Senior Principal Strategist, Strategy & Planning

Our team members are at the heart of everything we do. At Cencora, we are united in our responsibility to create healthier futures, and every person here is essential to us being able to deliver on that purpose. If you want to make a difference at the center of health, come join our innovative company and help us improve the lives of people and animals everywhere. Apply today! Job Details Job Profile Summary Leads the operating engine of Cencora's global Enterprise Infrastructure & Cloud (EIC) organization and drives its transformation to a product operating model enabled by AI Ops. Owns how EIC plans, funds, staffs, and delivers through a product lens: a ~850-person global workforce plan aligned to product teams, a ~$150M operating and capital plan tied to product funding, and an EIC delivery portfolio driven by product roadmaps. Leads the transition of every EIC domain from project- and ticket-based delivery to the product model, defining the product taxonomy, product owner accountabilities, and operating cadence, and advancing adoption from the current 60%+ baseline to full coverage. Serves as principal advisor and force multiplier to the SVP of EIC and as the connective tissue between EIC and the Office of the CDIO, Cyber Security, Finance, HR, Procurement, and Legal. Success is measured by whether EIC operates as a product organization that delivers on commitment, on budget, with the right people in the right seats, and whether the enterprise's technology spend, supplier base, and investment portfolio are demonstrably better governed as a result. Job Description 1. Product Transformation: Leads the transition of the ~850-person EIC organization from a project- and ticket-based model to a product operating model spanning Network & Access, Digital Workplace, Cloud Platform Engineering, Private Hosting, IT Operations & ITSM, MA&D, and Architecture, advancing coverage from the current 60%+ baseline to full adoption in alignment with the GDATS maturity model. 2. Defines and maintains the EIC product taxonomy, including product boundaries, product owner accountabilities, funding model, and operating cadence, and extends it to products jointly owned with Information Security and application organizations; partners with domain leaders to redesign roles, rituals, and decision rights. 3. Talent Strategy & Position Management: Owns the EIC global workforce plan of ~520 employees and ~325 contractors, including the position roster, approved headcount envelope, insource/outsource mix aligned to the defined Talent Strategy. 4. Governs requisition approval, backfills, contractor-to-employee conversion, organizational design, and span-of-control discipline with HR and Finance; maintains a rolling view of skills supply and demand as the organization shifts from infrastructure operations to platform and software engineering; leads succession planning and talent review preparation for the EIC leadership team. 5. Project & Portfolio Management: Owns the EIC delivery portfolio end to end, including intake, prioritization, resourcing, dependency management, milestone tracking, and executive reporting, and runs the governance forums where portfolio trade-offs are made. 6. Represents EIC in the enterprise technology investment prioritization process, where an ~$80M+ annual funding envelope is allocated against ~$135M+ of demand from six technology organizations; builds and maintains the EIC delivery dashboard, sustaining 90%+ of work visible in Jira or ServiceNow. 7. Financial Management: Owns the ~$166M EIC operating and capital plan, including annual budget build, monthly forecast, variance analysis, accrual discipline, and year-end landing, and ensures EIC financial controls withstand SOX audit and internal control review. 8. Delivers committed savings targets and builds the business cases and investment narratives that secure funding for EIC's strategic agenda, translating infrastructure and cloud economics into unit cost, cost-to-serve, and run/grow/transform terms the business understands. 9. Enterprise Hardware & Software Program: Runs the enterprise hardware and software spend reduction program on behalf of the company: ~$400M of annual addressable spend, a 5-10% reduction target over 24 months, seven workstreams, and cross-functional leads from Enterprise Architecture, Finance/FP&A, Procurement, Software Asset Management, IT Finance, and Information Security. 10. Owns the EIC renewal portfolio of ~$320M across ~835 agreements and ~273 publishers and OEMs through a rolling 18-month renewal calendar; enforces the PADU disposition framework with Enterprise Architecture and reports savings on a Finance-validated basis only. 11. Sourcing & Vendor Management: Establishes and runs the EIC vendor performance management framework, including scorecards, QBRs, service-level accountability, and escalation paths, in partnership with Procurement, and drives supplier consolidation and standardization where it improves economics or outcomes. 12. Office of EIC: Runs the EIC leadership operating rhythm, including staff meetings, offsites, all-hands, OKRs, and the annual planning calendar; prepares the SVP for executive and enterprise forums; owns EIC internal and executive communications; and coordinates audit, compliance, and regulatory responses on behalf of EIC. 13. s. Additional Job Description 1. 15+ years of progressive experience in technology, with meaningful time and deep functional expertise in infrastructure, cloud, or IT operations, required; must be credible with engineers as well as executives. 2. Demonstrated ownership of a technology operating budget of $150M or greater, including capital planning and multi-year forecasting, required. 3. Demonstrated ownership of a technology supplier portfolio of $250M or greater in annual spend, including enterprise agreements with hyperscalers or top-tier software publishers, required. 4. Experience managing a global workforce plan of 500+ employees plus a comparable contingent workforce across multiple countries and delivery models required. 5. Direct experience leading enterprise AI or automation adoption, including tooling selection, value measurement, and governance, preferred 6. Track record leading enterprise-scale transformation (product operating model, cloud migration, or comparable). 7. Experience operating in a regulated environment, with familiarity with SOX, HIPPA and with GxP, DSCSA, or an equivalent regulatory framework, required. 8. Experience in healthcare, pharmaceutical distribution, life sciences, or another highly regulated industry preferred; prior chief of staff, business operations, or strategy and planning leadership within a technology function preferred. First-Year Success Measures A published, adopted EIC product taxonomy, with the share of EIC operating under the product model measurably advanced from its 60%+ baseline. A single, trusted source of truth for the workforce plan, progra