Commercial Vendor Manager

As our credit risk capabilities scale across multiple markets and products, the strategic management of our vendor relationships has never been more critical. We're looking for a Vendor Manager to own our relationships with a broad portfolio of vendors - with particular depth in credit bureaus and data providers - ensuring we extract maximum value from these partnerships while managing costs, performance, and innovation.

Reporting to a Commercial Director, you'll be the central point of contact for our most important vendors. Your portfolio will span credit bureaus such as Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, alternative data providers, along with a selection of other technology and service partners. You'll own contract negotiations, performance management, product roadmaps, and cross-functional coordination to ensure Lendable has access to the best products and data at the right cost.

This role sits at the intersection of risk, product, engineering, finance and legal. You'll need to understand credit data deeply, think commercially across a range of vendor categories, and build trusted relationships both internally and with senior stakeholders at our partners.

What we're looking for:

Essential:

• 2+ years in vendor management, strategic partnerships, or procurement roles in financial services

• Experience managing credit bureau relationships and/or other mission-critical vendors

• Strong commercial acumen with contract negotiation and cost management experience

• Deep understanding of credit data products, bureau outputs, and risk decisioning
  Ability to work cross-functionally with risk, product, engineering, finance and legal teams

• Strong stakeholder management skills, comfortable influencing senior internal and external stakeholders

• Analytical mindset with the ability to assess vendor performance and ROI

Desirable:

• Experience in fintech or consumer lending businessesTechnical understanding of API integrations and data flow

• Experience with alternative credit data sources and emerging providers

• Track record of driving vendor innovation and product enhancements

• Experience managing vendor relationships across multiple geographies (UK/US)

• Project management experience implementing new data sources or products

You're a good fit if you're:

• A skilled negotiator who balances cost, quality and innovation in vendor relationships

• Commercially minded with a strong grasp of unit economics and data ROI

• A natural relationship builder, equally comfortable with external vendors and internal stakeholders

• Detail-oriented and process-driven, you ensure contracts, SLAs and governance are watertight

• Strategic but hands-on, you can think big picture while managing the day-to-day

• Curious about new data sources and how they can improve credit decisioning

• Proactive and resourceful, you spot issues early and drive solutions

What you'll be doing

Vendor Relationship Management:

• Own strategic relationships across a diverse vendor portfolio, with particular depth in credit bureaus and data providers

• Act as the primary point of contact for key vendors, managing escalations and strategic discussions

• Build trusted relationships with senior stakeholders at bureau partners

• Conduct regular business reviews to assess performance, roadmap, and innovation opportunities

• Manage vendor onboarding, integration planning, and ongoing support

Commercial & Contract Management:

• Lead contract negotiations and renewals, driving optimal commercial terms

• Manage vendor budgets, forecasts and cost optimisation initiatives

• Ensure compliance with contractual terms, SLAs and data governance requirements

• Work with finance and legal on vendor due diligence, contracts, and payment terms

• Track and report on vendor spend, utilisation and ROI

Performance & Innovation:

• Monitor vendor performance against SLAs 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

• Build business cases for new vendor products or alternative data sources

Cross-functional Coordination:

• Partner with engineering on API integrations, data feeds, and technical issues

• Work with credit risk on data requirements, model inputs, and decisioning logic

• Coordinate 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