Senior Manager, Strategic Sourcing

ABOUT AIRWALLEX Airwallex is the AI-native financial operating system for a real-time, intelligent economy. More than 675,000 businesses, including McLaren Racing, Qantas, SHEIN, and TikTok, use us, directly or through our platform partners, to run their financial operations or build and monetize financial products of their own. We started in Melbourne in 2015 to build the infrastructure global commerce runs on. We're the regulated backbone behind global payments: not by accident, but by design. A decade plus, 85+ licenses, and a financial infrastructure spanning North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. We're co-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore, with more than 2,300 people across 27 offices. We hire builders with founder-level energy, people who move fast with good judgment, dig in with real curiosity, and make calls from first principles rather than waiting to be told what to do. Read our operating principles https://www.airwallex.com/en-us/operating-principles to see it in full.   About the role Airwallex is looking for a Senior Manager, Strategic Sourcing to lead our strategic approach to third-party spend globally. Reporting to the Head of Strategic Finance, you will shape category and vendor strategies, lead our most important commercial negotiations, and identify opportunities to optimize our vendor portfolio and cost base. The role spans major indirect spend categories, with particular focus on technology, software, cloud and other strategically important vendors. This is a strategy-led, highly analytical role. We are looking for someone who can anticipate needs rather than react to procurement requests, challenge demand and requirements where appropriate, and balance cost discipline with quality, technical capability, risk and long-term strategic value. Procurement operations and transactional processes are supported separately. What you'll do Set category and vendor strategy - Develop category strategies across major areas of third-party spend, informed by business priorities, market dynamics, cost drivers and the vendor landscape. - Build a forward-looking view of Airwallex's vendor portfolio, identifying opportunities to consolidate, rationalize, re-source or deepen strategic relationships. - Shape sourcing decisions early, including requirements, vendor selection, commercial models, build-versus-buy considerations and longer-term vendor strategy. Lead strategic sourcing and negotiations - Lead Airwallex's most important sourcing initiatives and vendor negotiations, from market assessment and commercial evaluation through contracting and renewal. - Develop rigorous negotiation strategies using benchmarks, usage and demand data, competitive alternatives, total cost of ownership and detailed vendor economics. - Optimize the full commercial structure, including pricing, commitments, contract duration, payment terms, renewals, price increases and service levels. Drive value and cost discipline - Build and prioritize a pipeline of opportunities across pricing, demand, utilization, specifications, vendor consolidation and commercial structures. - Challenge whether spend is necessary and appropriately sized, rather than focusing solely on negotiating lower prices. - Quantify and track commercial outcomes, ensuring negotiated value translates into realized financial impact and informs budgeting and forward planning. Build strategic sourcing capabilities - Establish clear frameworks and best practices for sourcing, supplier selection, negotiation, strategic vendor management and renewals. - Build a reliable source of truth across vendors, spend, contracts, commitments, renewals and key commercial risks. - Bring external benchmarks and market intelligence into decision-making, while establishing appropriate governance for Airwallex's most strategic vendors. What we're looking for - 8+ years of experience in strategic sourcing, category management, procurement, commercial strategy or a related field, ideally within technology, fintech or another fast-growing global business. - Strong track record of personally leading complex, high-value negotiations and delivering material commercial outcomes. - Deep experience in technology and software sourcing; exposure to cloud, data, professional services or other major indirect categories is highly desirable. - Strong strategic, analytical and financial capabilities, including experience evaluating pricing structures, usage, total cost of ownership and vendor economics. - Strong commercial judgment, with the ability to balance cost, capability, speed, risk and longer-term strategic value. - Ability to operate from strategy through execution, from developing a category roadmap to working through the detail of a complex pricing model or contract. - Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, with the credibility to influence senior internal stakeholders and vendor executives. - High ownership and comfort building structure and best practices in a fast-moving environment. APPLICANT SAFETY POLICY: FRAUD AND THIRD-PARTY RECRUITERS To protect you from recruitment scams, please be aware that Airwallex will not ask for bank details, sensitive ID numbers (i.e. passport), or any form of payment during the application or interview process. All official communication will come from an @airwallex.com http://airwallex.com email address. Please apply only through careers.airwallex.com http://careers.airwallex.com or our official LinkedIn page. Airwallex does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firms/recruiters. Airwallex will not pay any fees to search firms/recruiters if a candidate is submitted by a search firm/recruiter unless an agreement has been entered into with respect to specific open position(s). Search firms/recruiters submitting resumes to Airwallex on an unsolicited basis shall be deemed to accept this condition, regardless of any other provision…