About This Job

The Consultant, Enterprise Supplier Management supports supplier governance, supplier development, regulatory readiness, and obligation-management activities within the ESM operating model. This role coordinates moderately complex supplier-related workstreams, partners across key stakeholders, and helps translate supplier performance, service delivery, regulatory expectations, obligations, and business feedback into practical plans, documentation, reporting routines, governance materials, and recommended actions. The role strengthens supplier accountability, oversight consistency, performance visibility, readiness, and follow-through across assigned supplier relationships and ESM priorities. 

What You'll Do:

• Execute supplier governance routines, supplier review forums, oversight activities, performance monitoring, issue tracking, escalation support, and stakeholder follow-through. 

• Gather and analyze performance results, scorecards, service delivery insights, business feedback, supplier trends, and recurring issues to identify gaps, risks, and practical improvement opportunities. 

• Support the interpretation and operationalization of supplier-related policies, standards, obligations, controls, and expectations into usable processes, trackers, evidence packages, and stakeholder materials. 

• Maintain supplier governance records and materials needed for internal reviews, audits, regulatory readiness, and leadership visibility. 

• Partner with business owners, and key stakeholders to gather inputs, validate needs, coordinate handoffs, support decisions, and drive timely follow-through. 

• Use tools, data standards, reporting, and process guidance to strengthen data discipline, improve supplier visibility, and support continuous improvement across assigned supplier relationships. 

• Recommend improvements to supplier governance processes, reporting, documentation, handoffs, stakeholder engagement, ownership clarity, supplier accountability practices, and operating discipline. 

• May support ESM data, analytics, reporting, and technology capabilities, including establishing data and metric standards, ensuring data quality and governance, defining reporting priorities, and managing tool design, configuration, integrations, access, and continuous improvement. 

What You'll Bring:

• Bachelor’s degree. 

• Minimum of 5 years of prior experience in supplier management, vendor governance, sourcing/procurement, business operations, performance management, third-party risk, compliance, or related functions. 

• Prior experience supporting vendor or supplier program management, supplier performance management, governance routines, service reviews, or stakeholder coordination preferred. 

• Demonstrated ability to manage moderately complex workstreams, coordinate deliverables, track action items, and drive follow-through with limited oversight. 

• Strong analytical skills, including experience reviewing supplier metrics, KPI/SLA reporting, service performance trends, scorecards, dashboards, or business performance information. 

• Proven collaboration skills with the ability to influence stakeholders without direct authority. 

• Ability to communicate clearly, synthesize information, and translate supplier performance or governance issues into practical recommendations and next steps. 

• Demonstrated ability to operate in ambiguity, manage competing priorities, solve operational problems, and recommend improvements that increase governance consistency and supplier accountability. 

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills. 

• Preferred: experience supporting supplier governance frameworks, supplier segmentation or tiering, supplier scorecards, executive or operational review routines, supplier remediation, tool adoption, or enterprise supplier management transformation. 

Skills You'll Have:

• Focuses on specific details to identify and correct errors, maintain accuracy, and meet quality expectations.
• Applies knowledge of general and organization-specific business issues and financial implications to solve problems.
• Applies knowledge of systems that facilitate or automate business solutions, including workflow management and requirements acquisition.
• Establishes, analyzes, and interprets compliance metrics; defines monitoring controls and communicates compliance status, risks, trends, and results to stakeholders
• Facilitates collaboration, communication, coordination, and planning across functions and areas of expertise to achieve common goals.

Compensation Range:

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We believe in fairness and transparency. It’s why we share the salary range for most of our roles. However, final salaries are based on a number of factors, including the skills and experience of the candidate; the current market; location of the candidate; and other factors uncovered in the hiring process. The standard pay structure is listed but if you’re living in California, New York City or other eligible location, geographic specific pay structures, compensation and benefits could be applicable, click here to learn more.

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Northwestern Mutual is an equal opportunity employer that welcomes talented individuals of all backgrounds. We are committed to creating and maintaining an environment in which each employee can contribute creative ideas, seek challenges, assume leadership and continue to focus on meeting and exceeding business and personal objectives.