Technology Delivery & Partnerships Director

First Merchants Corporation•Remote, IN

About The Position

First Merchants Bank is seeking a Technology Delivery & Partnerships Director to join our team! This role serves as a senior leader responsible for accelerating strategic execution across FMB by tightly aligning technology delivery with enterprise and Line of Business (LOB) priorities. This role serves as the executive steward for the Bank’s most critical technology partnerships, most notably FIS, ensuring alignment between business strategy, technology execution, and vendor delivery commitments across the enterprise. The role is accountable for shaping demand, accelerating execution, and ensuring technology initiatives, particularly large, complex, and cross-functional efforts, are outcome-driven, risk-aware, regulator-ready, and delivered with discipline and predictability across a highly matrixed operating model. This role acts as the enterprise point of accountability when vendor execution, cross‑functional dependencies, or platform constraints impact strategy, risk posture, or delivery timelines.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree preferred.
A minimum of ten (10) years of progressive experience in technology delivery, business transformation, enterprise platforms, or large-scale platform implementations within financial services.
A minimum of five (5) years demonstrated experience operating at an executive or officer level within a regulated environment.
A minimum of five (5) years proven ability to lead enterprise initiatives, vendor transformations, and M&A-related execution through influence rather than direct control.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree preferred.

Responsibilities

Serve as the primary senior technology execution partner to Enterprise and Line of Business executives, translating business strategy into executable, technology-enabled outcomes.
Operate as a senior Business Relationship Manager, shaping demand upstream and downstream, aligning whole‑bank priorities, and maintaining continuity across technology, business leadership, and external partners.
Partner with Line of Business leaders in the development and execution of multi‑year business and technology roadmaps, ensuring technology investment aligns with long‑term strategic intent.
Proactively shape and influence technology demand by identifying where platforms such as FIS and other enterprise technologies can advance business and customer strategies before formal requests are submitted.
Ensure business problem statements, financial impacts, and value realization expectations are clearly articulated upstream and continuously refined as conditions change.
Partner with cross-functional Technology & PMO departments to accelerate delivery of strategic initiatives across the federated technology model.
Identify delivery risks, cross-functional dependencies, capacity constraints, and organizational friction points; escalate with clear options and recommended actions.
Ensure initiatives meet regulatory, resiliency, security, privacy, and risk management expectations (e.g., FFIEC, GLBA, PCI, internal risk appetite).
Serve as the executive point of accountability when cross‑functional, cross‑vendor, or cross‑platform issues impact enterprise delivery timelines, business outcomes, or risk posture.
Provide enterprise ownership of Whole Bank technology demand management, ensuring initiatives are aligned across Lines of Business and sequenced based on strategic value, capacity, and risk.
Maintain a consolidated, enterprise view of technology demand with particular emphasis on FIS platform‑related initiatives, dependencies, and constraints.
Ensure technology demand is managed as an integrated enterprise portfolio rather than isolated Line of Business requests, reflecting shared platforms, shared vendors, and shared delivery capacity.
Partner with portfolio governance, architecture, and delivery leaders to prevent fragmented demand and ensure disciplined execution across the technology ecosystem.
Serve as an executive partner with CIO leadership and enterprise stakeholders for technology execution related to mergers, acquisitions, and integrations.
Provide oversight and coordination for Day 1, Day 100, and post-integration execution activities across platforms, data, security, vendors, and operations.
Serve as executive command lead for major technology vendor relationships during mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures, with specific emphasis on core and enterprise platforms such as FIS.
Ensure vendor continuity, contractual posture, execution sequencing, and risk management from due diligence through post‑integration stabilization.
Coordinate vendor strategy decisions across business, technology, risk, legal, finance, and procurement leadership during M&A activity.
Reduce integration risk, execution fatigue, and institutional knowledge loss by applying consistent delivery discipline across M&A activity.
Provide executive-level oversight for complex, cross-functional initiatives, including platform modernization, vendor-led transformations, and enterprise change programs.
Drive outcome-based prioritization, benefits realization discipline, and transparent executive reporting in partnership with portfolio governance forums.
Ensure business cases, funding assumptions, and value realization commitments are maintained throughout execution.
Serve as executive steward for the Bank’s most strategic technology vendors, with primary accountability for the FIS relationship.
Maintain trusted executive‑level relationships with vendor leadership and ensure alignment across technology, business, risk, finance, and operations stakeholders.
Own executive‑level issue management and escalation for strategic technology vendors, ensuring enterprise issues are clearly framed, decisions are timely, and accountability is established across internal and external stakeholders.
Partner with Procurement, Legal, Finance, and IT leaders while retaining executive accountability for vendor execution health and outcomes without duplicating formal contract management or procurement functions.
Ensure vendor‑led initiatives are integrated into enterprise demand planning, prioritization, execution governance, and value realization oversight.