Job DescriptionThe Procurement Category Lead for Hotels and Meetings Services is a high-impact role responsible for the strategic sourcing, governance, and operational delivery of the company's global hotel and offsite meeting programs. Managing an annual spend of approximately $40M, this role balances traditional category management-such as creating & executing strategy, executing large-scale RFPs, and negotiating chain-wide hotel rates-with a critical focus on the end-user experience and process modernization.
The ideal candidate is a procurement expert who is also a digital transformation advocate. Beyond managing contracts, you will be expected to architect the future of the program, transitioning legacy, email-based workflows into automated, scalable processes using modern technology.
Key Responsibilities
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. Strategic Sourcing & Category Management- Strategy: Create, in conjunction with Director of Corporate Travel & Meetings Services, the strategy for the categories. And execute upon agreed strategy. Prepare quarterly updates to the strategy for presentation to leadership.
- Preferred Hotel Program: Lead the end-to-end annual RFP process for transient preferred hotels, ensuring strict alignment with complex federal reimbursement structures and ensuring stakeholder agreeance to each year's RFP plan. This includes managing:
- CONUS Rates: Aligning program with the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) per diem to negotiate preferred hotel rates at or below standard set up GSA per diem for hotels across the continental United States.
- Territory & Foreign Rates: Managing specialized rate sets for territories and international destinations.
- Lifecycle Execution: Managing the full cycle from historical and booked hotel usage analysis and solicitation list creation to the development of the transient program decision model matrix, timed with the annual August federal rate announcements.
- On-going Additions: Managing the on-going requests for Preferred Hotel program expansion.
- Global Expansion: Working with non-US business locations to collaborate on a global preferred hotel program framework. Agreeance on who leads each aspect of the global annual RFP(s).
- Rate Governance: Manage and ensure compliance with GSA per diem rates across CONUS, OCONUS, and international territories. Further, benchmarking hotel data to ensure rates are best-in-class, negotiating with suppliers when they are not and sharing performance results with stakeholders. Regularly audit rates to ensure travelers are receiving rates and enacting corrective action with suppliers when they are not.
- Supplier Management: Manage relationships with strategic suppliers, ensuring timely communications with stakeholders, conducting quarterly business reviews, ensuring timely & accurate invoices, periodic lunch & learn events for our admin planner community, etc. Actively seek out new opportunities and present business cases to enhance our offering to our stakeholders. Conduct annual supplier rationalization exercises.
- Negotiation: Execute complex negotiations with major hotel chains and individual properties to drive significant cost avoidance and savings.
- Meeting Services: Strategically source suppliers for offsite meetings, overseeing the governance of contracts, pricing, and service levels. Periodic review and update of BAE Systems Meetings Addenda. Maintain Meetings SharePoint Repository.
2. Operational Excellence & Stakeholder Support- Service Delivery: Act as the primary operational hub for travelers and stakeholders, resolving critical issues such as hotel sell-outs, rate discrepancies, and billing disputes.
- Cross-Functional Risk Management: Partner closely with Legal, Security, and Insurable Risk to navigate contract redlines, limitation of liability clauses, and "Duty of Care" requirements.
- Supplier Quality Management: Utilize qualitative data (e.g., "Welcome Home" surveys) to hold suppliers accountable and drive physical improvements in supplier assets and service quality.
- Performance Monitoring: Conduct Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) and monitor supplier performance against contractual obligations.
- Travel Program Support: coordination, planning and facilitation of reoccurring, off-site meetings (Travel Working Group) including, but not limited to managing agendas, planning logistics, attendee and speaker management, and creating "read-ahead" decks for stakeholders
- Operational Procurement: work with the team to create purchase requisitions and open purchase orders with all prescribed requirements
3. Process Modernization & Digital Transformation- Automation Roadmap: Drive the strategic automation roadmap to eliminate manual, email-heavy workflows in favor of automated systems and integrated KPIs.
- Tool Implementation: Leverage and optimize the use of Microsoft Power Platforms and other digital tools to streamline budget approvals and event registrations.
- Data Analytics: Transform raw spend data into actionable intelligence to report on program impact, cost savings, and cost avoidance.
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Required Skills and EducationEducation & Experience- Bachelor's Degree and 4+ years of experience in Procurement, preferably within the travel or hospitality sector.
- Deep understanding of hotel pricing, revenue management, and current trends in the global travel and meetings industries.
Skills/Qualifications- Strong category management experience, including the ability to create a category strategy
- Strong contract negotiation experience
- Strong supplier relationship management experience
- Proven ability to drive program adoption and influence spend decisions without formal authority, using data-driven insights
- Exceptional ability to communicate across diverse, cross-functional teams, from executive stakeholders to external vendors (oral, written & presentation)
- Strong business knowledge
- Thorough understanding of budgeting, forecasting and savings analysis
- Advanced MS (Excel) software skills in support of data analysis and forecasting
- Project management, proven ability to manage multiple projects and deadlines
- Strong analytical skills including the ability to analyze historical data to make informed, strategic recommendations for program improvement
- Problem solving and decision-making capabilities
- Demonstrated experience or strong aptitude for utilizing automation tools to modernize business processes
- Ability to work with diverse, cross-functional, global teams
- Experience with hotel consulting, hotel sales, hotel data analysis
- Experience with hotel pricing and revenue management
- Experience with meetings and corporate discount programs
- Experience with industry-standard tools such as Lanyon, Cvent, ReadyBid, and Groupize
