IT Product Manager/Owner

NCAA•Indianapolis, IN

About The Position

This role serves as an IT Strategic Partner, collaborating across business functions to identify synergies, advocate for shared responsibility, and guide organizational change. The position involves leading monthly partner portfolio reviews with leadership, providing insights into partner objectives, and articulating solutions, timelines, and constraints. The IT Product Manager/Owner will surface and shape high-value opportunities to advance organizational goals, work directly with business leaders to understand needs and translate them into technical requirements, and maintain transparent communication regarding IT support team capacity, delivery constraints, and prioritization tradeoffs. Additionally, the role involves managing, coaching, and developing a team of Project Managers, Developers, and Architects aligned to specific corporate functions (HR, Finance/Accounting, Legal, Travel Ops), leading these teams in planning, solutioning, and delivery, and setting standards for backlog management, discovery, and delivery practices. The position also includes owning hiring, performance management, and career development planning for direct reports, and guiding the broader delivery team. The role is responsible for identifying and implementing innovative approaches to improve transparency and stakeholder confidence in IT delivery, establishing planning and communication routines, and creating/improving transparent intake, backlog, ticketing, and task-management practices. It also involves leading the implementation and enhancement of enterprise corporate systems, partnering with business leaders to identify process improvements and system gaps, facilitating business case development, ensuring the product backlog is maintained, overseeing project planning, resource allocation, timelines, and risk management, translating business needs into technical solutions, leading end-to-end delivery of system enhancements and new capabilities, ensuring best practices in delivery, providing mentorship, and encouraging technical innovation. Finally, the role ensures IT processes are followed in accordance with defined standards and establishes and maintains governance processes for platform configuration, data quality, release management, and compliance, monitors platform performance, defines and reports portfolio-level KPIs/OKRs, ensures systems meet regulatory requirements, and manages platform licensing and support agreements. The role also involves budget/financial responsibility, partnering with Finance/IT Finance & Procurement to inform the annual budget, and vendor/managed service oversight, serving as the primary point of accountability for third-party managed service providers, overseeing SLAs, KPIs, contract compliance, and operational performance, leading business reviews, issue escalation, and vendor strategy, evaluating vendor capabilities, and assessing the effectiveness of managed service delivery models.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree or combination of education and equivalent work experience
5+ years of Business Analysis/Architecture or equivalent experience
10+ years of Enterprise (Corporate) Systems leadership or Delivery experience ideal
5+ years of experience directly managing Project Managers, Developers, Architects or similar technical/business talent
Experience with Oracle ERP, EPM/EPCM, UKG/UltiPro or other HRIS systems a must
Experience managing third-party vendors or managed service providers, including SLA/KPI governance and contract oversight
Experience contributing to budget planning and financial forecasting for technology platforms
Experience implementing large-scale, complex business and IT projects
Excellent communication and collaboration skills
Ability to drive innovative solutions
Creative problem-solving skills and the ability to think strategically
Experience with Agile methodologies and tools (Scrum preferred)

Responsibilities

Serve as the IT Strategic Partner by collaborating across business functions to identify opportunities for synergy, advocate for shared responsibility, and guide organizational change.
Lead monthly partner portfolio reviews with leadership to advance capability needs and prioritization.
Provide insights about partner objectives, and articulate solutions, timelines, and constraints.
Surface, shape and profile opportunities with highest value to advance organizational goals.
Collaborate directly with the business leaders to understand business needs, assess priorities, and translate those needs into clear technical requirements.
Maintain transparent communication with business partners regarding IT support team capacity, delivery constraints, peak effort periods, and prioritization tradeoffs to set realistic expectations and enable informed decision-making.
Manage, coach, and develop a team of Project Managers, Developers and architects aligned to individual corporate functions (HR, Finance/Accounting, Legal, Travel Ops).
Lead the aligned IT support teams in planning, solutioning, and delivery to ensure timely, effective execution of system enhancements, operational support, and enterprise application priorities
Set consistent standards for backlog management, discovery, and delivery practices across the team.
Own hiring, performance management, and career development planning for direct reports.
Guide and inspire the broader delivery team while empowering them to own how solutions get delivered.
Identify and implement innovative approaches, tools, dashboards, or operating routines that improve transparency, accountability, and stakeholder confidence in IT delivery.
Establish regular planning and communication routines to align business priorities with team capacity, proactively identify delivery risks, and ensure timely follow-up through resolution or closure.
Create and improve transparent intake, backlog, ticketing, and task-management practices so business partners have visibility into request status, ownership, prioritization, dependencies, and movement across IT support teams.
Lead implementation and enhancement of enterprise corporate systems.
Partner with business leaders to identify process improvements and system gaps.
Facilitate and/or participate in business case development
Ensure the product backlog is appropriately maintained via grooming and prioritization exercises
Oversee project planning, resource allocation, timelines, and risk management across multiple concurrent initiatives.
Translate business needs into technical solutions.
Lead end‑to‑end delivery of system enhancements, new platform capabilities, integrations, and modernization initiatives.
Ensure delivery teams follow best practices in requirements definition, development/configuration, testing, change management, and deployment
Provide mentorship to the IT Support Teams and Technical resources by utilizing domain and technical expertise.
Encourage technical innovation to deliver on business needs and solutions.
Ensure IT processes are followed/implemented in accordance with defined standards (i.e. Change Management, Incident Management)
Establish and maintain governance processes for platform configuration, data quality, release management, and compliance
Monitor platform performance, stability, and user satisfaction; drive continuous improvement initiatives
Define and report portfolio-level KPIs/OKRs (adoption, reliability, user satisfaction) to inform prioritization and investment decisions.
Ensure systems meet regulatory, audit, and security requirements
Manage platform licensing, renewals and support agreements
Partner with Finance/IT Finance & Procurement to recommend and inform the annual budget for platform licensing, support, and project investment.
Serve as the primary point of accountability for third‑party managed service providers supporting platform operations
Oversee SLAs, KPIs, contract compliance, and operational performance
Lead monthly/quarterly business reviews, issue escalation, and long‑term vendor strategy
Evaluate vendor capabilities and recommend changes to optimize cost, quality, and service delivery
Assess the effectiveness of the managed service delivery model and provider performance against business needs, service expectations, SLAs/KPIs, and stakeholder feedback; identify gaps and recommend solutions to improve service quality, accountability, responsiveness, and business outcomes.
Hold managed service providers accountable for timely, high-quality support, clear communication, issue resolution, and continuous improvement in service delivery to business partners.