Director, Architecture and Planning

CAS uses intuitive technology, unparalleled scientific content, and unmatched human expertise to help companies create groundbreaking innovations that benefit the world. As the scientific information solutions division of the American Chemical Society, CAS manages the largest curated reservoir of scientific knowledge and, for over a century, has helped innovators mine, assess, and apply that information to keep businesses thriving. The CAS team is global, diverse, endlessly curious, and strives to make scientific insights accessible to innovators worldwide.

This role provides leadership for the architecture and planning organization and coordinates internal and external resources to maximize project and program success. This includes coordinating assigned projects; facilitating conversations on scope, prioritization, and budgeting; collaborating with internal and external customers; monitoring project and program progress; communicating status and action items; and serving as a catalyst for decision-making and cross-functional alignment.

Responsibilities

• Steward the enterprise architecture vision and the cross-functional team that activates it, ensuring our current state is well documented and communicated while proactively exploring new technologies and capabilities to achieve our product and technical roadmaps.
• Formulate policies and strategies for end-to-end portfolio governance and management, in alignment with the strategic goals and objectives of the senior leadership team, our roadmaps, and our technology strategy.
• Accountable for organization-wide education on program and project management policies, processes, and procedures, as well as their consistent application across the entire program and project portfolio, including continuous feedback and improvement.
• Direct staff to oversee the impacts and interdependencies between programs and ensure initiatives meet the goals and objectives of the executive leadership team.
• Use forecasting and predictive analysis to inform long-range, organization-wide decisions on portfolio direction.
• Develop and maintain strong business relationships, both individually and across teams; relentlessly facilitate agreements among stakeholders on priorities and schedules.
• Serve as a trusted advisor and influence top-level management decision-making.
• Lead risk and issue management for the Technology organization.
• Develop, allocate, and oversee the architecture and planning budget, exercising oversight on decisions with broad-reaching financial impact.
• Hold project meetings internally and externally to ensure the proper level of project-related communication, including project kickoff meetings to establish or confirm roles, regularly scheduled project team meetings to track progress, stakeholder meetings to provide status, post-implementation meetings with customers to ensure project criteria have been fully met, and lessons learned meetings to gather feedback for use in future projects.
• Measure and report project performance, project milestones, and other project information to stakeholders and senior management on a regular basis, including escalating issues that require management attention and managing them to closure.
• Provide leadership, motivation, and a collaborative environment for the architecture and planning teams; advise, influence, and coach team members in the development and achievement of team and individual goals.
• Proactively promote architecture and planning services to the organization.
• Provide constructive feedback to leadership to help optimize and streamline procedures and processes.
• Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in business, management, information systems, computer science, or a related field.
• At least 12 years of related experience, including 6 or more years of management experience, with emphasis on leading portfolio management and enterprise architecture functions, including experience in software delivery and infrastructure platforms.
• Project Management Professional certification and enterprise architecture certification (such as TOGAF) are preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to manage projects and programs with multi-million-dollar budgets, leading these projects to successful completion.
• Strong knowledge of program, process, and change management techniques; structured approaches to problem solving, decision making, and business strategy.
• Exceptional influence, negotiation, and collaboration skills. Ability to facilitate agreement among conflicting stakeholders on matters of significance.
• Ability to engage with senior leaders to represent the organization and articulate governance practices that maintain alignment with organizational objectives and priorities.
• Strong leadership competencies for hiring, managing, coaching, and developing staff.
• Excellent verbal, written, and interpersonal communication skills. Ability to guide and facilitate leadership to effective decision making and present status information to management and executive teams.
• Deep subject matter expertise in management of a complex portfolio encompassing formalized programs, projects, and out-of-cycle requests.
• Ability to manage projects to ensure successful delivery while establishing clear goals and accountability. Also includes the ability to develop project plans, allocate resources, identify potential issues and risks, and develop contingency plans.
• Significant experience in developing comprehensive performance measures and metrics by which to assess program performance.
• Strong knowledge of the integrated systems lifecycle development utilizing different development models (e.g., agile, waterfall, hybrid, etc.)
• Ability to work successfully across a complex, highly-matrix environment.

CAS offers a competitive salary and comprehensive benefits package, including a generous vacation plan; medical, dental, vision insurance plans; and employee savings and retirement plans. Candidates for this position must be authorized to work in the United States and not require work authorization sponsorship by our company for this position now or in the future.

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