Director, Application Lifecycle Management

Equinix•Toronto, ON

1d•$155,000 - $233,000

About The Position

This role sits at the center of enterprise application portfolio optimization, helping the business make clearer decisions about which applications to invest in, consolidate, modernize, or retire. As Director of Application Lifecycle Management, you will guide an enterprise-wide effort to simplify and govern the application landscape, reducing complexity while protecting critical business capabilities. You will lead the strategy, governance, and execution of application portfolio rationalization, helping the business reduce cost, redundancy, and risk while protecting critical operations. Partnering with business functions, technology, Enterprise Architecture, security, procurement, and finance, you will translate portfolio data into clear recommendations, investment priorities, and an actionable multi-year roadmap.

Requirements

Extensive experience in IT strategy, application portfolio management, enterprise architecture, technology transformation, or consulting, with a track record of leading complex enterprise initiatives.
Proven experience leading enterprise application rationalization, cost optimization, M&A integration, modernization, or a comparable technology transformation program.
Strong understanding of application lifecycle management, enterprise architecture, dependency mapping, technical debt, and technology risk.
Experience developing business cases, total cost of ownership models, ROI assessments, and benefits-tracking approaches.
Strong program leadership across complex, multi-year, cross-functional initiatives.
Demonstrated ability to influence without direct authority, align stakeholders, and move complex decisions forward in a global, matrixed organization.
Excellent analytical, executive communication, and change leadership skills, with sound judgment in making portfolio recommendations when data is incomplete or trade-offs are complex.

Responsibilities

Lead the enterprise application portfolio strategy and rationalization roadmap.
Build and maintain a trusted application inventory that captures ownership, cost, usage, dependencies, technical health, risk, and lifecycle status.
Apply a consistent decision framework to determine whether applications should be retained, optimized, consolidated, migrated, or retired.
Develop business cases, total cost of ownership models, and ROI assessments to support portfolio decisions and investment priorities.
Lead portfolio governance by providing steering committee and executive updates, tracking decisions and milestones, managing program budget and financial performance, and escalating risks, trade-offs, and issues that require leadership attention.
Oversee execution across the full portfolio lifecycle, including application migrations, data transitions, business readiness, change adoption, user transition planning, and vendor contract exits.
Operate the application intake governance process by assessing proposed purchases against existing internal capabilities, strategic fit, architecture alignment, total cost, and the risk of unnecessary duplication.
Define responsibilities and provide guidance to application owners and the Enterprise Architecture community throughout the portfolio lifecycle.
Drive retirement plans in partnership with application and infrastructure owners.
Translate complex portfolio data into clear recommendations and trade-offs, building alignment across business and technology stakeholders on a portfolio roadmap for leadership.