Role Description The Advanced Specialist, Vendor Operations, ELL is a senior individual contributor role responsible for strengthening ELL's vendor operations model across the end-to-end lifecycle. This role will partner closely with the Vendor Partnership Lead and cross-functional stakeholders to ensure ELL has a high-performing, scalable, and publishing-aware external vendor ecosystem that supports evolving business priorities. The role will own day-to-day vendor operations governance across: - Vendor sourcing support - Capability mapping - Onboarding oversight - Contract and rate card coordination - Vendor performance management - Risk and escalation handling - Continuous improvement The successful candidate will bring strong experience in publishing, educational publishing, content production, or related content operations environments, with a clear understanding of how external vendors support editorial, production, QA, digital workflows, and delivery at scale. This role requires strong commercial judgment, data-driven decision-making, and the ability to work across operational, legal, procurement, finance, and business teams to improve vendor effectiveness, ensure governance rigor, and align external partner capability with Pearson's quality, turnaround, and cost expectations. Qualifications - Mandatory experience in publishing, educational publishing, content production, or EdTech content operations. - Strong knowledge of publishing vendors, outsourced service models, and the capabilities typically required across editorial, production, QA, digital publishing, and workflow support. - Demonstrated experience in vendor operations, supplier relationship management, contract coordination, rate card management, and performance governance. - Strong analytical capability and experience using Excel and other reporting tools to monitor vendor performance, trends, and improvement opportunities. - Ability to manage multiple priorities, influence stakeholders, and drive structured follow-through across cross-functional teams. Requirements - Maintain a strong understanding of current vendor capabilities, market options, and emerging service providers relevant to Pearson's publishing and content operations needs. - Advise internal stakeholders on vendor fit based on service capability, workflow expertise, capacity, quality, turnaround, cost, and strategic alignment. - Identify opportunities to diversify and strengthen the vendor pool in line with evolving business requirements and operating models. - Support resource planning by aligning vendor capability and capacity to business demand and by identifying backup options for critical workflows. - Own the operational governance framework for vendor partnerships, including regular review cadences, performance scorecards, issue tracking, and stakeholder updates. - Define, monitor, and continuously improve vendor KPIs and service expectations across quality, turnaround time, responsiveness, delivery performance, and stakeholder satisfaction. - Lead weekly operational reviews and support quarterly business reviews with vendors, ensuring feedback is translated into measurable improvement actions. - Manage escalations, identify root causes, and coordinate corrective and preventive actions with vendors and internal stakeholders. - Support and coordinate contract lifecycle activities for vendor agreements, amendments, renewals, and compliance reviews in partnership with legal, finance, procurement, and business stakeholders. - Negotiate and maintain vendor rate cards, ensuring rates remain competitive, commercially sound, and aligned to business strategy and market conditions. - Identify opportunities for cost optimization without compromising service quality, delivery expectations, or vendor sustainability. - Maintain strong documentation and transparency on rate changes, commercial decisions, and contract status. - Oversee the vendor onboarding framework to ensure smooth activation of new vendors across compliance, systems access, readiness, and operational handoffs. - Partner with support resources involved in onboarding and systems access to ensure execution is timely, accurate, and aligned to expected standards. - Support vendor enablement for new tools, platforms, workflows, and ways of working, including readiness tracking, documentation updates, and training coordination where required. - Run or support pilot initiatives and proof-of-concept activities with vendors to test new approaches, tools, or workflow models. - Continuously improve vendor management processes, documentation, trackers, and reporting to strengthen operational efficiency and governance maturity. - Provide regular reporting and transparency on vendor performance, open risks, commercial actions, onboarding status, and improvement initiatives. - Maintain dashboards, trackers, and analysis to support business reviews, vendor decisions, and leadership updates. - Work cross-functionally with content, operations, procurement, finance, legal, and business leaders to ensure alignment on vendor priorities and decisions. Benefits - A stronger and better-mapped vendor base that aligns more effectively to publishing workflow needs, capacity requirements, and business priorities. - Improved vendor performance visibility through defined KPIs, regular review cadences, and structured reporting. - Robust contract and rate card governance, including better commercial transparency, risk identification, and lifecycle tracking. - Reduced operational risk through stronger onboarding oversight, escalation management, and compliance-focused processes. - Continuous improvement in vendor ways of working, stakeholder experience, and overall operational efficiency. Key Relationships - Internal: Content Strategy and Production team, Functional Heads, Segment Directors, Finance, Legal, Procurement, and Systems/Operations support teams. - External: Vendor account managers, vendor operations leads, and delivery leadership from partner organizations. Experience, Skills and Knowledge - 7+ years of experience in vendor management, vendor operations, supplier relationship management, or related roles. - Mandatory experience in publishing, educational publishing, content production, editorial operations, or related content services environments. - Strong experience in vendor contracts, rate cards, commercial coordination, and vendor performance governance. - Proven ability to manage vendor reviews, dashboards, metrics, issue resolution, and cross-functional follow-through. - Strong understanding of vendor selection practices, onboarding controls, and risk-based vendor management. - Excellent communication, negotiation, and stakeholder management skills, including the ability to handle sensitive or challenging discussions professionally. - Strong analytical, project management, and organizational skills, with the ability to manage multiple priorities and drive actions to closure. - Proficiency in Excel is essential; experience with Smartsheet, Tableau, Power BI, Oracle, or other vendor/contract/reporting systems is an advantage. - Ability to adapt quickly, improve processes, and contribute to a structured, scalable vendor operations model in a matrixed environment.