Lead, Vendor and Inventory Strategy

The Lead, Vendor and Inventory Strategy will report to the Sr. Director, Activation & Strategy.

This role will establish and manage all Strategy department 3rd-party partnerships with KERV Interactive, including inventory partners, data partners, brand lift study partners and more. Daily tasks will range from onboarding new vendors inclusive of documenting partner information into profiles and learning their offerings, training internal teams, assessing the usage of the partnership, helping with negotiating partnership pricing opportunities, contributing to competitor analysis, and more. This role will have a significant emphasis on systems ownership and will partner with peer teams on internal training and upkeep. In addition, this role will understand key vendors to set priority on which relationships to focus attention, ensuring each partnership is maximized. This person will be required to stay current on Kerv’s offering in the market, understand industry shifts that would impact focus areas for vendor procurement, and understand significant competitor offerings. This role will also have a major focus on securing direct publisher partnerships through Deal IDs, analyzing publisher activity, coordinating needs with publishers, and establishing a process internally for delivering publisher activity feedback to relevant peer teams. 

Seeking a candidate with a strong analytical mind who is process-oriented, articulate, and an effective communicator regarding programmatic workflows to efficiently onboard new partners. Experience in media – media trading/buying, strategy, vendor management, or inventory systems – is preferred but not required. At least 4 years in programmatic media is required, with a secondary preference being knowledge of working with programmatic vendors or publishers in the tech or media industry.

KERV Interactive is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, and protected Veterans’ status or any other characteristic protected by law.

Responsibilities and Duties:

• Ability to stay organized and effectively document partnerships, inclusive of creating partnership profiles, storing taxonomies/pertinent information, log pricing, etc.
• Obtain new publisher Deal IDs and monitor KERV activity against each in an effort to maximize performance, scale, and margin
• Track trend data with partners and understand those making an impact so that others can be improved or removed
• Procure and onboard new vendors and partners that complement KERV’s strategy/offering
• Ability to formulate process and connect it with peer teams
• Routinely assess existing competitor offerings and how they impact KERV
• Assess new competitors submitted by internal team members or ones found through market analysis performed by this role
• Be able to present new partners and activity on a cadence to peers and department leads
• Ability to negotiate partnership pricing and manage timelines of any partnership rate cards for renegotiation
• Track savings against any partnership rate cards
• Participate in internal change management with peer departments, if necessary
• Coordinate systems ownership by working with peer team leads to establish team members who will partner on the systems ownership with this role
• Demonstrate ability to professionally train internal team members and peer teams on vendor/supplier partnership and offering without the need for support
• Provide publisher/supplier recommendations to peer PubOps department to aid their efforts
• Write proactive and reactive POVs on relevant industry shifts that could have an impact on our core business
• Capable of being a subject-matter expert and can train junior team members
• Able to maintain autonomy in project ownership

Qualifications (Minimum Required Experience):

• Education level: Undergraduate Degree (or) an equivalent combination of education and work-related experience. 
• 4+ years of industry-related experience
• At least 2 years of publisher, data-related, or media buying experience is preferred
• Proficient knowledge of Excel including, but not limited to, particularly complex formulas, pivot tables, utilization and development of macros for streamlining data analysis processes, etc. is required
• Knowledge of programmatic/media landscape, inclusive of SSPs, DSPs, ad servers, etc.
• Knowledge of process efficiency tools like – Project Management systems (Teamwork), PowerPoint, Google Docs/Sheets/Slides, and Reporting platforms (ex. Looker)

More about you:

• Strong analytical skills and data-driven thinking demonstrated by great attention to detail
• Outstanding troubleshooting and documentation skills
• Proficient at solution-oriented thinking with problem-solving abilities
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills demonstrated via clear and confident communication with both team members and partners
• Able to stay organized and optimize partnerships efficiently, effectively, and expeditiously in an independent manner 
• Highly motivated, process-focused, and proactive
• High degree of accountability and integrity
• Able to remain on task and avoid distraction
• Demonstrated history of completing tasks and projects on time without sacrificing high-quality of work

About KERV Interactive:

KERV’s interactive video platform and AI/ML driven technology generates the most precise metadata that is used to create the most powerful user experiences for both brands and audiences through transformative and seamless commerce. KERV’s patented technology drives deeper user engagement, enhances performance and increases time‑spent with your brand.