Senior Manager, Application Management

Authentic Brands Group•New York, NY

About The Position

Authentic is a unified platform that integrates M&A, brand strategy, creativity and digital innovation to unlock the power of its global Lifestyle and Entertainment portfolio. As the world’s largest sports and entertainment licensing company, Authentic connects strong brands with best-in-class partners to optimize long-term value in the marketplace. Its brands generate more than $32 billion in global annual retail sales and have an expansive retail footprint in more than 150 countries, including 13,000-plus freestanding stores and shop-in-shops and 400,000 points of sale. Authentic transforms brands by delivering powerful storytelling, compelling content, innovative business models and immersive experiences. It creates original marketing strategies to drive the success of its brands across all consumer touchpoints, platforms and emerging media Why Authentic You’ll be able to access the resources and scale, while leveraging innovative technology and nimble environment. What we’re saying is, this isn’t your average day job. If you’re hungry to drive ideas into action and own your career, let’s chat. Our team is rapidly innovating to evolve and define the future of our brands. With the help of some of the brightest minds in retail, marketing, licensing, legal and more, we are building the intersection of digital and experiential marketing to help achieve that mission. We reimagine, evolve and transform brands! At Authentic, we foster an inclusive workplace where diversity of thought and expertise drive competitive advantage. Our global teams are built by go-getters who contribute unique perspectives and push the boundaries of creativity and innovation. Headquartered in New York City, Authentic has offices in major metropolitan cities including Los Angeles and Miami, as well as Toronto, Mexico City, London, and Shanghai. The Senior Manager, Application Management will assist in the evolution and management of the enterprise service offerings within the IT Business Systems group. Reporting to the Director, Business Systems, the Manager will be responsible for helping to define and manage vendor and application management processes for new business applications as well as improve current vendor and application management processes for existing business applications within our cloud-first, SaaS-driven landscape. This individual will be part of a team that bridges the gap between the business teams, vendors, technology partners and internal IT teams to operate and maintain key technology platforms. The successful candidate must have a willingness to work across business units, have a very strong understanding of enterprise IT service delivery models, and have expert knowledge of SDLC methodologies. Core competencies include strategic roadmap definition and execution, release management, vendor management, learning agility, expectation and relationship management, problem solving, and strong analytical and communication skills.

Requirements

BS degree in computer science or equivalent experience
Minimum 8-10 years of demonstrated experience and proficiency in application management, vendor management, and release management
Minimum 5-7 years of demonstrated experience in customer technical support, with a focus on SaaS solutions at an enterprise level
Experience installing and leading the adoption of best practice processes, methods, and technologies
Distinctive people skills with a proven track record of influencing, driving change, and stakeholder management, with a bias for excellent customer service
Experience managing multiple enterprise solutions concurrently, such as SalesForce CRM, Luminance CLM, DAM, and RMS
Superior problem-solving skills, in both ambiguous and tactical situations, and a bias for action
Strong organization skills with ability to organize others around you
Demonstrated flexibility and ability to perform in a dynamic environment, and comfort working in ambiguity
Outstanding written and oral communication skills and expert meeting planning and facilitation skills
Ability to provide on-call support, as needed (i.e., critical production incident, planned production release) which could be during non-standard business hours such as weekend, evening, or support of global users (i.e., UK)

Responsibilities

Create, champion and implement vision for formal application management processes including identifying, developing and managing policies, procedures, templates and other documentation
Become subject matter expert and create supporting documentation toolkit(s) for application/ system(s) (i.e., logical and technical landscape architecture documentation, integration documentation (APIs, ETLs, SFTPs, flat files))
Implement and maintain documentation for system-specific user role matrices in terms of CRUD (create, read, update, and delete), segregation of duties (SOD) documentation, as well as document integration/interface and data dictionaries
Partner with business stakeholders to define scope and priorities for application and/or system initiatives (new projects and ongoing maintenance), and ensure understanding of key business objectives to support analysis and solution definition
Serve as a key liaison between business stakeholders and users, technology teams and vendor(s)
Participate in value stream discussions to identify the current state processes; and elicit, identify and document potential opportunities for improvements
Manage application development projects and initiatives in a program management capacity, partnering with business teams and the vendor(s)
Manage and partner with business teams and vendors to plan, test, and release upgrades and initiatives such as maintenance releases, major releases, API integrations, SSO integrations, etc.
Plan, facilitate, and manage end user training with business stakeholders for new releases and upgrades where applicable, leveraging vendors and internal business partners where possible
Act as point of contact for all production issues or requests, working with business stakeholders to identify priority, and with vendors to triage, analyze and solution
Manage to the contractual obligations with vendors, including SLAs, licenses, upgrades, maintenance, defects, and enhancements; may require review and management of Statements of Work (SOW) for new enhancements with vendors
Manage contractual production defect remediation SLAs with vendor solution providers by collecting and managing data metrics, communicating defaults, and ensuring credits are provided, where applicable
Manage internal and external teams to ensure successful delivery of key application initiatives, upgrades and integrations
Oversee all release management tasks, including working with vendor and business users to plan, test and deploy all application releases, while driving, managing, and implementing essential SDLC methods using test environments, generating test data libraries, managing non-production defect remediation, defining and managing User Acceptance Testing (UAT), and ensuring completion of all SOX and/or internal audit required documentation
Maintain audit documentation and comply with all internal and external audit requirements for user access and change management
Foster collaboration among cross-functional partners to keep them informed of related projects and other cross-functional development requests
Ensure that business decisions and processes made are in compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley