The posting
Awarded a Healthiest Employer, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona aims to fulfill its mission to inspire health and make it easy. AZ Blue offers a variety of health insurance products and services to meet the diverse needs of individuals, families, and small and large businesses as well as providing information and tools to help individuals make better health decisions.
At AZ Blue, we have a hybrid workforce strategy, called Workability, that offers flexibility with how and where employees work. Our positions are classified as hybrid, onsite or remote. While the majority of our employees are hybrid, the following classifications drive our current minimum onsite requirements:
- Hybrid People Leaders: must reside in AZ, required to be onsite at least twice per week
- Hybrid Individual Contributors: must reside in AZ, unless otherwise cited within this posting, required to be onsite at least once per week
- Hybrid 2 (Operational Roles such as but not limited to: Customer Service, Claims Processors, and Correspondence positions): must reside in AZ, unless otherwise cited within this posting, required to be onsite at least once per month
- Onsite: daily onsite requirement based on the essential functions of the job
- Remote: not held to onsite requirements, however, leadership can request presence onsite for business reasons including but not limited to staff meetings, one-on-ones, training, and team building
Please note that onsite requirements may change in the future, based on business need, and job responsibilities. Most employees should expect onsite requirements and at a minimum of once per week.
Purpose of the job
- Owns the enterprise operating model for third-party vendor governance across Operations and Service Delivery, with accountability for vendor segmentation, lifecycle controls, contractual performance, service continuity, risk response, and value realization.
- Directs governance for assigned strategic and critical vendors from onboarding through renewal, transition, or exit. Establishes clear decision rights, escalation paths, performance standards, and evidence-based oversight to protect members, customers, operations, and the organization.
- Leads the Vendor Management team and serves as the center of expertise for vendor relationship governance, contractual obligation oversight, performance remediation, and third-party operational risk.
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
Required Work Experience
- 8 years of progressive experience in vendor management, supplier relationship management, third-party risk, contract governance, sourcing, or outsourced-service oversight.
- 5 years of people leadership experience, including establishing team priorities, performance expectations, and professional development plans.
- 5 years of direct accountability for complex vendor portfolios, including performance governance, contractual obligations, escalations, and executive business reviews.
- 3 years of experience applying vendor tiering, due diligence, risk assessment, issue remediation, and renewal or exit decision processes.
- Experience interpreting contracts, statements of work, service-level agreements, performance remedies, and financial commitments.
Required Education
- Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Healthcare Administration, Finance, Information Systems, or related field.
Required Licenses
- N/A
Preferred Certifications
- N/A
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
Preferred Work Experience
- Health plan, managed care, payer operations, or regulated healthcare vendor management experience.
- Experience governing vendors that support claims, payment integrity, care management, member or provider services, and healthcare administration technology.
- Experience establishing a vendor management office, center of expertise, or standardized third-party governance program.
- Experience with vendor transitions, service recovery, business continuity, concentration risk, and termination assistance.
- Experience partnering with Procurement, Legal, Compliance, Information Security, Finance, Privacy, and operational risk functions.
Preferred Education
- N/A
Preferred Licenses
- N/A
Preferred Certifications
- Lean, Six Sigma, or continuous improvement certification.
ESSENTIAL job functions AND RESPONSIBILITIES
- Establish and maintain the vendor governance operating model for assigned Operations and Service Delivery vendors, including vendor tiering, decision rights, governance cadence, required records, and escalation thresholds.
- Maintain a portfolio view of strategic and critical vendors, including services provided, accountable business owners, contract milestones, dependencies, material risks, and current performance status.
- Define governance requirements by vendor criticality and ensure appropriate oversight from onboarding through renewal, transition, or exit.
- Translate contracts and statements of work into an obligation register that identifies deliverables, service levels, reporting requirements, remedies, renewal dates, and accountable owners.
- Direct vendor performance reviews using agreed service, quality, financial, risk, and customer-impact measures; validate that reported results are supported by reliable evidence.
- Chair executive business reviews and formal governance forums focused on vendor commitments, decisions, risks, corrective actions, and value delivery.
- Require and oversee corrective action plans when performance, quality, control, or service commitments are not met; confirm root-cause analysis, accountable owners, due dates, and sustained resolution.
- Establish escalation and service-recovery protocols for vendor incidents, missed commitments, recurring defects, or emerging operational risks.
- Coordinate with business continuity, information security, compliance, privacy, legal, and operational leaders to assess vendor risk and track mitigation activities to closure.
- Monitor vendor concentration, subcontractor, dependency, financial viability, capacity, continuity, and reputational risks and elevate material exposure through the appropriate governance channel.
