Procurement Senior Specialist

You are as unique as your background, experience and point of view. Here, you’ll be encouraged, empowered and challenged to be your best self. You'll work with dynamic colleagues - experts in their fields - who are eager to share their knowledge with you. Your leaders will inspire and help you reach your potential and soar to new heights. Every day, you'll have new and exciting opportunities to make life brighter for our Clients - who are at the heart of everything we do.

At Sun Life, we're driven by our Purpose: helping our Clients achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives. Our values shape how we work: caring, authentic, bold, inspiring, and impactful.

When you join Sun Life, you'll work with passionate colleagues and empowering leaders who support your growth and celebrate your contributions, so you can make a meaningful difference in our Clients' lives.

Discover how you can make a difference in the lives of individuals, families and communities around the world.

Job Description:

Role Summary

We are seeking experienced procurement professionals to provide quality assurance, operational oversight, and analytical support across tactical procurement activities. The Procurement Senior Specialist will act as an experienced buyer and control point for purchase requisitions, contract workspaces, contract terms, purchase orders, catalogs, invoices, and process exceptions. The role will guide stakeholders, safeguard compliance, support service delivery, and lead continuous improvement and procurement transformation initiatives.

What You Will Do

• Provide operational and analytical support across tactical procurement activities and act as an experienced buyer for assigned transactions or commodities.

• Perform quality assurance and approval of purchase requisitions, validating business requirements, sourcing or contract references, supplier details, financial coding, approvals, and supporting documentation.

• Quality-assure contract workspaces for accuracy and completeness, and provide clear guidance to requestors, buyers, and relevant stakeholders on required corrections.

• Create and maintain Contract Terms for new, renewed, amended, or revised contracts, ensuring alignment with approved commercial and contractual documentation.

• Review and reconcile contract workspaces against purchase orders and invoices to identify and resolve value, date, scope, supplier, currency, and reference mismatches.

• Close or cancel purchase orders as required, complete appropriate validation, and communicate the outcome to affected business, Finance, Accounts Payable, supplier, and procurement stakeholders.

• Resolve process exceptions across procurement transactions by analyzing root causes, coordinating corrective action, documenting decisions, and escalating control or policy risks when needed.

• Manage supplier catalogs for assigned commodities, including content review, data quality checks, stakeholder coordination, issue resolution, and periodic maintenance.

• Perform quality assurance across all assigned procurement transactions and maintain audit-ready records of reviews, approvals, exceptions, and supporting evidence.

• Ensure adherence to Enterprise Operating Guidelines, procurement policies, delegated authority, contracting requirements, financial controls, and defined operating procedures.

• Monitor delivery against SLAs, manage priorities and aging items, and provide transparent updates on volumes, risks, exceptions, and dependencies.

• Provide coaching and process guidance to team members and business partners, and support calibration of quality standards and operating practices.

• Identify and implement continuous-improvement opportunities that strengthen quality, compliance, cycle time, stakeholder experience, and operational efficiency.

• Contribute to procurement transformation and project initiatives through requirements definition, process design, testing, implementation, change management, and benefits tracking.

• Collaborate effectively with global stakeholders across US and Asia time zones.

What You Need to Succeed

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent graduation qualification

• Minimum 9+ years of relevant experience in procurement operations, tactical buying, purchasing, contract administration, procure-to-pay, or a related function.

• Prior hands-on experience working as a buyer, with responsibility for validating requirements and executing or approving procurement transactions.

• Advanced working knowledge of SAP Ariba, including requisitions, purchase orders, contract workspaces or contract terms, catalogs, and transaction approvals.

• Strong understanding of procurement controls, contract-to-PO alignment, invoice reconciliation, purchasing policies, and process exception management.

• Experience performing quality assurance, maker-checker review, transaction approval, or operational control activities.

• Demonstrated experience in procurement transformation, process improvement, automation, or change delivery.

• Project management expertise, including planning, governance, risk and issue management, stakeholder communication, and execution tracking.

• Proficiency in Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, and collaboration tools.

Core Skills and Capabilities

• Strong quality-assurance mindset with exceptional accuracy and attention to detail.

• Sound judgment and the ability to make risk-based decisions within defined policies and authority.

• Advanced analytical, reconciliation, problem-solving, and root-cause analysis skills.

• Strong stakeholder-management and influencing skills across business, Finance, Legal, Accounts Payable, suppliers, and procurement teams.

• Clear written and verbal communication, including the ability to provide constructive guidance and challenge incomplete submissions professionally.

• Ability to coach others, support operational calibration, and promote consistent ways of working.

• Strong planning, prioritization, ownership, and resilience in a high-volume environment.

• Continuous-improvement and transformation mindset with a focus on controls, efficiency, and user experience.

Measures of Success

• High first-time quality and accuracy of reviewed procurement transactions.

• Consistent compliance with policies, controls, approval requirements, and audit standards.

• Achievement of SLAs and effective management of transaction aging and exceptions.

• Accurate alignment of contract workspaces, purchase orders, catalogs, and invoices.

• Timely and well-documented resolution of process exceptions.

• Measurable contribution to continuous improvement, transformation, and capability building.

Working Hours and Flexibility

The role requires flexibility to support both US and Asia business hours. The successful candidate must be willing to work rotational schedules and adjust working hours based on operational coverage, team requirements, and business priorities.

Preferred Qualifications

• Professional certification in procurement, supply chain, or project management is an advantage.

• Experience in a global, shared-services, or matrixed procurement environment is preferred.

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