Director - Business Applications & PMO

Talent Team•Escondido, CA

6d•$175,000 - $200,000

About The Position

The Director, Business Applications & PMO provides strategic leadership for Baker Electric’s enterprise business applications, technology demand management, project and portfolio management, and business-facing technology partnerships. The Director partners with leaders across the company to understand business needs, improve processes, shape technology-enabled roadmaps, and deliver reliable, secure, well-adopted application capabilities. The role establishes disciplined methods for demand intake, business analysis, prioritization support, project execution, change management, and value realization. This leader works especially closely with the Director, Data, Analytics & AI; Director, IT Operations; Operational Excellence; Construction Applications Administration; and business technology leaders across Finance, Human Capital, Preconstruction, VDC/BIM, project execution, and operational support functions. The Director owns the portfolio management process, but the CIO retains accountability for the enterprise technology roadmap and final prioritization decisions.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in information technology, business, construction management, or a related discipline, or equivalent relevant experience.
Ten or more years of progressive experience in enterprise applications, business systems, project/program management, or technology-enabled transformation.
Five or more years of leadership experience.
Experience leading enterprise software implementations and complex cross-functional initiatives.
Experience with portfolio governance, business analysis, vendor management, budgeting, and organizational change.

Nice To Haves

Construction or project-based industry experience strongly preferred.
PMP, PgMP, Prosci, ITIL, Lean, or comparable credentials helpful but not required.

Responsibilities

Develop and maintain a multiyear strategy and roadmap for enterprise business applications.
Ensure application roadmaps align with company goals, operational needs, vendor direction, integration requirements, cybersecurity standards, and data strategy.
Partner with business application owners to optimize commercial platforms before pursuing customization or new systems.
Lead application lifecycle planning, rationalization, renewal, replacement, and retirement.
Monitor vendor product roadmaps, including embedded AI capabilities, and assess their relevance to Baker.
Establish strong business relationship management practices across enterprise and support functions.
Work with business leaders to identify needs, opportunities, risks, process challenges, and technology-enabled improvements.
Lead a consistent demand intake process for proposed technology initiatives.
Ensure requests are sufficiently defined, supported by business outcomes, and evaluated for process, application, data, integration, cybersecurity, support, and change impacts.
Coordinate with the other IT directors to prepare options and recommendations for CIO and Technology Committee review.
Establish and lead a pragmatic IT PMO appropriate for Baker’s size, culture, and operating model.
Define scalable standards for project intake, charters, plans, requirements, risks, decisions, status reporting, change management, and project closure.
Provide project or program leadership for major business application initiatives.
Maintain visibility into scope, schedule, resources, dependencies, risks, financial performance, adoption, and expected business value.
Match the level of governance to the complexity and risk of the initiative rather than imposing a single methodology on every project.
Own the mechanics and administration of the technology portfolio process.
Maintain a consolidated view of technology demand, approved initiatives, resource requirements, dependencies, risks, and portfolio health.
Facilitate portfolio reviews with the CIO, IT directors, business technology leaders, and governance committees.
Coordinate capacity planning with leadership stakeholders.
Present transparent options and tradeoffs while recognizing that final enterprise prioritization remains accountable to the CIO and appropriate governance bodies.
Oversee Baker’s enterprise application portfolio and ensure each major platform has clearly designated business and technology ownership.
Maintain accountability for application governance, application architecture, platform lifecycle, vendor coordination, and major changes.
Partner with Construction Applications and other embedded business technology groups that perform application administration, business analysis, configuration, testing, training, and adoption.
Clarify the boundary between central IT governance, business ownership, platform administration, data integration, and infrastructure support.
Promote disciplined release management, testing, documentation, and change control.
Partner closely with Operational Excellence, Construction Applications, and business technology and process owners to ensure technology supports redesigned, standardized, and sustainable processes.
Incorporate organizational readiness, communication, training, adoption, and reinforcement into technology initiatives.
Track whether delivered technology is being used effectively and achieving the expected outcomes.
Avoid treating software implementation as the finish line.
Manage relationships with application vendors and delivery partners.
Participate in vendor selection, contracting, negotiations, renewals, performance reviews, and escalations.
Develop application budgets, forecasts, cost optimization recommendations, and investment proposals.
Reduce unnecessary platform overlap, technical debt, unmanaged customization, and redundant spend.
Work as a peer with the Director, IT Operations and Director, Data, Analytics & AI.
Ensure application plans appropriately address infrastructure, identity, cybersecurity, compliance, data, analytics, AI, integration, support, and continuity requirements.
Collaborate with business technology leaders rather than creating a central IT bottleneck.
Demonstrate enterprise thinking and shared accountability across organizational boundaries.
Lead and develop application, business analysis, and project management team members as the function grows.
Establish clear responsibilities, performance expectations, professional development plans, and succession opportunities.
Build a flexible team that can combine internal leadership with external delivery expertise.