Head of Enterprise Architecture

The Head of Enterprise Architecture (EA) leads, prioritizes and develops the overall enterprise architecture approach for the organization and communicates architectural direction. They proactively and holistically help guide the enterprise through transformation and optimization initiatives. The Head of EA's scope of activities includes helping the organization grow revenue, optimizing costs and mitigating risks. They will help the organization plan, design, innovate, orchestrate and operationalize the digital enterprise.

This leader focuses on understanding and applying existing, new and emerging technologies to transform and optimize business and operating models. They also help business leaders understand, monetize and operationalize existing, new and emerging technologies. The Head of EA responds to disruptive forces by helping business leaders facilitate the decision-making process and providing actionable recommendations on initiatives and policies to help the organization drive targeted business outcomes. They are responsible for helping business leaders enable their future-state business capabilities that, in turn, drive the organization's targeted business outcomes through the choice of initiatives the organization chooses to invest in.

This leader manages and leads the EA practice, with Direct reports performing Architecture services and capabilities and Indirect or dotted line management of other Architecture competencies producing EA, and DA artifacts.

Ideally, the successful candidate should have proven past experiences in leading modern Enterprise Architecture & Roadmaps (growing up the ranks of Enterprise Architects), led others and can hold them accountable to delivery targets and goals, has a good balance of knowing the business demands and leading the Enterprise team, and demonstrate soft skills, good communications and presentation abilities & competencies. Hence advantageous to have experience managing both central EA and federated EA models in a large organization, about 3-8 direct reports and a total team that is roughly 20+ individuals, including managers and some architects (enterprise & domain) and many dotted line architects.

Broad Scope of Activities are listed below

The Head of EA will demonstrate competencies across multiple dimensions.

Manage the EA Practice, with decision-making focus:-

• Leads the development of an implementation plan for the modern Enterprise Architecture based on business strategy and requirements.
• Plans and manages a talent pool of domain architects that works with EA and non-EA related disciplines to deliver the organization's goals, objectives, and outcomes.
• Proficient in influencing and guiding external Service Integrator’s/Providers and internal architects in implementation of the strategy, providing guidance and review architecture plans and designs to ensure methodology, best practices, and standards. Responsibilities are also to ensure overall quality of the solution vision and conceptual design.
• Proficient at demonstrating the ability to lead and influence across multiple levels of the organization and with internal and external team members.
• Oversees and/or supports all governance of Enterprise Architecture principles and framework to assure compliance to the EA strategy and that exceptions are well justified and documented through a formal waiver process. Analyses the impact of technology exceptions and its effect on future IT and enterprise goals. 
• Approves technology standards, guidelines and frameworks.
• Oversees major deliverables tied to an EA Competency (including but not limited to Enterprise Business, Enterprise Security, Enterprise Data/Information, Enterprise Infrastructure, Enterprise Platforms, Enterprise Integration, Enterprise Portfolio Architecture and the Architecture Management Office)

Scope of Responsibility with financial impact

• Strong understanding of strategic planning techniques and principals
• Knowledge of technology architecture theories and implementations, technology solutions
• Experience with IT Systems Architectures, IT management tools and techniques
• Operations experience sufficient to understand sales, service and RFP processes
• In-depth experience with vendor facilitation, management and partnering
• Broad experience in estimating, cost / benefit analysis, ROI, needs analysis, project scheduling, evaluation techniques, etc
• Thinks strategically; acts pragmatically
• Ability to manage large-scale strategic and architectural initiatives

Formulate Strategy and Guide Execution

• Formulates, translates, advocates, supports and executes business strategy to achieve the organization's targeted business outcomes.
• Leads the analysis of business and operating models, market trends and the technology industry to determine their potential impact on the enterprise's business strategy, direction and architecture.
• Construct's a technology-enabled business and operating models and provides viable options and visibility into execution issues.

Orchestrate the Delivery of Business Outcomes

• Leads analysis of the business' future-state capabilities and future (and current) IT environment to detect critical deficiencies and recommend solutions for improvement to drive the business forward.
• Identifies critical skills, competencies and career paths for EA team members and identifies training to help them develop and progress in their careers.
• Ensures the role of EA in the project and product governance setting is one of guidance, advice and oversight.

