Director, Core IT Integration Delivery Lead

Grant Thornton - Isle of Man•Chicago, IL

4d•$184,000 - $276,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Grant Thornton is seeking a Director, Core IT Integration Delivery Lead to join the team. Grant Thornton GTech’s vision is centered around enabling scalable, secure, and repeatable technology integration for acquired companies. The Core IT Integration Office is responsible for integrating acquired firms into the firm’s enterprise technology environment through a standardized, factory-style model that is governed centrally, executed through partners and in-country teams, and repeatable across the acquisition portfolio. The Director, Core IT Integration - Technical Delivery Lead owns end-to-end technical delivery across the portfolio. The role is directly accountable for five Core IT components: tenant consolidation, ServiceNow, data migration and archival, network security, and branch office integration. It leads the workstream leads who own each of those components, sets sequencing and architecture direction across them, and manages the implementation partners and in-country resources that perform the work. Seven further Core IT components are delivered by Information Security, People & Culture, and Finance. This role does not deliver those, but is accountable for the sequencing seams between them and its own scope, so that dependencies hold and no entity stalls waiting on an unmanaged handoff. Execution is delivered through implementation partners and regional resources. The Grant Thornton team owns the standard, the plan, the readiness decisions, the quality of what is delivered, and the outcome for the business. This role directs partner delivery rather than performing it, and is expected to know the technology well enough to review designs, question estimates, validate results, and make decisions under pressure. Scope decisions anchor to four tests: security, cost optimization, standardization, and enabling Global Delivery Center support.

Requirements

10+ years of experience in enterprise technology delivery, infrastructure, platform implementation, or technology program leadership, including accountability for multi-workstream delivery.
Demonstrated experience leading concurrent implementations across identity, collaboration, service management, network, and data workstreams, with enough technical depth in each to review designs and make decisions without deferring.
Experience leading Microsoft 365, Entra ID, and Azure migration or consolidation programs, including tenant-to-tenant migration and the identity dependencies that govern sequencing.
Working knowledge of enterprise network security architecture, including segmentation, cloud landing zones, hub topologies, and secure remote access.
Working knowledge of enterprise service management platforms and the configuration data, support structures, and process alignment required to onboard a new entity.
Working knowledge of enterprise data migration and archival patterns, including pipeline-driven migration and long-term retention of legacy data.
Experience directing delivery through third-party implementation partners and offshore teams, including scope definition, deliverable review, estimate challenge, and performance management.
Track record of leading cutovers for business-critical platforms, including readiness criteria, go and no-go decisions, escalation management, and hypercare.
Experience building repeatable delivery models, factory approaches, or standardized playbooks applied across multiple entities or business units.
Experience leading and developing technical leaders, including workstream or team leads.
Strong planning and program management discipline, including backlog management, integrated scheduling, dependency tracking, RAID, and executive reporting.
Experience preparing cost estimates and business cases, and managing delivery against unit-cost targets.
Ability to lead delivery across multiple countries and time zones, working through local leadership and regional resources.
Excellent written and verbal communication, including executive-level decision materials and practical direction to engineering and partner teams.
Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems, Computer Science, Engineering, Business, or a related field required; advanced degree or relevant certifications preferred.

Nice To Haves

Experience supporting merger, acquisition, divestiture, or carve-out technology integration, particularly in a serial acquirer or private equity backed environment.
Experience integrating acquisitions across multiple countries, including data residency, language, telephony, procurement, and in-country support considerations.
Familiarity with the platforms in scope, including Microsoft 365 and Entra ID, Azure networking, next-generation firewall and secure access platforms, ServiceNow, and Snowflake.
Experience transitioning integrated entities into a global delivery center, shared service, or managed service support model.
Experience retiring inherited technology estates, including decommissioning, contract wind-down, and removal of legacy run cost.
Familiarity with enterprise architecture review processes, cybersecurity control requirements, and IT service management operating models.
Experience contributing integration feasibility and sizing input to due diligence or pre-close assessment activity.
Experience developing partner performance scorecards, delivery governance routines, and repeatable readiness models.
Experience operating in a professional services, consulting, accounting, or complex global enterprise environment.

