Supplier Diversity Specialist
(Contract Specialist II)

The City of Alexandria is located in northern Virginia and is bordered by the District of Columbia (Potomac River), Arlington and Fairfax counties. With a population of approximately 150,000 and a land area of 15.75 square miles, Alexandria is the seventh largest city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Alexandria has a vibrant waterfront and is a unique and historic place to live and work. About one-quarter of the City's square miles have been designated as a national or local historic district. We proudly embrace our racially and culturally diverse community. If you are interested in working for the progressive City of Alexandria, we invite qualified candidates to apply for Diversity Supplier Specialist (Contract Specialist II) position.

An Overview
The City of Alexandria's Finance Department is looking for an experienced, collaborative, and responsible Supplier Diversity Specialist to join our team. As a member of the Purchasing Division, the Supplier Diversity Specialist performs education, outreach, and coordination with Departments and other public entities in support of the City's Small, Women-owned, and Minority-owned (SWaM) businesses purchasing policy, and shall execute the solicitation process for projects assigned from the annual purchasing plan.

The successful candidate will work closely with stakeholders throughout the community to increase access to business opportunities to certified SWaM businesses. The incumbent will be responsible for conducting extensive outreach activities to identify, recruit, and retain substantially more SWaM businesses in the program. This will include developing new SWaM policies and programs, targeted workshops, training sessions and other efforts to improve the ability of SWaM businesses to register and participate in City solicitations. In addition, the incumbent will work closely with City Departments through training and auditing to ensure that SWaM utilization is increased, consistent with the City's policy.

As a member of the Purchasing Division, this position also supports the preparation and maintenance of the current acquisition plans, appropriate milestone charts, and related schedules required for the execution of department purchases. This work includes the writing Requests for Proposals (RFPs) and Invitations to Bid (ITB) in a timely manner to meet the growing needs of the City Departments.

What You Should Bring
The ideal candidate is an experienced supplier diversity professional with purchasing experience across the full range of sourcing and contracting, able to bring both a high level of customer service and high level of attention to detail to process. Additional knowledge, skills, and abilities include:

• Experience with federal, state, and local supplier diversity programs, such as Virginia's Business & Supplier Diversity's Small, Women-owned, and Minority-Owned Business (SWaM) program;
• Knowledge of laws, ordinances, rules and regulations governing the purchase of commodities and services, as well as model rules, regulations and best practices governing SWaM participation;
• Awareness of the needs of user agencies and departments and opportunities for SWaM businesses to contribute to department requirements;
• Knowledge of Purchasing methods and procedures including buying, inspecting and shipping methods, commodities, supply sources, price trends, markets, and store keeping practices and methods;
• Knowledge of different procurement methods (e.g. public / private partnerships, design-build processes, etc.) and the work of professional architecture and engineering firms;
• Ability to work with multiple audiences dealing with complex public policy issues;
• Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with vendors, user agencies, employees and the general public;
• Ability to work with complex financial software systems (e.g. Munis, SAP, Oracle/PeopleSoft, etc.) as an end user;
• Ability to prepare technical specifications, requests for proposals, invitations to bid, and to analyze responses;
• Ability to communicate clearly and effectively, both verbally and in writing;
• Ability to make impartial, objective, and well-supported decisions; and
• Ability to work well in teams, including working with the public and SWaM interest groups and support organizations

The Opportunity - Examples of Work

• Develops policy and procedural recommendations to the Finance Director and the Purchasing Agent that will grow and enhance the SWaM program;
• Develops and executes a comprehensive, structured SWaM program to increase participation of State certified SWaM businesses in the City purchasing process. This shall include SWaM identification, tracking, recruitment, and promotion;
• Familiarizes City staff with the goals and priorities of the SWaM program and assists individual departments in the implementation of the program;
• Facilitates vendor outreach programs to encourage and support SWaM business participation through all phases of the purchasing process;
• Coordinates with and serves as liaison to other state and local agencies and departments in support of SWaM initiatives at the State and Local level;
• Monitors and reports on progress and navigates hurdles to mutually beneficial agreements for both SWaM businesses and the City;
• Monitors, analyzes and incorporates changes from legal developments and external socio-economic drivers into SWaM policy update recommendations and other purchasing policies and procedures;
• Assists the Purchasing Agent and other Contracting Officers and Contract Specialists in their duties and functions relating to SWaM requirements, including reporting and achieving contracting and subcontracting goals;
• Maintains the Purchasing Division's SWaM website content in coordination with the Finance Communications Officer;
• Works proactively with internal business partners to identify potential business needs and opportunities;
• Provides accurate documentation and tracking of contracting opportunities and outreach events;
• Provides timely entry and updates of SWaM participation information from the City's ERP system, reviewing requisitions, solicitations, and contracts regularly and in coordination with the rest of the purchasing and department finance personnel;
• Executes the entire sourcing lifecycle from solicitation drafting to response evaluation, negotiation, and award recommendation;
• Collects, or assists in collecting, technical information for the development of proposals for City services, supplies and equipment;
• Processes requisitions and change orders in a timely manner and provides input for the corresponding tracking reports;
• Works with City Attorney to draft new contract templates;
• Updates contract reports for senior leadership;
• Makes sure contracts are renewed in a timely fashion;
• Manages client relationships, responding to long and short-term procurement, sourcing requirements and questions;
• Performs contract administration duties, and maintenance of contract listings;
• Designs and formats formal solicitations (e.g. RFPs, ITBs, RFQs, etc.) and develops purchasing strategies to maximize responses;
• Troubleshoots issues with purchase order and purchase order change order records in the City's ERP, Munis;
• Tabulates and analyzes bids and proposals, determines lowest responsible bidder, refers to clients for review and award of contract;
• Performs other duties, as assigned.

About The Department
The City of Alexandria's Finance Department is a fast-paced, diverse, and customer service focused operation that serves both members of the public and the other departments of the City itself. The Finance Department has seven divisions and in fiscal year 2020 is operating with a total budget of $13.9 million and 108.75 FTE positions. The main responsibilities of the Finance divisions are as follows:

• The Revenue Division assesses personal property (car tax), meal sales, transient lodging and other taxes, and also issues business and professional licenses;
• The Treasury Division bills, collects, invests, and manages all City monies;
• The Real Estate Division appraises each parcel of real estate in the City, the value of which is used to bill for the real estate tax;
• The Purchasing Division is responsible for centralized City procurement;
• The Accounting Division maintains records on the financial operations of the City and prepares the City's monthly and annual financial reports;
• The Pension Division manages pension plans for City employees; and
• The Administration Division provides executive-level strategy and direction via the Director and Deputy Director and also administers the department's budget, human resources, and performance management. This division also provides risk management services for the City and manages the City's enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, Munis.

Minimum & Additional Requirements

Bachelor's degree and two years of experience in procurement and contract management; or a combination of education, experience and training which are equivalent to the minimum requirements.

Preferred Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in business, finance, or related field; Virginia Contracting Associate (VCA) or other similar certification; experience in supplier diversity program development, training, outreach, and reporting; experience utilizing a complex financial software system (e.g. Munis, Oracle/PeopleSoft, etc.) as a highly skilled end user; experience drafting requests for proposal (RFPs), invitations to bid (ITBs), or other formal solicitation documents.

Notes

This position requires the successful completion of pre-employment background checks including but not limited to drug testing, criminal background.