Senior Vendor & Contract Manager

Title: Senior Vendor & Contract Manager

Trenton, NJ 08625 — Hybrid 3 Days Onsite

Interview: In-Person and Locals

Senior Vendor & Audit Contract Manager reporting to the CIO to lead third-party -party risk, IT audit readiness, remediation, and policy lifecycle management, aligning public sector systems with NIST, SOC, and enterprise IT security baselines.

Note: This is a hybrid position - 3 days on-site, and 2 days remote.

We are seeking a Senior Vendor & Contract Manager reporting directly to the Chief Information Officer (CIO) to lead enterprise-wide vendor compliance, third-party governance, IT audit readiness, and policy lifecycle management across our technology ecosystem.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM), establishing vendor vetting, risk scoring, and continuous compliance oversight across cloud providers, software vendors, and system integrators.
• Oversee IT audit readiness and execution, evaluating vendor SOC 1/SOC 2 Type II reports, ISO certifications, and independent third-party control attestations.
• Manage finding remediation lifecycles, driving technical root-cause analyses with IT teams and verifying artifact evidence to close internal and external audit deficiencies.
• Author, update, and maintain all public-facing and internal IT security, privacy, and technology governance policies, standards, and standard operating procedures (SOPs) to ensure continuous alignment with NIST, state, and federal mandates.
• Enforce IT General Controls (ITGC), access governance, and data protection baselines across internal platforms and external vendor environments.
• Collaborate with Legal and Procurement to review and enforce compliance exhibits, Data Processing/Sharing Agreements, SLAs, and right-to-audit clauses.
• Advise the CIO directly on enterprise compliance posture, delivering executive risk scorecards, audit tracking dashboards, and mitigation strategies.

Qualifications:

• 8+ years of IT compliance, third-party risk management (TPRM), and audit governance experience within large-scale enterprise environments.
• Proven track record authoring and operationalizing enterprise IT security, governance, and data compliance policies.
• Deep technical familiarity evaluating SOC 1/SOC 2 Type II reports, ITGCs, and NIST/ISO control frameworks.
• Strong background presenting risk metrics, compliance status, and audit readouts directly to executive leadership.