Responsibilities

Own the integrated technical delivery plan across the acquisition portfolio, sequencing entities into waves that balance entity priority, size, readiness, dependency, partner capacity, and business impact.
Manage concurrency across entities so that parallel execution stays within the delivery system’s throughput, and re-sequence when readiness, funding, or partner capacity changes.
Own delivery of tenant consolidation, covering migration of acquired Microsoft 365 and Entra tenants into the Grant Thornton tenant, including identity, mail, collaboration content, device management, and associated Azure subscription and workload moves.
Own delivery of ServiceNow onboarding for acquired entities, covering configuration data, service catalog and fulfillment alignment, support group structures, integrations, and transition into the enterprise support model.
Own delivery of data migration and archival, covering the Snowflake-based pipelines that feed system migrations and the durable archival of legacy data for retention, compliance, and future reuse.
Own delivery of network security, covering the Zero-Trust landing zone, regional hub readiness, segmentation, routing, and secure remote access for each acquisition.
Own delivery of branch office integration, covering connectivity, local network and endpoint baseline, site readiness, and retirement of inherited network infrastructure.
Coordinate with the owners of the remaining Core IT components, including identity directory sync, workforce systems, identity governance, security integration phases, intranet, and financial consolidation, managing dependencies and sequencing across those boundaries.
Sequence delivery to run concurrent with Information Security’s phased model rather than behind it, and manage the dependency under which full identity-driven security controls complete only after tenant consolidation.
Hold security review and sign-off as a gate before interconnect and go-live, and resist schedule pressure to bypass it.
Coordinate with the customer relationship management workstream and other capability programs that depend on Core IT sequencing, including where staffing sits outside this team.
Own and mature the integration factory model, increasing the share of each integration that runs to a standard pattern and reducing the variable component that drives cost and schedule risk.
Own the per-entity estimating model, including size banding, and maintain its accuracy by testing estimates against actuals as entities complete.
Manage cost per user and cost per entity as governed delivery metrics, working with partners and sourcing to improve unit economics as volume grows.
Prepare cost estimates, business cases, and variance analysis to support funding decisions made by Integration Office and Chief Technology Office leadership.
Direct implementation partners, systems integrators, and in-country resources through design, build, migration, cutover, and stabilization, holding delivery to enterprise standards, committed dates, and quality expectations.
Review and challenge partner designs, bills of materials, effort estimates, and delivery plans before acceptance, and confirm that what is proposed matches the standard rather than the partner’s default approach.
Support scoping, statement of work development, and commercial negotiation for integration partners, in coordination with sourcing, legal, and Integration Office leadership.
Evaluate delivery partners by region and workstream, maintaining competitive tension, regional coverage, and the ability to scale capacity up and down as the wave plan requires.
Establish readiness gates for each entity covering identity, data, endpoint, application, security, communications, and support coverage, and hold cutover decisions to documented evidence.
Lead cutover execution across workstreams, including runbooks, command center operations, go and no-go decisions, escalation paths, business validation, and defect triage.
Run hypercare after each migration, drive post-cutover issues to resolution, confirm exit criteria, and transition entities cleanly into steady-state support.
Deliver each entity into a condition that allows Global Delivery Center teams to support it at scale, and coordinate the support transition directly with the Global Delivery Center.
Track retirement of inherited infrastructure, licensing, and contracts after migration so that legacy run cost is removed rather than carried.
Run delivery to GTech project and portfolio management standards, including backlog management in Azure DevOps, integrated scheduling, RAID management, and Tier 1 program status reporting.
Represent Core IT technical delivery in enterprise Integration Management Office forums and coordinate waves with peer tracks across Information Security, Data, People & Culture, and Finance.
Provide executive-ready reporting on progress, risk, cost, partner performance, readiness, and stabilization, calling out decisions needed rather than reporting activity alone.
Lead the workstream leads accountable for tenant consolidation, ServiceNow, data migration and archival, and network and branch office integration, setting direction, priorities, and performance expectations.
Build and develop the dedicated Grant Thornton integration team, including recruiting, onboarding, capability development, and bench depth sufficient to run multiple entities concurrently.
Define the operating model between the dedicated Grant Thornton team and partner-supplied regional capacity, and adjust it as the portfolio scales.
Lead delivery across multiple countries and time zones, working through local technology leadership and in-country resources.
Account for jurisdictional requirements in entity planning, including data residency, privacy, statutory retention, local procurement, and equipment import constraints.
Build and maintain working relationships with acquired-firm technology leadership through the transition, providing enough clarity on timing and impact for local teams to plan around the work.
Advise due diligence and pre-close assessment activity led by Enterprise Architecture and other teams, contributing integration sizing, sequencing, and feasibility input without owning the assessment.
Own the post-entity lessons learned process and convert findings into playbook updates, readiness gates, estimating revisions, and backlog items visibly reflected in the next entity’s plan.
Maintain the technical delivery playbooks, standard designs, runbooks, and readiness checklists that make each successive integration faster and more predictable than the last.
Lead cross-functional teams through ambiguity, competing priorities, and acquisition-driven timelines while maintaining controls and decision discipline.
Influence stakeholders across functions without relying on formal authority, ensuring decisions are made in time to protect the schedule.
Maintain high professional standards, protect confidential acquisition information, and communicate with clarity and precision.