Sr. Vendor & Operations Lead

McKesson is an impact-driven, Fortune 10 company that touches virtually every aspect of healthcare. We are known for delivering insights, products, and services that make quality care more accessible and affordable. Here, we focus on the health, happiness, and well-being of you and those we serve – we care.

What you do at McKesson matters. We foster a culture where you can grow, make an impact, and are empowered to bring new ideas. Together, we thrive as we shape the future of health for patients, our communities, and our people. If you want to be part of tomorrow’s health today, we want to hear from you.

About the Role

McKesson is seeking a Sr. Vendor & Operations Lead to lead vendor governance and service operations coordination across the Human Capital Management (HCM) technology portfolio, supporting HR, Payroll, Time & Attendance, Total Rewards, Talent, and related integrations.

This role establishes operational governance processes, manages vendor commitments and commercial obligations, coordinates financial planning and contract renewals, and drives timely closure of service risks and corrective actions. Working closely with HCM Solution Managers, Technical Delivery Leads, Architects, Project Managers, and enterprise partners, this role strengthens service reliability, operational transparency, cost management, and vendor accountability.

The successful candidate will serve as the central point of coordination for HCM vendor performance, operational readiness, governance reporting, financial oversight, and action management. This role is accountable for driving follow-through, ensuring commitments are completed, risks are escalated, and operational outcomes are achieved.

Success in this role depends on ensuring vendor commitments are actively managed, operational risks are addressed, and actions are driven to closure. This role is accountable for operational follow-through and escalation management rather than technical execution or business-process ownership.

What You'll Do

HCM Service Operations & Governance

• Establish and lead a recurring HCM operational governance cadence across supported vendors and service providers.

• Consolidate service health, risks, vendor commitments, decisions, corrective actions, and escalations into a single operational view.

• Develop operational reporting focused on service outcomes, accountability, emerging risks, and business impact.

• Facilitate governance forums and ensure actions and commitments are actively tracked through completion.

• Prepare and present operational reporting to leadership and stakeholders.

AMS Service Accountability

• Govern Application Management Services (AMS) commitments and performance.

• Monitor:

• Service coverage

• Resource capacity

• Backlog aging

• Open defects

• Recurring incidents

• SLA attainment

• Problem management activities

• Corrective-action completion

• Validate vendor-reported metrics against operational performance data and agreed service-management standards.

• Partner with HCM stakeholders to identify service gaps and continuous improvement opportunities.

Business-Critical Calendar & Service Readiness

• Coordinate vendor support readiness for:

• Payroll processing

• Time collection

• Benefits enrollment

• Open enrollment cycles

• Compensation planning cycles

• Year-end processing

• Major platform releases

• Ensure escalation procedures, support coverage models, and contingency plans are documented and operationally ready.

• Maintain awareness of critical HCM business calendars and coordinate vendor preparedness accordingly.

Renewal & Contract Readiness

• Maintain an integrated contract and renewal calendar covering:

• Notice periods

• Auto-renewal provisions

• Licensing assumptions

• Service changes

• Renewal milestones

• Approval timelines

• Accountable stakeholders

• Lead HCM requirements and commercial-readiness coordination in partnership with Procurement and Legal.

• Coordinate renewal reviews with Procurement, Legal, Finance, HR, and Technology stakeholders.

• Support sourcing and commercial discussions through operational requirements, service-performance data, stakeholder alignment, and business priorities.

Financial Operations

• Coordinate vendor spend forecasting and budget planning activities.

• Support invoice validation, purchase-order management, accrual planning, and variance analysis.

• Partner with Finance to improve financial transparency, spending accuracy, and forecasting reliability.

• Reconcile vendor costs against approved scope, contractual obligations, approved changes, and licensing assumptions.

• Monitor financial commitments and identify opportunities for cost optimization.

Escalation & Action Closure

• Coordinate cross-functional and cross-vendor escalations.

• Maintain ownership tracking, due dates, action logs, and risk registers.

• Verify closure with accountable service owners, technical leads, and stakeholders.

• Escalate unresolved business-impacting issues with recommended options and decision support.

• Ensure corrective actions, remediation plans, and vendor commitments progress to verified completion.

Service Transition & Continuity

• Coordinate operational readiness reviews for:

• New implementations

• Vendor transitions

• Acquisitions

• Divestitures

• Managed-service transitions

• Ensure support ownership, documentation, knowledge transfer, service coverage, training, and acceptance criteria are completed prior to transition.

• Partner with service owners and delivery teams to ensure long-term operational sustainability.

Controls & Third-Party Risk

• Coordinate vendor-related audit evidence requests and compliance activities.

• Support third-party risk management reviews and remediation efforts.

