Director, Program Office (PL)

Your Opportunity

Corporate Vendor Management at Charles Schwab & Co. is responsible for implementing a firm-wide, end-to-end vendor relationship management process to maximize vendor performance and value. Corporate Vendor Management identifies, mitigates, monitors, and manages vendor risk; and assists Schwab in meeting regulatory and compliance requirements.

What you’ll do:

The Director, Corporate Vendor Management Program Office will establish and lead a newly created, centralized Program Office within the Corporate Vendor Management (CVM) organization. This role is accountable for supporting CVM planning, governance, enablement, and transformation activities that ensure CVM operates with clarity, consistency, resilience, and scalability.

The Director will lead a team that owns key aspects of the CVM operating framework, including the management of core policies, procedures, training, communications, knowledge management, business continuity planning, and project and change management in support of CVM’s strategic initiatives. This leader will also serve as a key change agent—driving process optimization, technology enablement, and continuous improvement.

This role partners closely with CVM leadership and functional teams, business partners, risk teams, Legal, STS and key third-party providers to ensure CVM capabilities evolve in support of firm strategy and regulatory expectations.

The Director will model Schwab’s leadership imperatives:

• Connect team objectives to Schwab’s strategy to inspire your team to take action.
• Ruthlessly prioritize the work that achieves the greatest impact for the firm.
• Collaborate with others to break down barriers and accomplish shared goals.
• Embrace challenges with courage and model resiliency to seize new opportunities.
• Communicate with care, kindness, and clarity to create a space where everyone can do their best work.
• Develop yourself and others through coaching, feedback, and growth expectations.
• Promote curiosity, seek continuous feedback, and encourage bold perspectives to challenge the status quo.

Primary responsibilities will include:

• Program Governance & Operating Model Ownership
• Own and govern core CVM policies, procedures, standards, job aids, and operating documentation, ensuring they remain current, clear, and consistently applied across the organization.
• Maintain and evolve the buying “channels” (e.g., Full Service, Limited Service, Self-Service; FastTrack; Catalog-based purchasing), ensuring appropriate controls, escalation paths, and user guidance.
• Establish governance forums, review cadences, and decision frameworks to manage changes to the CVM operating model and supporting artifacts.
• Training, Onboarding & Capability Enablement
• Design and oversee business partner training programs to improve understanding of the CVM program, processes, roles, and engagement models.
• Own new hire onboarding for Vendor Management staff, including curriculum design, learning paths, and role-based enablement.
• Partner with functional leaders to ensure training aligns with policy, process, and system changes.
• Facilitate the CVM Business Continuity Plan (BCP), including documentation, scenario planning, testing, and remediation of gaps.
• Knowledge Management & Communications
• Lead Vendor Management knowledge management strategy, including ownership of SharePoint, Confluence, and other content repositories.
• Ensure documentation is well-structured, searchable, and aligned to user needs and service channels.
• Facilitate the CVM Communications Forum to drive transparency, share updates, and reinforce key messages across CVM.
• Purchasing Catalogs & Enablement Tools
• Provide strategic oversight for purchasing catalogs, including governance, prioritization, and alignment with self-service and automation strategies.
• Partner with procurement operations and technology teams to improve user experience, adoption, and compliance.
• Vendor & Technology Management
• Lead Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) for CVM’s key technology vendors, ensuring performance, roadmap alignment, and issue resolution.
• Act as a senior point of accountability for vendor-facing communications related to CVM platforms and tools.
• Transformation, Strategy & Change
• Lead CVM transformation initiatives, including system enhancements, idea intake and triage, and process optimization.
• Support coordination of CVM goals and key initiatives, translating strategy into executable roadmaps and measurable outcomes.
• Provide strong project and organizational change management leadership, ensuring stakeholders are engaged and changes are adopted successfully.
• Leadership & Stakeholder Partnership
• Build, lead, and develop high-performing teams within the Program Office.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to CVM leadership, providing insight on risk, scalability, and operational effectiveness.
• Influence across functions without direct authority, balancing regulatory rigor with business agility.

What you have

• 10+ years of experience in vendor management, procurement, shared services functions, program / project management, or a related corporate function.
• Demonstrated leadership experience building or transforming centralized program, governance, or enablement functions.
• Strong understanding of operating model design, policy governance, and process management in regulated or complex environments.
• Proven experience leading large-scale change initiatives, including system implementations or process transformations.
• Excellent executive communication, stakeholder management, and influencing skills.
• Experience in financial services or another highly regulated industry required.
• Familiarity with third-party risk management, procurement technologies, or low-/no-code automation platforms.
• Familiarity with learning design, knowledge management, or organizational change management.
• Curiosity and ability to quickly learn operational processes across CVM’s core functions (including planning and risk assessment, contracting, performance monitoring, termination and offboarding, corporate cards and travel, etc), in order to understand data and analytics needs, identify shortfalls, and foster increased efficiencies.
• Superior analytical skills, research capabilities and attention to detail, with ability to match appropriate analytic techniques to business problems.
• Advanced skills in MS Excel and PowerPoint.
• Demonstrated experience collaborating across cross-functional, diverse teams.
• Comfort dealing with ambiguity and ability to manage multiple projects in a fast-paced environment with minimal direction
• Strong financial and business acumen and demonstrated growth mindset who embraces challenges, is solution-oriented and takes initiative to address opportunities.
• Superior communication skills, both written and verbal, as well as the ability to develop concise and effective communications tailored to specific audiences.
• Demonstrated ability to articulate a vision and influence senior stakeholders across an organization.
• Strong and demonstrated collaboration skills across complex process domains and cross-functional teams.
• Comfort in a dynamic and fast-moving work environment.
• Strong sense of urgency and a proactive approach.
• Bachelor’s degree required, advanced degree preferred.
• Relevant certifications such as Project Management Professional (PMP), Prosci Change Management preferred.