Vendor Manager

💰 Up to £55,000

📍 Remote with one or two days a month in the Hampshire office (ideally), plus travel to vendor and partner events occasionally

Company & role

This role sits with a well established technology reseller and services provider that sells and delivers across a broad set of technology vendors. The vendor function is still being built, and this is the third hire into it, so you are coming in to help shape what the department becomes rather than slotting into something finished.

The job is growth. You will own a set of vendor and channel relationships and be measured on growing them, working across the security, cloud and enterprise space and the distributors and service providers that sit around those vendors. Think of it as a new business mindset applied to vendor engagement. You work out which vendors are worth backing, build the plan to raise the business's profile with them and theirs inside the business, and act as the person who brings technical, commercial and marketing stakeholders together to make it happen.

Why This Role Stands Out

• You are building, not maintaining. This is a function in its early stages, so you help define how vendor engagement works here rather than inheriting a fixed playbook.
• The remit is genuinely commercial. Your job is to grow the number, so your impact is visible and measurable rather than buried in process.
• You are the face of the business to its vendors. You will attend events, get on site with partners and distributors, and act as the brand ambassador when dealing with the major technology vendors and the distribution channel.
• It suits a builder. If you are someone who prefers starting the engine to keeping a finished machine ticking over, this is that kind of role.
• Room to specialise later. It starts broad across multiple vendor areas, which makes it a strong platform to move into a specialism such as security, cloud or data as the team grows.

Key Responsibilities

• Own and grow a portfolio of vendor and channel relationships, with growth as the primary measure of success
• Build joint plans that raise the business's profile with vendors and the vendors' profile internally
• Act as the conduit between internal technical, commercial and marketing teams and their counterparts at vendors, distributors and service providers
• Attend events and spend time on site with partners, representing the business and its messaging across the channel
• Identify the next vendors worth backing and map out how to develop each relationship
• Support Sales and PreSales with vendor insight and engagement

Ideal Experience

Essential

• Experience managing or growing vendor, channel or partner relationships, ideally within a reseller, VAR, distributor, MSP or systems integrator
• A commercial, growth focused mindset, comfortable carrying a vendor as part of your number
• A generalist across technology areas rather than a single specialism, with exposure to security, cloud or enterprise vendors
• Personable and well organised, able to build a plan and work independently against a framework rather than step by step instructions
• Comfortable travelling to events and partner sites

Desirable

• An existing network across distributors such as the major broadline and specialist distributors
• Five or more years in a vendor, channel or business unit role, though a strong candidate with three to four years and the right attitude will be considered