Your Role

The Global Business Services (GBS) department is responsible for delivering strategic and category supplier sourcing, contracting and governance excellence at Blue Shield of California.

The Contracting Specialist, Senior will report to the Manager, Procurement Contracting. This role is responsible for every phase of contract development from integrating relevant legal and compliance terms to negotiating the terms with BSC suppliers and finalizing the agreement documents. They may collaborate with a legal team or work independently to evaluate bids and draft documents. Contracting specialists are also responsible for assisting clients to terminate and where necessary transition contracts on favorable terms for BSC. This role executes and delivers value through strategic, operational and transactional contracting initiatives working in partnership with the Blue Shield business unit(s) and stakeholder teams.

Your Work

In this role, you will:

• Prepare contractual agreements using current practices, researching relevant background materials and informed knowledge of a business unit's needs and ability to fulfill its requirements.
• Ensure that the contractual agreements include all necessary terms in language that is legally binding and in accordance with Law department guidelines.
• Collaborate with Business, Sourcing, Legal and other enterprise stakeholders through the Contracting process.
• Review contract terms and conditions to verify that they are in compliance with company policies and all applicable federal and state regulations
• Promote small, disadvantaged, and minority-owned businesses through a supplier diversity program
• Proofread, edit, and fact-check legal documents for accuracy and consistency, according to a style guide if provided by the client
• Provide escalation point within Global Business Services (GBS)
• Manage relationship with the business
• Write and negotiate contracts and statements of work by utilizing contract templates and create contract documents that fully encompass the business requirements and provide protections
• Facilitate vendor risk management, due diligence and onboarding activities
• Lead, structure and guide business partners through the contracting process on complex contracts and initiatives
• Assist the business in maintaining compliance with all Blue Shield policies regarding contracting and purchasing
• Present status and issue identification/resolution effectively to management
• Assist the business to resolve supplier management issues such as supplier disputes and/or supplier termination

Your Knowledge and Experience

• Requires a bachelor's degree or equivalent experience
• Minimum 5 years of relevant experience in a sourcing, contracting, and negotiations role
• Legal or paralegal experience preferred, preferably working directly with commercial contracts
• Experience working in the healthcare, pharmacy services or related services industry preferred
• Contracting Expertise: Understand the key components of basic agreements and how legal terms impact business terms and vice versa. Be able to articulate high-level understanding of the issues with confidence to the legal team as relates to both client contract requirements and supplier edits
• Contract Writing and Negotiation: Ability to understand how clauses relate to one another, including all exhibits and schedules. Ability to write clearly and concisely while adapting templates to fit the services being procured in accordance with client's expectations. Ability to review statements of work and/or requirements provided by a business partner, identify risks, apply best practices and improve the quality of the work product
• Communication Skill: Ability to conduct meetings professionally and clearly, establishing rapport and building positive business relationships. Ability to timely update status reports, in various formats. Ability to accept and apply as well as deliver constructive feedback. Ability to ask detailed questions relating to services being procured to understand all nuances and apply procurement process and procedure accordingly. Exhibit strong awareness of audience and targets communications accordingly. Display excellent verbal and written communication, planning and organization skills
• Data Analysis: Ability to utilize procurement and financial data to understand spending trends within a business, and to leverage that information to identify procurement insights that result in process efficiencies or cost savings for the client.
• Sourcing Project Management: Experience of managing sourcing projects from start to finish; strong ability to practice and apply time management skills to balance and manage the requirements of workload without missing deadlines
• Microsoft Office: Strong knowledge and proficiency of Microsoft Office suite. Ability to efficiently and accurately analyze procurement data using Microsoft Excel, and to build client-ready presentations using Microsoft PowerPoint.
• Procurement Knowledge: Knowledge of procurement methods, technologies and processes. Ability to analyze and recommend improvements to a client's procurement organization.

Pay Range: The pay range for this role is $87,230.00 to $130,900.00 for California.

Note: Please note that this range represents the pay range for this and many other positions at Blue Shield that fall into this pay grade. Blue Shield salaries are based on a variety of factors, including the candidate's experience, location (California, Bay area, or outside California), and current employee salaries for similar roles.