• Coordinate access-review activities with Security and designated control owners.

• Maintain continuity and vendor governance documentation.

• Track compliance, audit, and risk-mitigation actions through successful completion.

Accountability for Follow-Through

• Drive completion of vendor commitments, remediation plans, action items, and operational improvements.

• Proactively manage overdue actions and unresolved risks.

• Escalate stalled progress with clear recommendations and decision options.

• Ensure governance forums result in measurable outcomes rather than status reporting alone.

Basic Requirements

Education & Experience

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education and experience.

• 7+ years of experience in vendor management, service delivery, operations management, governance, supplier management, technology operations, or related disciplines.

• Experience governing enterprise HCM SaaS platforms and managed application services.

• Experience supporting HR Technology, Payroll, Time & Attendance, Benefits, Talent, or Workforce Management environments.

• Experience managing vendor performance, corrective-action plans, operational governance programs, and service reviews.

• Experience coordinating cross-functional stakeholders in large enterprise environments.

Functional Expertise

• Understanding of payroll and time-and-attendance service criticality, sensitive employee data, and business-cycle dependencies.

• Experience with IT Service Management (ITSM), including:

• Incident Management

• Problem Management

• Change Management

• Service Transition

• Operational Governance

• Experience translating contracts and statements of work into measurable service obligations, financial controls, operational reporting, and vendor accountability measures.

• Experience managing SLAs, KPIs, scorecards, and service-performance metrics.

• Experience supporting operational readiness, business continuity, and risk-management activities.

Leadership & Collaboration

• Strong communication, executive presentation, and stakeholder management skills.

• Ability to coordinate across HR, Payroll, Technology, Finance, Procurement, Legal, Security, and external vendors without direct reporting authority.

• Demonstrated ability to drive accountability, influence outcomes, and achieve closure through collaboration.

Preferred Skills/Experience

• Familiarity with Workday, ADP, UKG, Oracle HCM, SAP SuccessFactors, Ceridian, or similar enterprise HCM platforms.

• Experience supporting HCM managed-service providers and AMS engagements.

• Experience in highly regulated or compliance-focused environments.

• ITIL Foundation or related service-management certification.

• Experience supporting enterprise-scale vendor ecosystems and outsourced technology services.

What Success Looks Like

Success in this role is demonstrated when:

• Renewals and contract notice periods are managed proactively without avoidable last-minute escalations.

• Vendor commitments and corrective actions have documented owners, target dates, and verified closure.

• Service reporting reflects business outcomes and operational impact, not solely vendor-reported SLA attainment.

• Vendor spend, invoices, forecasts, and obligations are transparent, accurate, and traceable to approved scope.

• Payroll, benefits, compensation, and other critical HCM cycles have documented support readiness, escalation coverage, and operational continuity plans.

• Governance forums consistently drive accountability, risk mitigation, and service improvement.

• Vendor-related risks, audit findings, and operational issues are resolved in a timely manner.

• Routine vendor coordination and operational follow-through no longer require leadership intervention.

We are proud to offer a competitive compensation package at McKesson as part of our Total Rewards. This is determined by several factors, including performance, experience and skills, equity, regular job market evaluations, and geographical markets. The pay range shown below is aligned with McKesson's pay philosophy, and pay will always be compliant with any applicable regulations. In addition to base pay, other compensation, such as an annual bonus or long-term incentive opportunities may be offered. For more information regarding benefits at McKesson, please click here.

Our Base Pay Range for this position

$99,100 - $132,100

McKesson has become aware of online recruiting-related scams in which individuals who are not affiliated with or authorized by McKesson are using McKesson’s (or affiliated entities, like CoverMyMeds or RxCrossroads) name in fraudulent emails, job postings or social media messages. In light of these scams, please bear the following in mind:

McKesson Talent Advisors will never solicit money or credit card information in connection with a McKesson job application.

McKesson Talent Advisors do not communicate with candidates via online chatrooms or using email accounts such as Gmail or Hotmail. Note that McKesson does rely on a virtual assistant (Gia) for certain recruiting-related communications with candidates.

McKesson job postings are posted on our career site: careers.mckesson.com.

McKesson is an Equal Opportunity Employer

McKesson provides equal employment opportunities to applicants and employees, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, age, genetic information, or any other legally protected category. For additional information on McKesson’s full Equal Employment Opportunity policies, visit our Equal Employment Opportunity page.

McKesson is committed to being an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer and offers opportunities to all job seekers including job seekers with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation to assist with your job search or application for employment, please contact us by sending an email to (United States) [email protected] or (Canada) [email protected]. Resumes or CVs submitted to this email box will not be accepted.

Join us at McKesson!