Plan/Manage the IT Portfolio

• Presents gap analyses and/or IT investment roadmaps that reflect the status of the existing IT estate, namely, its ability to contribute to future-state business capabilities around ecosystems and digital platforms.
• Leads the development of an implementation plan for the enterprise architecture based on business requirements and the varying IT strategies for project-driven or product-driven delivery teams.
• Develops and applies standards and minimal viable architectures through the EA governance model, informed by the business strategy and corporate governance. Clarifies accountability and provides the focal point for agile, effective and efficient decision making.

Facilitate Innovation

• Tracks and applies innovative technologies, anchoring them in the business and operating model to assess their potential, and use agile, DevOps and lean approaches to evolve and manage innovation.
• Runs technology experiments to create new platforms and services and integrate the best of these into steady-state operations for the organization.

Build and Maintain Relationships

• Develops a portfolio of services designed to meet business and stakeholder needs and delivers in an agile and time-boxed way.
• Leads and facilitates interaction with business leaders, product managers and product owners in a business-driven conversation over the risks and implications of the product decision to the line of business, business unit and greater enterprise.

Credentials and Experience

• Minimum formal education Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or equivalent technical experience. Master’s degree in Computer Science field advantageous or equivalent experience required.
• 15+ years of progressive experience, performing definition and implementation of enterprise solutions using a leading software and hardware platforms; experience with backend integration to legacy applications and to SaaS. Related areas like the following will be useful – information, solution or technical architecture, application development, middleware, information analysis, database management or operations in a hybrid environment (i.e. Cloud, on-prem).
• Preferably ten or more years in some senior leadership positions leading teams & organizations

Skills Preferred

• Among others, knowledge of business ecosystems, SaaS, infrastructure as a service (IaaS), ERP (i.e. SAP, MSD), platform as a service (PaaS), APIs, Open data, Microservices, DevSecOps, Event-driven IT. Predictive analytics and AI/ML, etc
• Experience in application systems and data design and deployment methodologies and techniques, or other architectural competencies including security and infrastructure design and deployment.
• Understanding of the technology, trends, and techniques in the IT industry.
• Proficient in architecture methodologies, standards, practices, governance, reference patterns
• Certification or experience with TOGAF, Zachman, FEAF, DODAF, COBIT, ITIL a plus
• Familiarity with information management practices, system development life cycle management, IT services management, agile and lean methodologies, infrastructure and operations, and EA and ITIL frameworks.
• Exceptional soft and interpersonal skills, including teamwork, facilitation and negotiation.
• Expert knowledge of project management including budget & resource management
• Knowledge of all components of holistic enterprise architecture.
• Strong leadership, technical and analytical skills. Ability to lead highly skilled group of IT professionals
• Excellent written, verbal, communication, influencing / negotiation skills and presentation skills to articulate new ideas and concepts to technical and non-technical audiences. Consultative and influencing skills are a must.
• Embodying Humility & Respect
• Risk Taking & Resilience
• Paradoxical & Agile Thinking
• Informal Influencing & Building Networks
• Deep Listening & Inquiry

Competencies

• Knowledge of business models, operating models, financial models, cost-benefit analysis, budgeting and risk management.
• Understanding of the different types of agile & DevSecOps principles, methodologies and frameworks, especially those designed to be scaled at the enterprise level.
• Understanding of existing, new and emerging technologies, and processing environments.
• Translate business needs into EA requirements and estimate the financial impact of EA alternatives

Overall, should demonstrate leadership competencies at Executive level ability in these:

• Acts with Integrity & Builds Trust
• Drive for Results
• Developing Talent & Effective Teams
• Leading the Business with Vision & Strategy

Also, demonstrates Proficiency level in these following areas:

• Business Partnering
• Project Management
• Business Analysis
• Process Transformation
• Solution Management
• Arch & Innovation
• Ops & Service Mgmt
• Financial Management
• Security Compliance

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