Executive Director, Enterprise Architecture

Executive Director, Enterprise Architecture Req ID #:  67992 Location: 

Wilmington, MA, US, 01887 US For 70 years, Charles River employees have worked together to assist in the discovery, development and safe manufacture of new drug therapies. When you join our family, you will have a significant impact on the health and well-being of people across the globe. Whether your background is in life sciences, finance, IT, sales or another area, your skills will play an important role in the work we perform. In return, we’ll help you build a career that you can feel passionate about. Job Summary

The Executive Director, Enterprise Architecture will be responsible for leading the IT architecture, strategy and governance of technology selection across CRL’s businesses, applications, platforms and technology services. The position is responsible for the health and effectiveness of key architecture processes such as standards management, lifecycle management and architecture governance. The person will play a critical role in modernizing CRL’s technology portfolio to drive an improved experience for our customers and employees. In addition, he/she will serve as the expert for enterprise architecture tools and technology and will provide strategic consulting in the areas of external trends, architectural best practices and adherence to standards. The position will be responsible for leading and providing technical direction to a matrixed team of solution architects within IT and business units. He/she will also be responsible for cataloging, developing, coordinating, communicating, maintaining, and enforcing overall enterprise architecture models, representations, initiatives, capabilities, and components to adequately perform the organization's business and technology activities. In this role, the person will help to drive a major transformation that will have a significant impact on the company, its employees, and its customers.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Collaborate with technology and business stakeholders to develop an enterprise architecture vision and strategy that is aligned with CRL’s objectives

• Establish and chair an architecture governance board responsible for ensuring selection of solutions that best align with business strategy and adhere to architectural standards

• Partner with business and IT leaders to ensure that architecture roadmaps continually align with business objectives

• Provide direct or indirect supervision, leadership, technical direction, and mentorship to a highly technical matrixed team responsible for various aspects of architecture. Manage the team to ensure continuously high customer satisfaction, productivity, effectiveness, and achievement of overall vision, strategy and goals.

• Turn business strategy into systems design by developing an architecture framework that enables adaptability, scalability, availability, and re-use

• Direct the development and documentation of the strategy linking CRL’s application, data, solution, digital and technical architectures

• Provide leadership in addressing the gap between enterprise architecture strategy and the IT and the Business’s readiness to adopt

• Identify and drives opportunities to simplify and leverage the existing tools/assets and resources across organization

• Identify emerging technologies to help drive solutions that increase business value

• Architectural leadership in the interdependencies of programs and projects and related technical issue resolution

• Develops and fosters a culture of technical excellence and innovation across the business units

• Creation of an architecture community of practice

• Adhere to pertinent regulatory requirements and to company policies, practices and procedures

• Perform all other related duties as assigned

Long Description REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

EDUCATION

• Bachelor’s degree (B.A./B.S.) or equivalent in Computer Science, Mathematics, Engineering, or a related discipline

• MA, MBA or related advanced degree is a plus

• TOGAF certification is a plus

EXPERIENCE

• 8 years as an Enterprise Architecture leader, developing architecture strategy and roadmaps

• 12 years of progressively responsible IT experience and leadership roles including IT strategy, integration management and application development

• Experience successfully leading an IT transformation or other large change initiatives

• Establishing and chairing an architecture review board

• Experience managing and leading teams in a large, complex and matrixed environment

KEY COMPETENCIES/SKILLS:

Leadership Competencies: Demonstrated leadership and influencing skills Proven people leadership abilities and a high level of emotional intelligence (EQ) Ability to build and sustain strong working relationships with both business and IT professional, and to influence decision makers and stakeholders Strategic thinker focused on continuous improvement

General Competencies: Ability to effectively communicate and make technical information consumable to large, multi-national audiences; Able to explain technology in business terms Excellent written and verbal communication skills An effective listener Superior analytical, evaluative, and problem-solving abilities

Organizational Competencies: Strong business awareness, a sound understanding of key business processes and the way they impact business performance Customer consulting skills

Technology Competencies: Expertise in current and emerging technologies, and their potential business impact. Understanding of existing CRL key systems/applications (SAP/SFDC/Microsoft) API design and integration skills leveraging modern data architecture methodologies and tools Expertise with serverless and microservices architecture Demonstrated abilities to derive, define, and explicitly represent various artefacts within an Enterprise Framework

Management Acumen – Solid understanding and demonstrated experience in: Build and manage a high performing team. Strong leadership and interpersonal skills including collaboration, influencing & aligning. High Emotional Intelligence (EQ). Relationship building. Management by influence.

About Corporate Functions

The Corporate Functions provide operational support across Charles River in areas such as Human Resources, Finance, IT, Legal, Sales, Quality Assurance, Marketing, and Corporate Development. They partner with their colleagues across the company to develop and drive strategies and to set global standards. The functions are essential to providing a bridge between strategic vision and operational readiness, to ensure ongoing functional innovation and capability improvement.

About Charles River

Charles River is an early-stage contract research organization (CRO). We have built upon our foundation of laboratory animal medicine and science to develop a diverse portfolio of discovery and safety assessment services, both Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) and non-GLP, to support clients from target identification through preclinical development. Charles River also provides a suite of products and services to support our clients’ clinical laboratory testing needs and manufacturing activities. Utilizing this broad portfolio of products and services enables our clients to create a more flexible drug development model, which reduces their costs, enhances their productivity and effectiveness to increase speed to market.

With over 17,000 employees within 80 facilities in 20 countries around the globe, we are strategically positioned to coordinate worldwide resources and apply multidisciplinary perspectives in resolving our client’s unique challenges. Our client base includes global pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies, government agencies and hospitals and academic institutions around the world. And in 2019, revenue increasedto $2.62.

At Charles River, we are passionate about our role in improving the quality of people’s lives. Our mission, our excellent science and our strong sense of purpose guide us in all that we do, and we approach each day with the knowledge that our work helps to improve the health and well-being of many across the globe. We have proudly supported the development of ~85% of the drugs approved by the FDA in 2019.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Charles River Laboratories is an Equal Opportunity Employer - M/F/Disabled/Vet

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