Vice President, Enterprise Technology & Data

Main Activities

• Lead and govern the team to create, plan, and estimate comprehensive end-to-end detailed solutions with overall accountability for the technology design and delivery of large-scale, complex, or enterprise projects
• Maintain authority and accountability for exploiting the value of enterprise information assets, and of the analytics used to render insights for decision making, automated decisions and augmentation of human performance. Be the corporate leader of data-driven insights and use cases that help support the exploitation of strategic and tactical business opportunities.
• Build partnerships with executive leadership and board members to establish the vision for managing data as a business asset — to exploit data and analytics capabilities to maximize the value derived from data assets.
• Define data and analytics vision, strategy and associated practices. Lead the creation (and assure the ongoing relevance) of the organization’s data and analytics strategy in collaboration with the CTO, CRO and CEO.
• Institute an enterprise operating model for data and analytics that is consistent with the capabilities and competencies required to execute the strategy.
• Identify internal and external stakeholders and their goals. Organize, formalize and prioritize your stakeholders and their wants and needs.
• Express business outcomes in terms of your stakeholders (e.g., in terms of revenue growth, or cost and risk reduction).
• Focus on business outcomes, not reporting. Bring life to the meaning and insights from KPIs and trends for how we deliver value from data.
• Connect with stakeholders to identify stakeholders’ unmet needs that expose new opportunities, and to redesign business processes and interactions as part of the digital transformation.
• Manage the broader Technology department relationship with Enterprise business units, representing not only the Enterprise Technology Portfolio but more broadly other services and supplier groups (Infrastructure & Operations, Information Security, and other supplier Portfolios when required); Form strong partnerships with Finance, Risk, and HR executive teams to collaborate on strategies, roadmaps, issue resolution and risk management.
• Provide executive leadership to grow and evolve the maturity and capabilities of the technologists in the portfolio; Apply organizational design and change management principles to safely grow the team to meet increasing demands
• Prime the Data Management team to attract top talent to build this competency in the company; Champion data, analytics value creation, AI/ML on enterprise data, as a strategic discipline across federated consumers
• Plan and manage overall NIX budget of the portfolio for both Run the Bank and Change the Bank of over $20MM ; Continually drive unit cost efficiencies and optimization of spend to maintain RoE objectives as the bank grows
• Lead the creation and maintenance of a multi-year IT technology blueprint for the portfolio aligned with business line strategies and enterprise objectives
• Direct accountability for software delivery within the portfolio: Business Analysis, Quality Assurance, Automated QA, Source Code Management, Architecture/Design, Development, and shared accountabilities for Implementation & Release Management
• Establish and oversee Tech Ops & Delivery KPIs, metrics, and governance across the portfolio to ensure adherence to methodologies, standards & key controls, and quality objectives for SDLC, ITSM, and Cyber · Establish intake, operations, and reporting processes and Agile Pods to identify, assess and initiate new projects, small changes, and maintenance activities
• As the relationship owner with the business, actively manage and communicate Major Outages (P1 incidents) to business executives as appropriate
• Research and provide technical expertise on emerging industry trends and digital technologies
• Influence product direction by partnering to support business strategy and art of the possible; consult and advise how technology can advance the bank; Partner and consult with Business Units on approaches to strategic opportunities
• Champion the creation, maintenance and validation of Tech Resilience and business continuity plans, including defining and measuring SLOs for Recovery Time and Point Objectives (RTO & RPO)
• Ensure operational stability, resilience, and compliance with controls & standards; automate use cases to drive efficiency for repeatable compliance objectives

Accountability

• Incumbents will run their department with a fair degree of independence and their performance and that of the team is directly accountable to the CIO. The incumbent should be internally motivated and constantly strive to find innovative ways to enhance capability, capacity, methodology and practice; always be looking to maximize business value by balancing strategic technology plans with speed of delivery.
• The incumbent will have a positive track record of advising and providing expert knowledge/recommendations on value added technology improvements/enhancements, and use that experience to build and enhance Equitable’s overall technical delivery capability. They must assist in the identification of opportunities and develop recommendations to minimize risk, improve service capability and reduce costs. They will be required to evaluate technology, tools, frameworks, and patterns and provide expert advice and recommendations for course of action to senior leadership. Within their scope of activities, the VP is expected to establish and apply appropriate governance processes and deliver required regulatory artefacts and operational documentation.
• The role is critical to the successful execution of Equitable’s Challenger Bank mandate and digital transformation and as such carries considerable accountabilities – customer centric and secure design, development and implementation of solutions; establishing/enhancing governance models and motivation of a large, cross-functional team.
• The role leads the tech enablement of Enterprise departments’ business objectives and outcomes. Failure to deliver on these accountabilities could have multiple negative impacts to the business – adversely impact the lines of business and their ability to deliver on annual objectives, thus impacting the overall financial success of the bank; financial impact if production issues not addressed and resolved quickly; harm the reputation of the bank, have regulatory repercussions relating to physical, logical, and cyber security, privacy and/or data breach; high turn-over and/or malicious intent by critical system resources.

