Senior Specialist, Cloud & AI Financial Insights and Commercial Strategy

Job Description Summary

Leads the strategic vision and roadmap for a technical product or products within a FinOps domain, demonstrating a deep understanding of the product(s). Products may have enterprise-wide implications.

Position Summary

The Cloud Business Office (CBO) is seeking a highly analytical and strategically minded professional to serve as the Product Owner for Vanguard's Cloud & AI Insights FinOps platform.

This role is responsible for transforming cloud and AI consumption data into actionable business intelligence that supports executive decision making, financial transparency, optimization strategies, and commercial negotiations across the enterprise. The individual will own reporting products and insights that inform Cloud FinOps, chargeback, executive governance, strategic planning, and vendor negotiations.

The position serves as a critical bridge between cloud platforms, engineering teams, finance partners, procurement, and senior technology leadership by translating consumption trends into strategies that optimize investment value across hyper-scalers, SaaS and Generative AI vendors.

Success in this role requires a unique blend of analytics, cloud economics, financial acumen, stakeholder influence, and technical product ownership.

Key Responsibilities

Product Ownership: Cloud & AI Insights

• Serve as Cloud Business Office (CBO) Product Owner for Vanguard's Cloud & AI Insights capabilities and reporting platforms.
• Define and evolve the strategy, roadmap, and priorities for enterprise cloud and AI financial reporting.
• Ensure reporting solutions deliver actionable insights that support optimization efforts across the business, SI product teams, finance, procurement, and executive stakeholders.
• Drive continuous improvement of reporting, analytics, forecasting, invoice reconciliation, and visualization capabilities.
• Partner with engineering and data teams to enhance cloud and AI data quality, governance, and accessibility.
• Deliver financial insights supporting: FinOps KPIs Chargeback and showback programs Cloud consumption trends Optimization opportunity identification Forecasting and budget planning Executive and governance reporting
• Develop and maintain specific IT Senior Staff reports for tracking strategic initiatives such as Next Gen Hosting, GenAI, and other enterprise transformation programs.

Generative AI Financial Intelligence

• Own reporting and insights for Generative AI consumption and financial management across the enterprise.  Partnering with CBO engineers to close gaps in consumptions based AI Spend.
• Develop analytics covering: Bedrock consumption and adoption trends Foundation model utilization Token consumption and growth patterns Unit cost trends and benchmarking Generative AI financial forecasting AI investment value realization
• Support executive decision making through clear and actionable reporting on AI spend, adoption, efficiency, and business impact.
• Partner with technology and business teams to improve transparency and accountability for AI-related investments.

Commercial & Contract Strategy

• Transform consumption insights into actionable recommendations that improve vendor negotiations and commercial outcomes such as AWS Enterprise Contract (EDP), Azure MAAC, and Anthropic Commercial Commitments. .
• Support contract strategy and negotiations across: AWS Microsoft Azure Google Cloud Platform Anthropic OpenAI Google Gemini Other cloud and AI providers
• Develop forecasting models and usage projections used to establish commitment strategies and investment plans.
• Identify opportunities to maximize value capture through pricing optimization, commitment planning, and consumption management.
• Provide analytical support for business cases, executive proposals, and strategic sourcing decisions.

Commitment & Financial Risk Management

• Establish and maintain visibility into contractual commitments and commercial obligations across cloud and AI providers.
• Track commitment consumption, utilization, renewal milestones, and contract performance.
• Develop reporting that enables proactive management of financial exposure and contractual risk.
• Identify opportunities and risks associated with under-consumption, over-consumption, or changing demand patterns.
• Partner with Finance, Procurement, and Technology leaders to ensure commitments align with business objectives and consumption forecasts.
• Provide early warning indicators and recommendations to mitigate financial risk and improve investment outcomes.

Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor's degree or 5+ years of experience, with at least 2 years of financial analysis and/or technical product management
• Experience in cloud financial management, analytics, technology strategy, commercial management, procurement support, or related disciplines.
• Strong analytical and financial modeling capabilities.
• Experience building executive reporting and data visualizations.
• Demonstrated ability to translate technical consumption data into business insights.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to influence decisions across technology, finance, and sourcing organizations without direct authority.

Preferred

• Experience with cloud financial management and FinOps practices.
• Knowledge of AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and cloud consumption economics.
• Experience supporting cloud or software contract negotiations.
• Experience with Generative AI platforms and consumption-based pricing models.
• Experience with Cloudability, Power BI, SQL, AWS Cost & Usage Reporting, or similar analytics tools.
• FinOps Foundation certifications or cloud certifications.

What Success Looks Like

• Cloud and AI stakeholders rely on your reporting as the authoritative source for financial and operational insights.
• Executive leaders use your dashboards and analysis to make strategic investment decisions.
• Cloud and AI contract negotiations are strengthened through your forecasting and consumption insights.
• Commitment risks are identified early and mitigated proactively.
• FinOps KPIs, chargeback reporting, and AI financial reporting drive measurable accountability across technology organizations.
• Vanguard captures maximum value from its cloud and AI investments through data-driven commercial strategy

Special Factors

Sponsorship

About Vanguard

At Vanguard, we don't just have a mission—we're on a mission.

To work for the long-term financial wellbeing of our clients. To lead through product and services that transform our clients' lives. To learn and develop our skills as individuals and as a team. From Malvern to Melbourne, our mission drives us forward and inspires us to be our best.

How We Work

Vanguard has implemented a hybrid working model for the majority of our crew members, designed to capture the benefits of enhanced flexibility while enabling in-person learning, collaboration, and connection. We believe our mission-driven and highly collaborative culture is a critical enabler to support long-term client outcomes and enrich the employee experience.