Commercial Vendor Manager

About the role

Lendable is expanding its credit risk capabilities across various markets and products. This role is crucial for managing strategic vendor relationships to maximize value from partnerships while controlling costs, performance, and innovation. You will be the central point of contact for key vendors, reporting to a Commercial Director.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Manage strategic relationships with a diverse portfolio of vendors, focusing on credit bureaus and data providers.
• Act as the main point of contact for key vendors, handling escalations and strategic discussions.
• Build trusted relationships with senior stakeholders at partner organizations.
• Conduct regular business reviews to assess vendor performance, roadmap, and innovation opportunities.
• Oversee vendor onboarding, integration planning, and ongoing support.
• Lead contract negotiations and renewals to secure optimal commercial terms.
• Manage vendor budgets, forecasts, and initiatives for cost optimization.
• Ensure compliance with contractual terms, service level agreements, and data governance.
• Collaborate with finance and legal on vendor due diligence, contracts, and payment terms.
• Track and report on vendor spend, utilization, and return on investment.
• Monitor vendor performance against service level agreements and quality metrics.
• Drive continuous improvement in data quality, coverage, and timeliness.
• Identify and evaluate new data sources and products to enhance credit decisioning.
• Partner with risk and product teams to define requirements for new data capabilities.
• Develop business cases for new vendor products or alternative data sources.
• Work with engineering on API integrations, data feeds, and technical issues.
• Coordinate with credit risk on data requirements, model inputs, and decisioning logic.
• Liaise with legal and compliance on vendor risk management and data privacy.
• Collaborate with finance on budgeting, forecasting, and cost allocation.
• Support product teams with data availability for new features and markets.

Requirements

• At least 2 years of experience in vendor management, strategic partnerships, procurement, contract negotiations, or a relationship management role within financial services, preferably on the buy side.
• Strong commercial understanding.
• Analytical mindset capable of assessing vendor performance and ROI.
• Excellent attention to detail and highly organized.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, comfortable influencing senior internal and external stakeholders.

Nice to have

• Experience managing relationships with credit bureaus or other mission-critical vendors.
• Background in fintech or consumer lending businesses.
• Understanding of credit data products, bureau outputs, and risk decisioning.
• Experience with alternative credit data sources and emerging providers.
• Proven track record of driving vendor innovation and product enhancements.
• Experience managing vendor relationships across multiple geographies (UK/US).
• Experience with contract negotiation and cost management.

Skills & tools

• Commercial acumen
• Analytical thinking
• Stakeholder management
• Contract negotiation
• Budget management
• Performance monitoring

Practical notes

This is a hybrid role, requiring three days in the office weekly. Benefits include private health cover, retirement savings plans, an employee referral program, complimentary lunches and a stocked kitchen on in-office days, and sustainable commuting schemes (cycle-to-work, electric vehicle salary sacrifice) in select locations. Specific benefits may vary by location and role.