Director, Application Portfolio & Strategy

BDO • Toronto, ON

4d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Director, Enterprise Application Portfolio & Strategy is a senior technology leadership role responsible for defining, governing, and evolving the firm’s application portfolio in support of business strategy and enterprise transformation. This role is responsible for application and product roadmaps, portfolio intake and prioritization, investment planning, modernization strategy, delivery governance, and value realization across the portfolio. The Director will be a trusted technology advisor to senior business stakeholders, sought out to help plan the firm’s technology direction, assess new opportunities, and guide decisions on enterprise platforms, transformation initiatives, and emerging capabilities, including AI. The successful candidate brings strong executive presence, deep enterprise technology knowledge, and proven experience leading teams and complex portfolios in a matrixed environment. This individual combines strategic thinking with execution discipline and can confidently lead conversations spanning business priorities, architecture direction, delivery risk, modernization, and long-term value creation.

Requirements

• 10+ years of progressive leadership experience in technology, application delivery, portfolio management, digital transformation, or enterprise systems leadership roles.
• Demonstrated experience leading complex, cross-functional teams and delivering enterprise technology solutions in a matrixed environment.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, Business Technology, or a related field; equivalent experience will be considered.
• Strong ability to influence strategy while also driving execution and measurable outcomes.
• Deep understanding of application portfolio management, modernization, lifecycle management, governance, integration, and enterprise delivery practices.
• Strong knowledge of modern technologies, including SaaS platforms, cloud-enabled solutions, APIs/integration, automation, data dependencies, and emerging AI capabilities.
• Experience influencing senior stakeholders and aligning cross-functional teams in a matrixed organization.
• Excellent communication, executive presence, and decision-making skills.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in professional services or similarly complex, relationship-driven environments.
• Experience with enterprise transformation, application modernization, and portfolio governance maturity.
• Experience with vendor and partner oversight.
• Familiarity with Agile, hybrid delivery models, DevSecOps, and modern governance practices.
• Relevant certifications such as PMP, SAFe, TOGAF, ITIL, Prosci, cloud, or product leadership certifications are considered an asset.

Responsibilities

• Own the application portfolio strategy and multi-year roadmap, aligning investments to business priorities, enterprise strategy, architecture direction, and delivery capacity.
• Partner with business leaders and peer technology leaders to identify, assess, prioritize, and sequence initiatives that drive measurable business value.
• Guide decisions on where to invest, modernize, simplify, rationalize, or retire application capabilities across the portfolio.
• Maintain an informed view of market trends, emerging technologies, and industry-leading practices to help shape the firm’s future technology direction.
• Serve as a trusted technology advisor to business leaders and senior stakeholders, helping shape technology priorities and long-term direction for the firm.
• Build strong relationships across the business and technology organization to ensure priorities, investments, and execution plans remain aligned.
• Translate business strategy into practical roadmaps, investment recommendations, and executable plans.
• Provide direction and recommendations on new technologies, enterprise platforms, and transformation initiatives to ensure the highest-value solutions are selected.
• Lead a clear, transparent intake and governance model for new initiatives, products, and enhancements.
• Align business demand, funding, capacity, and sequencing decisions to maximize value and support strategic outcomes.
• Maintain an integrated view of cross-portfolio dependencies across applications, data, platforms, vendors, and delivery teams.
• Drive disciplined prioritization and trade-off decisions based on value, risk, complexity, and enterprise impact.
• Provide leadership and accountability across the application portfolio from concept and business case through design, delivery, implementation, and adoption.
• Partner with architecture, engineering, security, data, operations, and delivery leaders to ensure solutions are scalable, secure, supportable, and aligned to enterprise standards.
• Bring sufficient technical depth to assess options, challenge assumptions, guide solution direction, and support strong delivery outcomes.
• Ensure effective release readiness, transition planning, and operational acceptance for solutions entering production.
• Lead portfolio modernization strategies that improve platform health, reduce technical debt, and enable greater agility and business value.
• Identify and recommend practical uses of AI and automation to improve solution delivery speed, quality, insight, and user experience.
• Advise business stakeholders on emerging AI capabilities and other technologies, connecting innovation opportunities to real business outcomes, governance requirements, and risk considerations.
• Promote responsible adoption of AI-enabled tools and practices across the portfolio and delivery lifecycle.
• Own and evolve application and product roadmaps to support growth, simplification, modernization, and long-term platform health.
• Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing solution delivery team.
• Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, continuous improvement, and partnership.
• Influence across a complex, matrixed environment through credibility, strong judgement, and relationship leadership.
• Provide clarity and momentum in ambiguous or changing environments, balancing strategic vision with practical execution.
• Establish and monitor meaningful portfolio measures across value delivery, execution performance, application health, technical debt, risk, and capacity.
• Ensure initiatives have clear success measures and that benefits are tracked in partnership with business stakeholders after implementation.
• Use data and outcomes to improve prioritization, governance, investment decisions, and overall portfolio performance.

Benefits

• Competitive total cash compensation that recognizes and rewards your contribution.
• Flexible benefits from day one.
• Market leading personal time off policy.
• Reimbursement for wellness initiatives that fit your lifestyle.
• Opportunities for learning and development.
• Support for personal goals outside of the office and making an impact on your community.
• Opportunity to contribute to your community through local and national events.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Number of Employees: 501-1,000 employees