Job Complexities / Thinking Challenges

• The incumbent will have successfully overseen the smooth execution and delivery of large, complex systems and programs. The VP will have strong & current expertise in information systems, software delivery, delivery methodologies, business analysis, quality assurance, process automation, product launches, and have a reputation for building world-class organizations in respect to people, processes, and modern technology.
• The position requires the incumbent to be a self-starter and make sound decisions as efficiently as possible to ensure customer experience and service expectations are exceeded.
• This position will require an individual to be creative and flexible to effectively manage constrained resources in a fast-paced, dynamic environment subject to constant change. The incumbent will have to quickly become familiar with systems, regulatory requirements, policies, and departmental processes.
• The position also requires the ability to work in ambiguously defined situations, drawing on experience with minimal supervision and delegate as required to achieve stated goals.
• As the focus on technology and digital solutions increases the need for a stable and scalable technical infrastructure increases; therefore, it is imperative that the incumbent be able to anticipate infrastructure and cybersecurity needs, and work with their Technology Executive counterparts to execute. They will need to be data-driven, organized, and a critical thinker and be able to juggle multiple priorities.
• The role requires the ability to develop and implement strategies to achieve business objectives through forward thinking and planning of internal support needs; interpreting business requirements and delivering a strong and stable stack of tech for multiple lines of business. The VP must ensure team’s adherence to internal policies and procedures across all aspects of their accountability; and develop policies and procedures that follow corporate standards.
• The VP will be required to conceptualize and think abstractly within a technically complex environment. As the prime technologist for the portfolio, they will need to apply subject matter expertise to enable the strategic and enterprise goals of the Bank while meeting security, availability, resiliency, scalability, and supportability needs in a cost-efficient manner.

Key Technical Accountabilities:

• Own the integration of the end-to-end toolset that supports the SDLC and where needed, other Enterprise tools while working closely with BU stakeholders to understand and support the various needs of the businesses
• Evaluate core operational and delivery processes, and develop and measure key initiatives for process improvements and efficiencies
• Provide leadership and direction to the SDLC practice leads, and own co-ordination and facilitation of the overall technical delivery of a portfolio of Change the Bank projects and business as usual Run the Bank
• Work in concert with all BUs and Operations Management Leads to ensure Technology is delivered and supported with the appropriate resources; Manage supply and demand across resources, skills, and organizational design
• Develop and implement department-wide metrics dashboards that monitor the progress and health of project and program activities, in conjunction with the PMO
• Govern technology project delivery to ensure scope is delivered on time, on budget, and with the expected quality
• Plan, design and verify through performance testing that solutions are scalable and able to meet known and anticipated future needs
• Plan, design and verify that solutions meet enterprise and regulatory security requirements and expectations
• Provide leadership to resolve delivery issues and mitigate delivery risks
• Be bold in declaring when an initiative needs attention to maintain strong values of quality and value to internal partners, and ultimately customers
• Establish and manage governance and relationships with key suppliers and partners to ensure ongoing quality and support
• Ensure delivery tools and applications are supported and regularly upgraded / patched in line with enterprise and cybersecurity objectives
• Design sustainable solutions and processes, including contributing to regular infrastructure planning and health check reviews
• In partnership with DevOps and Release Management teams, manage the portfolio to establish, maintain and execute Application Release Plans which considers all project objectives and timelines
• Manage the team to manage problems and incidents; Provide leadership, oversite, and executive communications for critical outages (P1 Incidents)
• Continually assess ways to improve Equitable Bank’s systems efficiency and ways of working

Key People Management Accountabilities:

• Demonstrate strong people leadership, ability to form effective diverse teams, assess talent, develop people, coach, and mentor; frequently perform team assessment and evaluate associates based on goals and expectations
• Excellence in managerial leadership and motivation
• Create a team culture that is consistent with the organization's
• Plan and allocate resources to effectively accomplish the team’s deliverables
• Establish and maintain relevant controls and feedback systems to check the information accuracy and integrity of the team’s deliverables
• Lead employees to meet the organization's expectations for productivity, quality, and goal accomplishment.
• Coach, mentor, and develop staff, including overseeing new employee onboarding and providing career development planning and opportunities.
• Provide effective performance feedback with target setting, regular touch base meetings, performance development planning, and formal semi-annual performance reviews.

Key Internal and External Contacts

• The incumbent will report to the CTO
• The incumbent will work closely with internal departments (e.g., Project Management, Business Unit Representatives, Compliance and Legal etc.) to gather information, problem solve, and shape the growth of the bank.
• The incumbent will need to interact with external stakeholders (e.g., technology vendors, consulting firms, regulators, etc.) to define, govern, and manage solutions.

Executive Knowledge and Skill Requirements

• Minimum of 15+ years of experience in technology, business data analytics and consulting roles such as Director, Senior Director, , with proven experience in leading teams of 60+ internal & external resources in a matrix environment - preferably in Financial Services in North America (or other regulated industries) with customer-facing systems and apps
• Post-secondary degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Business or related technical degree or equivalent experience is expected.
• Business and financial acumen: For example, understanding business concepts, practices and business domain language to engage in problem-solving sessions and discuss business issues in stakeholder language.
• Proven success in cultural transformation, ensuring high levels of engagement and effective employee retention strategies
• Strong experience with all facets of the software development life cycle including strong understanding of Change/ Release Management, DevOps, Cloud Native design, and Environment (incl. Source Code) Management
• Expert at leading change: from organizational levels down to making things sticky for individual teams. Inference and negotiate outcomes, foster relationships, and building alignment with other executives of the Bank.
• Strong track record of large program deliveries and people management with complex interdependencies across stakeholder teams to deliver outcomes
• Proven managerial leadership skills with inspiring, coaching, and mentoring of 60+ person engineering teams, plus vendor resources (e.g., product development shops). Experience leading leaders (e.g., Directors and/or Managers) is required. Demonstrated leadership skills including talent development, succession planning, and performance management, with proven results to build a high-performance team and incredible engineering culture.
• Exemplary interpersonal, and presentation skills with expert collaboration and customer-relationship skills with a proven ability to engage with all levels of staff and management across multiple partner teams in a hybrid working model - the ability to communicate simply and with clarity (verbal and written) is essential.
• Proven track record to lead the product life cycle to build, measure, and learn from newly introduced products until market fit is achieved.