Senior Manager of Enterprise Technologies

Summit Utilities Inc•Fayetteville, AR

10h•Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Manager of Enterprise Technologies is a senior IT leadership role responsible for the overall technology direction, stability, security, and evolution of the company’s enterprise application and platform landscape. This position provides strategic oversight and day-to-day leadership across ERP platforms (SAP and Oracle), custom applications, SaaS solutions, integrations, APIs, cloud technologies, architecture, and application support functions. This role serves as a key technology authority for enterprise system architecture and platform decisions, ensuring solutions are secure, performant, scalable, supportable, and aligned with business priorities and regulatory requirements typical of a natural gas utility. The Senior Manager partners closely with IT leadership, functional leaders, cybersecurity, infrastructure, external vendors, and business stakeholders to establish best practices for system architecture, software delivery, integration design, platform management, operational excellence, and technology governance. The position provides leadership across the software development lifecycle, custom application delivery, integration strategy, cloud and SaaS platform management, technology modernization, and enterprise application lifecycle planning. Experience with ERP platforms is important, and SAP experience is preferred. This role is ideal for a leader who combines broad enterprise technology expertise with strong people leadership, a forward-looking mindset, and a practical understanding of how technology enables business operations. A strong customer service-oriented mindset is essential, and experience in the utilities sector is preferred.

Requirements

Extensive experience leading enterprise applications, ERP platforms, custom application development, technology architecture, integrations, cloud technologies, SaaS platforms, or related IT functions.
Demonstrated leadership experience managing technical teams responsible for enterprise platforms, application development, integrations, architecture, security coordination, and support services.
Experience governing and managing the software development lifecycle, including requirements, design, development, testing, deployment, release management, and production support.
Deep understanding of enterprise architecture, system integrations, APIs, cloud architecture, application security concepts, identity and access considerations, and technology governance practices.
Experience leading enterprise application implementations, upgrades, migrations, platform modernization, and digital transformation initiatives.
Strong understanding of platform scalability, performance optimization, operational support models, disaster recovery concepts, and service management principles.
Experience supporting regulated, compliance-driven, or audit-intensive business environments.
Proven ability to align architecture, development, operations, vendors, and business stakeholders around common technical standards and goals.
Experience collaborating with system integrators, managed service providers, software vendors, and consulting partners.
Bachelor’s degree in information technology, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field required.
Minimum of 15 years of progressive IT experience, including at least 8 years of leadership experience required.
Service focused and can make quick, concise decisions.
Friendly and effective communication skills are a must.
Influencer resulting in a trusted advisor relationship between IT and business partners.
Strong interpersonal and consultative skills with the ability to manage others.
Ability to work in a fast-paced environment, handling multiple initiatives and priorities.
Not afraid to fail but always with a plan to remediate and improve.
Attention to detail, especially with contracts, vendor management, and price negotiation.
Capable of developing short and long-term plans for areas of responsibility and owns both successes and failures with humility and integrity.
Experience supporting and executing large-scale ERP, cloud, SaaS, or application modernization initiatives.

Nice To Haves

SAP experience is preferred.
Experience with ERP platforms such as SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, Infor, Workday, or equivalent enterprise platforms preferred.
SAP experience, including S/4HANA, SAP Business Technology Platform, SAP integrations, SAP security, SAP Basis, or SAP application development (ABAP), is strongly preferred.
Track record of moving on-premises technology stacks to cloud-based or SaaS platforms is a plus.
Experience in the utilities sector (gas, electricity, water) is preferred.
Advanced degree or equivalent experience preferred.
SAP migration experience preferred.

Responsibilities

Provide leadership, coaching, and performance management for teams responsible for enterprise applications, custom development, platform administration, integrations, system architecture, and application support.
Establish clear priorities, expectations, and accountability across technical and delivery teams to ensure consistent, high-quality outcomes.
Support professional development through mentoring, skills advancement, and career pathing aligned with evolving enterprise technologies.
Promote a collaborative culture between architecture, development, cybersecurity, infrastructure, operations, vendors, and business partners to ensure cohesive solution delivery.
Own and evolve the enterprise technology architecture strategy for SAP and Oracle ERP platforms, custom applications, cloud services, SaaS platforms, integrations, APIs, and related business systems.
Define and enforce architectural standards, design principles, and technology governance for new solutions, enhancements, integrations, and custom development.
Lead technical and architectural reviews to ensure alignment with enterprise standards, security expectations, performance needs, scalability, maintainability, and regulatory compliance.
Balance innovation and extensibility with long-term supportability, operational stability, cost effectiveness, and risk management.
Provide strategic direction and oversight for custom application development, workflow automation, configuration, enhancements, and platform extensions across enterprise systems.
Establish governance for the software development lifecycle, including requirements, solution design, development, testing, deployment, release management, and production support.
Ensure development practices follow secure coding standards, code quality expectations, performance best practices, documentation standards, and deployment controls.
Guide decisions on application modernization, technical debt reduction, reusable components, clean architecture, and appropriate use of low-code, cloud-native, and platform-native capabilities.
Oversee platform operations for ERP systems, SaaS applications, and enterprise technology platforms, including environment management, release planning, upgrades, patching, monitoring, and system refreshes where applicable.
Ensure system availability, performance stability, disaster recovery readiness, and operational resilience across supported enterprise systems.
Drive proactive performance optimization, capacity planning, lifecycle management, and service improvement in coordination with development, infrastructure, cybersecurity, vendors, and business teams.
Define and track operational metrics to assess system health, service quality, platform effectiveness, and support performance.
Provide oversight for enterprise integration architecture, middleware, APIs, data exchange patterns, and connectivity between ERP, SaaS, custom, and third-party platforms.
Establish standards and governance for integration design, API management, data movement, monitoring, error handling, security, and lifecycle management.
Ensure enterprise applications operate as a connected technology ecosystem that supports end-to-end business processes and reliable data flow.
Guide modernization of legacy integrations and adoption of scalable, secure, and supportable integration capabilities.
Oversee application and platform security concepts, including access governance, role design, identity and access management considerations, secure development practices, and segregation-of-duties awareness where applicable.
Ensure security considerations are embedded in architecture, development, integrations, platform administration, and operational support processes.
Partner with cybersecurity, audit, compliance, and risk management teams to support reviews, remediation activities, control improvements, and audit readiness.
Promote technology governance practices that support regulatory requirements, operational resilience, and continuous improvement.
Guide enterprise architecture practices related to enterprise platforms, custom applications, cloud services, and integration with non-core systems.
Ensure technology solutions align with enterprise architecture principles, business capabilities, cybersecurity expectations, and long-term roadmaps.
Contribute to IT roadmaps, platform strategies, modernization plans, and investment recommendations that align technology capabilities with business strategy.
Act as a senior technical point of contact for software vendors, system integrators, managed service providers, cloud partners, and development partners.
Provide technical oversight of vendor-delivered implementations, integrations, configurations, and custom development to ensure adherence to architecture, security, quality, and supportability standards.
Communicate technology risks, tradeoffs, dependencies, and recommendations clearly to IT leadership, business stakeholders, and external partners.
Lead evaluation and adoption of new enterprise technology capabilities, including cloud services, automation, analytics, AI-enabled solutions, integration tools, platform-native capabilities, and application modernization approaches.
Define architectural guardrails for introducing new and advanced capabilities within enterprise systems and custom applications.
Monitor ERP, SaaS, cloud, cybersecurity, and application development trends to guide long-term platform and technology strategy.
Evaluate SAP capabilities and roadmap items where relevant.