Vendor Management Officer at Equity Bank Kenya

Job purpose

The Vendor Management Officer will be responsible for overseeing vendor relationships and ensuring that vendors comply with regulatory requirements, meet contractual obligations, and adhere to the bank's vendor management policies and procedures. The role will also be responsible for identifying and mitigating vendor-related risks and supporting the development and implementation of vendor management strategies.

The ideal candidate should have a strong understanding of vendor management practices, experience in the 3rd party risk management and compliance, and the ability to work collaboratively with internal and external stakeholders.

Duties and responsibilities

• Conduct due diligence assessments on new and existing third-party relationships, in compliance with internal policies and procedures.
• Conduct vendor assessments and risk analysis to ensure that third-party risks are identified, assessed, and managed in accordance with internal policy, regulatory requirements, and industry best practices.
• Monitor vendor performance and adherence to service level agreements, working with vendors to resolve issues and improve performance where necessary.
• Develop and maintain vendor scorecards and performance metrics, reporting on vendor performance to management.
• Maintain a centralized inventory of vendor’s data to ensure that all information remains accurate, up to date and readily available.
• Coordinate end to end vendor transition processes: including clearly defined onboarding and offboarding checklists, appropriate prioritization, impact assessment, approval, and documentation.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in information technology, Information Systems, Supply Chain Management, or a related field strongly preferred.
• Minimum of 3 years in strategic sourcing, vendor management, external relationship management, compliance or risk management experience strongly preferred.
• Professional certification in vendor management, supply chain management or related field is a plus.

Key competences

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to build and maintain positive relationships with vendors and internal stakeholders and communicating data and trends in an engaging way.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to identify and mitigate vendor-related risks
• Experience with vendor management software and tools.
• Ability to research and evaluate vendors using both publicly available information as well as resources provided internally and make recommendations to optimize supplier relationship structures.
• Ability to excel in an environment that is dynamic and with high ambiguity.
• Strong Knowledge of vendor management best practices, regulatory requirements, and industry standards.

Working conditions

The position entails coverage of an extensive knowledge of the end -to-end Vendor lifecycle management including key aspects of 3rd party risk management and ESG.
This will require more time to be spent collaboratively in the office providing these services.

Reporting Line
The vendor management Officer will report directly to the Group Head - Vendor Management a position that reports directly to the Director - Supply Chain and Administration.

Expected outputs
Deliver assigned target output and responsible for ensuring that all our 3rd Party vendors meet the bank's expectations and comply with all regulatory requirements. They will be expected to share Periodic reports (Daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually) on program specific activities as detailed out in their Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s).