ESSC Strategic Agreement Manager

Job Description

The Role
The Strategic Agreements Manager serves as a key bridge between Legal, Business, and Procurement, providing expert guidance on complex commercial agreements, compliance, and risk. This role drives end-to-end governance of strategic agreements—from structuring and negotiation through approval, execution, monitoring, and renewal—ensuring business objectives are achieved while appropriately managing legal, regulatory, and commercial risk.

What You’ll Do

Strategic Legal-to-Business Advisory

• Translate legal, contractual, and regulatory requirements into clear, actionable guidance for business and technical leaders.
• Advise leadership on deal structures, commercial models, and strategic options, highlighting legal and risk implications.
• Partner with Legal, Finance, Accounting, Treasury, Tax, and other stakeholders to align agreements with corporate policies and strategic priorities.

Compliance Oversight & Governance

• Establish, maintain, and continuously improve governance frameworks for strategic agreements (playbooks, checklists, approval paths, templates).
• Ensure compliance with internal policies (e.g., Delegation of Authority, sourcing and approval processes) and applicable laws/regulations.
• Lead or support internal reviews and audits of contract practices, documentation, and approvals; close gaps through corrective actions.

Risk Identification & Mitigation

• Proactively assess and articulate risk exposure across key dimensions (commercial, operational, legal, regulatory, IP, data/privacy, ESG, reputational).
• Develop and negotiate risk-mitigation strategies (indemnities, limitations of liability, SLAs, KPIs, step-in rights, exit and transition mechanisms, governance bodies).
• Maintain a clear view of portfolio-level risks across major agreements and escalate strategic issues to leadership with recommended actions.

Negotiation Support & Conflict Resolution

• Serve as lead or co-lead negotiator (or negotiation strategist) on complex and/or high-value agreements.
• Prepare negotiation strategies, term sheets, and fallback positions in partnership with Legal and business owners.
• Manage and resolve commercial disputes, performance issues, and contractual conflicts, driving constructive, business-focused outcomes while protecting company interests.

Contract Lifecycle Management & Monitoring

• Oversee contract lifecycle management for strategic agreements (intake, drafting, redlines, approvals, execution, archiving, amendments, renewals, termination).
• Define and track key contract obligations, milestones, and performance metrics; ensure owners are assigned and accountable.
• Implement monitoring and reporting mechanisms (dashboards, periodic reviews) for status, compliance, performance, and upcoming decision points.

Training, Coaching & Stakeholder Enablement

• Design and deliver training and education for business, engineering, and purchasing teams on contracts, risk, compliance, and negotiation best practices.
• Develop guides, playbooks, and standard toolkits (e.g., clause libraries, negotiation scripts, checklists) to scale strategic agreement capabilities across the organization.
• Mentor junior staff and peer stakeholders on contract literacy, issue-spotting, and escalation paths.

Strategic Agreement & Approval Support

• Lead or coordinate the end-to-end approval process for strategic agreements, ensuring required stakeholders and governance bodies are properly engaged.
• Prepare and present executive-ready materials (deal summaries, risk assessments, recommendation memos) to decision-making forums.
• Support special strategic initiatives (e.g., new partnership models, new market entries, transformational programs) by designing and implementing appropriate contract and governance structures.

Your Skills & Abilities (Required Qualifications)

• Bachelor’s degree in Law, Business, Finance, Supply Chain, or related field
• 5+ years of experience in contracts, commercial/legal, strategic sourcing, or business development roles involving complex agreements.
• Demonstrated experience in structuring, negotiating, and managing strategic or enterprise-level agreements.
• Strong working knowledge of contract law, commercial terms, risk allocation, and compliance frameworks.
• Proven track record of influencing cross-functional stakeholders and senior leaders in a matrixed, global environment.

What Will Give You a Competitive Edge (Preferred Qualifications)

• 5+ years experience: Business & Legal Acumen: Ability to connect legal language to business impact and strategic objectives.
• 2+ years experience: Risk & Compliance Mindset: Strong analytical skills for risk identification, quantification, and mitigation.
• 5+ years experience: Negotiation & Influence: Skilled negotiator with the ability to reach durable, win-win solutions under time and stakeholder pressure.
• 2+ years experience: Conflict Resolution: Calm, structured approach to resolving disputes and performance issues.
• Communication: Clear written and verbal communicator; able to simplify complexity for diverse audiences, including executives.
• Collaboration: Effective at working across Legal, Purchasing, Finance, Engineering, Operations, and external partners.
• Organization & Detail: Strong documentation skills, and follow-through; able to manage multiple agreements and priorities simultaneously.
• Change Leadership & Training: Comfortable leading trainings, workshops, and adoption of new processes or standards.

GM does not provide immigration-related sponsorship for this role. Do not apply for this role if you will need GM immigration sponsorship now or in the future. This includes direct company sponsorship, entry of GM as the immigration employer of record on a government form, and any work authorization requiring a written submission or other immigration support from the company (e.g., H1-B, OPT, STEM OPT, CPT, TN, J-1, etc). This role is categorized as hybrid. This means the selected candidate is expected to report to a specific location at least 3 times a week {or other frequency dictated by their manager}. The selected candidate will be required to travel <25% for this role. This job is not eligible for relocation benefits. Any relocation costs would be the responsibility of the selected candidate.

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