Role Purpose
The Senior Manager – IT Cost & Vendor Management is responsible for ensuring that Equity Group derives maximum value from all technology investments, vendor partnerships, and service contracts across its multi-country operations. The role provides leadership in optimizing IT spend, driving financial discipline, strengthening vendor governance, and ensuring compliance with regulatory and internal procurement standards. The position plays a critical role in supporting the Group’s strategic transformation, digital agenda, and Africa Recovery and Resiliency Plan by ensuring sustainable, cost-efficient, and high-performance technology services.
Key Responsibilities
IT Financial Management & Cost Optimization
- Lead IT budgeting, forecasting, and cost modelling for the Group, ensuring transparency, accountability, and alignment with business priorities.
- Develop and maintain IT cost frameworks, including TCO, unit costing, cost-to-serve, and project cost baselines.
- Identify cost-saving opportunities, rationalization initiatives, and efficiency gains across infrastructure, applications, cloud, licensing, telecoms, and professional services.
- Monitor IT spend performance against approved budgets and proactively recommend corrective actions.
- Partner with Finance to ensure proper cost allocation, financial reporting, and capitalization of IT investments.
Vendor & Contract Management
- Oversee the vendor lifecycle — selection, onboarding, performance management, renewal, exit, and continuous improvement.
- Drive contract negotiations to ensure favourable commercial and operational terms (SLAs, OLAs, KPIs, penalties, warranties, service credits).
- Establish and enforce a vendor governance framework with consistent scorecards, review forums, escalations, and risk evaluations.
- Ensure third-party compliance with regulatory, cybersecurity, data residency, and operational standards across all countries.
- Maintain the Group vendor register, contract repository, renewal calendar, and risk assessments.
Procurement & Sourcing Leadership
- Work closely with Supply Chain and Legal in strategic sourcing, RFP/RFQ processes, bid evaluation, and contract finalization.
- Promote fair, transparent, and competitive procurement aligned with group policies and local country regulations.
- Support category management for key IT spend areas (core banking, networks, cloud, data centers, cybersecurity, digital channels, etc.).
Performance Reporting & Governance
- Develop and publish monthly and quarterly dashboards on cost performance, vendor KPIs, contract status, and risk indicators.
- Present insights and recommendations to IT leadership, governance boards, and executive committees.
- Implement continuous improvement mechanisms to strengthen vendor value delivery and reduce operational risk.
Strategic Partnership & Stakeholder Management
- Act as the primary liaison between IT, Finance, Procurement, Legal, and business leaders regarding technology spend and vendor performance.
- Provide thought leadership on sourcing strategies, cost transformation, consumption-based models, and cloud FinOps.
- Support the Group’s digital and data agenda by enabling scalable, cost-efficient technology ecosystems.
Qualifications
Qualifications & Experience
- Bachelor’s degree in IT, Computer Science, Finance, Procurement, Engineering, or related field.
- Master’s degree or MBA is an added advantage.
- 8–12+ years’ experience in IT cost management, vendor management, technology procurement, or IT financial management within a large enterprise.
- Experience in a banking or regulated financial services environment is strongly preferred.
- Strong track record in contract negotiation, cost optimization, and managing global or multi-country vendor ecosystems.
- Familiarity with regulatory environments across East and Central Africa is an added advantage.
Skills & Competencies
Technical Competencies
- Strong knowledge of IT sourcing, contracts, SLAs, and commercial models.
- Deep understanding of infrastructure, cloud, licensing, applications, and telecom cost drivers.
- Proficiency in financial modelling, budgeting, procurement processes, and vendor scorecards.
- Knowledge of risk management, compliance, data residency laws, and IT governance frameworks (COBIT, ITIL, ISO).
Behavioral Competencies
- Excellent stakeholder management, negotiation, and communication skills.
- Strong analytical mindset with the ability to translate financial data into actionable insights.
- Strategic thinker with strong execution, planning, and governance discipline.
- High integrity, professionalism, and commitment to transparency.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
- IT spend accuracy vs. budget.
- Cost optimization savings delivered (OPEX & CAPEX).
- Vendor SLA compliance and performance scorecards.
- Contract renewal timeliness and negotiation effectiveness.
- Risk reduction (third-party, operational, regulatory).
- Stakeholder satisfaction (IT, Finance, Business Units, Country teams).
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