- Provide the vendor-governance assessment for sourcing, renewal, expansion, consolidation, remediation, and termination decisions without assuming ownership of enterprise strategic planning or executive-office communications.
- Partner with Procurement and Legal on contract language, performance protections, audit rights, remedies, transition assistance, and exit provisions.
- Partner with Finance and business owners to validate vendor charges, credits, penalties, cost commitments, and documented value realization.
- Lead transition and exit governance, including knowledge transfer, data disposition, continuity controls, open-obligation closure, and post-transition review.
- Maintain auditable vendor-governance records, including decisions, approvals, scorecards, issues, risk acceptances, remediation evidence, and contract-related actions.
- Develop standard playbooks, templates, training, and quality reviews that improve consistency and maturity of vendor oversight across the organization.
- Lead, coach, and develop Vendor Management Specialists; assign portfolios based on vendor criticality, complexity, workload, and organizational priorities.
- Set measurable team objectives and hold team members accountable for governance quality, timely escalation, documentation, and closure of vendor actions.
OVERALL
- Promote accountability, transparency, disciplined oversight, and constructive challenge across vendor relationships.
- Maintain effective working relationships with internal business owners, control functions, and vendor leaders while preserving clear accountability for contractual and operational outcomes.
- Present concise vendor performance, risk, decision, and value information to leadership through established governance forums.
- Lead and participate in corporate projects related to vendor governance, third-party risk, service continuity, and contracted-service performance.
- The position requires a full-time work schedule. Full-time is defined as working at least 40 hours per week, plus additional hours as requested or needed to meet business requirements.
- Perform all other duties as assigned.
- Candidates must reside in Arizona and may require local travel.
REQUIRED COMPETENCIES
Required Job Skills
- Advanced knowledge of vendor lifecycle governance, supplier relationship management, contract administration, service-level management, third-party risk, and performance remediation.
- Advanced ability to interpret contracts, statements of work, service-level agreements, remedies, audit rights, and termination provisions.
- Advanced analytical skill in evaluating scorecards, trend data, service quality, financial commitments, control evidence, and root-cause analysis.
- Advanced written, verbal, negotiation, facilitation, and executive presentation skills.
- Intermediate to advanced proficiency with Microsoft Office 365, collaborative platforms, contract repositories, reporting tools, and data visualization tools.
Required Professional Competencies
- Ability to apply constructive challenge, distinguish evidence from assertion, and hold internal and external owners accountable for commitments.
- Ability to identify material vendor risk, evaluate business impact, define escalation thresholds, and drive mitigation to documented closure.
- Strong relationship management, negotiation, problem-solving, conflict resolution, and decision-framing skills.
- Ability to balance service continuity, regulatory obligations, member impact, cost, contractual rights, and long-term partnership value.
- Commitment to consistent governance, complete documentation, transparency, and ethical stewardship of third-party relationships.
Required Leadership Competencies
- Ability to build and lead a specialized vendor management function with clear portfolio ownership, standards, controls, and quality expectations.
- Ability to coach team members in contract interpretation, executive governance, risk escalation, performance remediation, and relationship management.
- Ability to lead governance forums that produce clear decisions, accountable owners, due dates, and documented follow-through.
- Ability to influence business owners and control partners while maintaining appropriate independence and constructive challenge.
PREFERRED COMPETENCIES
Preferred Job Skills (in addition to required job skills)
- Knowledge of healthcare administration platforms, including HealthEdge, and the vendor ecosystems that support claims and member or provider operations.
- Knowledge of third-party risk frameworks, vendor segmentation methods, business continuity practices, and transition or exit planning.
- Knowledge of Lean, Six Sigma, and structured root-cause or corrective-action methods.
Preferred Professional Competencies
- Ability to convert complex contractual, operational, financial, and risk information into clear governance decisions and recommendations.
- Ability to identify recurring vendor performance patterns and design sustainable controls that prevent recurrence.
- Ability to evaluate emerging vendor capabilities without compromising control, continuity, or accountability requirements.
Preferred Leadership Competencies
- Advanced executive presence, consensus-building, and vendor negotiation skills.
- Demonstrated ability to lead high-stakes remediation, service recovery, transition, or exit activities across complex vendor relationships.
- Demonstrated commitment to building technical depth, disciplined governance practices, and high-performing teams.
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Our Commitment
AZ Blue does not discriminate in hiring or employment on the basis of race, ethnicity, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, protected veteran status or any other protected group.
Thank you for your interest in Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona. For more information on our company, see azblue.com. If interested in this position, please apply.
