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).