Head of IT Business Aligned Strategic Planning

Join the Spark Team

We were born of innovation, springing from the curiosity, imagination and dedication of remarkable scientists and healthcare visionaries. Our shared mission is to challenge the inevitability of genetic disease by discovering, developing, and delivering treatments in ways unimaginable – until now.

We don’t follow footsteps. We create the path.

The Head of IT Business Aligned Strategic Planning (BASP) is responsible for ensuring alignment between the IT organization and the business stakeholders. The Head of IT BASP drives continued alignment and interactions with the business stakeholders, and focuses on overseeing the successful prioritization, trade-offs management, and execution of the business project portfolios. The Head of BASP provides formal supervision and coaching of the Business Aligned Strategic Planning team (including the IT Business Partners and Business Analysts) and sets vision and direction to inspire and drive continuous improvement of processes and interactions procedures with the Business.

The Head of BASP is expected to demonstrate significant depth and breadth of leadership expertise to establish strategic direction and develop strategic relationships. The Head of BASP will also retain a Lead IT Business Partner Role.   In this role, the BASP will be accountable to a designated functional area(s) for providing both strategic expertise and operational execution support.   This role will focus on business technology strategy development, solution discovery, service management, risk management and relationship management ensuring strong alignment between the strategic technology requirements of the business and the effective planning and delivery of IT services/solutions.  The role will collaborate closely with the aligned functional leaders to understand business strategy, demand, and priorities and help the business propose programs/projects which will drive those strategic goals.

Responsibilities

• Drive development and execution of a business-aligned approach, governance and implementation plan
• Oversee execution of governing enterprise architecture principles and standards to guide information, technology and solution decision-making for the enterprise and provide ongoing oversight and governance to project engagements
• Oversee all aspects of portfolio execution, including demand management, project prioritization and portfolio/project management
• Enable tighter alignment and communications with the Business and support business stakeholders in
• Facilitate Business and IT senior leadership collaboration on strategic topics
• Validate the business case and impact realization associated with new business initiatives/ projects
• Develop strategic relationships with other executive team members and business partners to align on expectations and strategic objectives, and manage future demands
• Direct client engagement strategy and provide insight and expertise on how technology-based business solutions and process improvements can support/enable business objectives
• Drive the realization of IT KPIs and SLAs and reports back to the Head of IT on progress related to performance metrics

Education and Experience Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree required
• Master's Degree preferred 
• Proven track record of successfully delivering an IT strategy aligned to deliver business in an agile and exponentially growing life sciences organization
• Past experience leading strategy development and oversight of digital transformation initiatives.
• 15+ years of overall work experience in a related field
• 8+ years of a proven track record working large and/or complex IT programs
• Experience within a life sciences organization is strongly preferred
• Must have experience in manufacturing environment with an understanding of the drug development and commercialization process, Research, Development or Corporate and Enabling
• Ability to effectively facilitate interactive discussions and elicit complex business requirements in both small and large settings across audiences including business and IT professionals.
• Demonstrated ability to influence the scope and direction of initiatives across multiple levels of management and organizational boundaries.
• Superior verbal communication skills with expert proficiency in framing and delivering messages via multiple modalities including collaboration technologies (SharePoint, Skype), PowerPoint presentations, and email.
• Excellent teamwork and interpersonal skills, with ability to communicate and collaborate with employees and management at all levels.
• Ideal Candidates Will Also Have:
• Demonstrated experience defining and measuring business outcomes.
• Must have proven experience working with structured Systems Development Lifecycle (SDLC) principles.
• Knowledge and experience of business process modeling and process optimization and basic requirements elucidation.
• Experience in a rapidly growing organization preferred with responsibility for creating systems and processes where none had existed previously.

Key Skills, Abilities, and Competencies

• Leadership experience managing a large staff organization
• Extensive experience developing and executing against technology/IT strategy
• Knowledge and application of principles of enterprise architecture
• Knowledge of demand and capacity planning, including the tools and practices for determining and managing the availability and capacity of the resources (people, process and technology) required to provide satisfactory levels of service
• Ability to prioritize, plan, organize, monitor and control projects ensuring efficient utilization of technical and administrative resources
• Knowledge of and experience with monitoring, measuring, benchmarking and optimizing IT performance
• Comprehensive knowledge of IT laws, regulations and standards applicable to Spark
• Strong knowledge of the applied core technologies to enable the organization to operate efficiently
• Deep understanding of application portfolio, IT strategy
• Proficient in MS Excel, MS PowerPoint
• Proven experience in stakeholder relationship management
• Strong business acumen
• Knowledge of business case development
• Knowledge of required technologies
• Experience in change management

Behavioral Skills

• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Excellent interpersonal skills
• Strong negotiating skills
• Ability to influence - collaboratively
• Strong problem solving / analytical thinking
• Strong Business acumen and the ability to understand business strategy and partner with functional leaders to appropriately diagnose needs
• Manage business expectations and relationships between IT and each function
• Responsible for being at the table with the business to help define the business’ strategic direction and the resulting IT direction
• Proactively understand business priorities and ensures the portfolio of technology projects are aligned to
• Ensure that current technology trends are understood and applied in order to generate business benefit
• Provide leadership in the development of the respective functional IT strategy, technology roadmap and technology architecture
• Ability to resolve challenges across all levels of the organization while demonstrating respect and being honest, even when the truth is difficult
• Strong customer focus by following through on commitments and overcoming obstacles
• Complexity and Problem Solving
• Describe the decisions made by the incumbents on a regular basis. Include decisions within the Incumbent’s authority to make as well as those decisions that must be referred to a higher level.
• Need to effectively describe strategic initiatives and governance requirements to c-suite stakeholders.
• Need to have a deep understanding of the business processes, information issues, and current marketplace understanding
• Incumbent receives high level and general guidance in terms of establishing goals and overall objectives and is accountable for establishing the methods to attain them. 

Internal and External Contacts

• Incumbent will consult, partner and regularly communicate with employees and leaders within the business and within the IT function
• Incumbent will identify and manage external vendors as required to achieve objectives.
• Incumbent is expected to maintain and grow external networks/contacts to enhance knowledge/experience and problem-solving.

Please be aware that Spark mandates COVID-19 vaccination of all employees regardless of work location.  Accommodations may be made in accordance with applicable law.

Spark Therapeutics does not accept unsolicited resumes/candidate profiles from any source other than directly from candidates.   Any unsolicited resume/candidate profile submitted through our website or to personal email accounts of employees of Spark Therapeutics are considered property of Spark Therapeutics and are not subject to payment of agency fees.