion, and development of everyone in IS&T and drives the standard for IS&T brand and product communications across Apple.

Apple's IS&T Software Asset Management team, within the Office of the CIO, governs a $450M+ software portfolio spanning 1300+ products and 250+ vendors. Our mandate is to enable and create value for Apple's business — ensuring every software investment delivers measurable impact through total cost of ownership (TCO) optimization, strategic lifecycle management, and cross-functional partnership.

We are hiring a Software Portfolio Strategist who thinks like a strategist, moves like an operator, and influences like a consultant — someone who sees a renewal as an inflection point, not a transaction, and who treats data as a language for driving enterprise decisions.

This role is for someone who is restlessly curious about where software spend is headed, why it is growing, and what levers actually exist to shape it.

• Own full lifecycle for assigned software portfolios — renewals, true-ups, terminations, migrations — with a strategic lens on every decision
• Develop and maintain directional lifecycle strategies grounded in spend, criticality, utilization, and market trajectory
• Lead software rationalization efforts: classify, prioritize, and drive action on portfolio optimization to reduce TCO and increase value delivery
• Establish and run portfolio steering reviews with cross-functional stakeholders
• Own multi-million-dollar budget forecasts and 5-year directional plans for your portfolios
• Build and present build-vs-buy evaluations, TCO models, cost optimization analyses, and scenario planning
• Identify spend trends proactively — particularly AI-driven consumption growth — and frame them for leadership action
• Translate complex licensing structures into clear financial narratives that connect software costs to business value for non-technical audiences
• Lead large-scale programs (migrations, platform transitions, rationalization initiatives) independently
• Host and drive meetings with product owners, IMT leaders, and executive stakeholders — you set the agenda, not just attend
• Deliver executive presentations, deal summaries, and strategic recommendations that land with senior leadership
• Build relationships that make you the person people call when a software decision needs to be made well
• Establish governance frameworks and policies that scale across IS&T's software estate
• Lead audit strategy and coordinate responses with Legal, Finance, and Procurement
• Drive proactive risk identification — licensing exposure, contractual risks, vendor lock-in — before they become escalations

• Bachelor's degree and 7+ years in software asset management, IT vendor management, technology finance, or strategic portfolio roles
• 5+ years leading complex cross-functional programs or investment portfolios
• Strong command of enterprise licensing models (ELAs, subscriptions, perpetual, consumption/token-based, hybrid)
• Demonstrated ownership of multi-million-dollar software budgets and forecasts
• Track record of presenting strategic recommendations to senior leadership and influencing outcomes
• Hands-on analytical capability — you build the analysis, not just review…