Director of Business Applications

<strong>Everyone at LRW is responsible for pioneering new ways, opening new doors, and contributing to a culture of the most brilliant and beautiful minds in the business.</strong>

Los Angeles, CA

LRW, a Material Company

<p>Technologists and creators. Strategists and designers. Researchers and storytellers. LRW is now a Material Company, powered by sophisticated analytics, deep human understanding, and design thinking. This page contains job postings for LRW and several other Material companies. Want to join us?</p> http://www.lrwonline.com/

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Full-Time

Overview: LRW (A Material Company) is a modern marketing services company powered by analytics, deep human understanding and design thinking. We make a material impact through radical collaboration that ignites growth for the world&rsquo;s top B2C and B2B brands. Headquartered in LA and with over 1200 employees in 10+ offices (US, London), Material generates over $300 million in revenue, with clients ranging from entertainment, media &amp; technology to consumer-packaged goods, retail, financial &amp; business services, automotive, and pharmaceuticals.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br /><br />Helping Material to make an impact, LRW IT is made up of smart people who shape &amp; weave Material&rsquo;s technology journey. LRW IT&rsquo;s Business Applications group brings together people who foster &ldquo;adult conversations&rdquo; about technology with our business; who bring structure to ambiguity; and who confidently navigate LRW IT to its future state in Material&rsquo;s entrepreneurial, innovative, customer-focused &amp; results oriented culture - which is where the Director, Business Applications comes in&hellip; Reporting to the VP, IT as part of the Head &amp; Leadership team, the Director, Business Applications is a talented Enterprise Applications leader who brings innovation, efficiency &amp; security to Material. Leading the Business Applications group, they assemble, coach &amp; lead teams of talented IT generalists to design, deliver &amp; support the right applications for Material&rsquo;s people &amp; customers. Together, the Business Applications group own both commercial &amp; in-house technology products that Material uses to make an impact, delivering on LRW IT&rsquo;s vision of People First. The Director, Business Applications realises our People First vision by delivering technology with frictionless, intuitive processes that follow people &ndash; not the other way around! They model a customer-centric design, execution &amp; support philosophy, building capabilities for Material people to work together with our clients and each other in an effective, reliable &amp; secure manner; they use challenges to show how IT people can pivot from &ldquo;No&rdquo; to &ldquo;How&rdquo;; they ensure security &amp; compliance are always a priority, without letting them become an obstacle to the customer experience; ultimately, they strive towards a simpler, more modern set of Business Applications that ensures Material gets the most out of technology. <br /><br />WHAT DOES SUCCESS LOOK LIKE? <br /><br />A successful Director, Business Applications will have built and developed teams of self-starting, high performing IT generalists &amp; experts who own processes &amp; solutions that &ldquo;just work&rdquo;, intuitively operating throughout Material without friction or frustration. These teams will have delivered &amp; supported solutions that our people love, demonstrating the impact a People First-centred Business Applications group can have on Material&rsquo;s culture &amp; productivity, resulting in confidence &amp; trust with business leaders, IT colleagues, partners &amp; vendors alike. These successes prepare the Director, Business Applications with experience, know-how, goodwill &amp; proven performance to take on greater opportunities in any senior or executive IT leadership role they have a passion for.&nbsp; &nbsp;
Responsibilities: PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES: <br /><br />Strategy <ul> <li>Lead LRW IT&rsquo;s Business Applications team in identifying IT's current state, and defining IT's future state;</li> <li>Build teams that work together collaboratively &amp; effectively, delivering great outcomes for Material&rsquo;s people &amp; clients;</li> <li>Determine &amp; prioritise the people, processes &amp; technologies that will deliver the best IT outcomes for Material&rsquo;s people &amp; clients;</li> <li>Establish short, medium and long-term strategic goals to evolve Material&rsquo;s processes &amp; technology, ensuring all existing &amp; planned solutions are aligned with Material&rsquo;s overall goals;</li> <li>Navigate &amp; negotiate through different ways of thinking between IT leadership and drive solutions that are ultimately best for Material.</li> </ul> &nbsp; Execution: <ul> <li>Define the organisation-wide transformation of our Business Applications into a solid backbone for a dynamic business, ready for scalable growth; This leverages capabilities of both the Digital Workplace Technologies &amp; Infrastructure teams, which directly influence the ways in which people get the &ldquo;right&rdquo; apps &amp; support;</li> <li>Lead high-performing, customer-centric teams focused on relationships with the business, the work they do and the tools they use;</li> <li>Communicate engagingly with IT and business stakeholders to ensure alignment, manage expectations, and show the business the value of LRW IT;</li> <li>Drive modernisation to shift low-value, repetitive tasks to solutions that let Material&rsquo;s people make an impact through high-value, satisfying work;</li> <li>Focus on people&rsquo;s experience, not just productivity;</li> <li>Bring structure to ambiguity by proposing &amp; implementing solutions, while remaining flexible in, and responsive to, our entrepreneurial, customer-focused, results-oriented culture;</li> <li>Bring insight &amp; know-how to due diligence, planning &amp; integration of acquired companies;</li> <li>Identify &amp; mitigate risks, by taking proactive steps to prevent undesirable outcomes;</li> <li>Data driven, using analytics to understand where our strengths and weaknesses lie, and leveraging these insights to deliver creative and innovative solutions.</li> </ul> &nbsp; Management: <ul> <li>Manager of managers, ensuring authority is devolved to personal responsibility within teams and individuals &ndash; not concentrated in small cabals of people;</li> <li>Be a coach, taking responsibility for high performing teams that learn &amp; grow as solutions are delivered successfully, who have a relaxed awareness coupled with openness to new ideas, who are genuinely excited by their roles &amp; goals, and not motivated by a culture of fear, closed-mindedness or &ldquo;group-think&rdquo;;</li> <li>Plan for success, developing &amp; monitoring SMART goals within the group &amp; individuals, while ensuring the financial health &amp; sustainability of the Business Applications group through rigorous planning &amp; controlling processes;</li> <li>Grow talented generalists, guiding teams &amp; individuals so that they do not over-capitalise in niche technical expertise that Material cannot reasonably sustain, nor become so bogged down in operational responsibilities that the continued evolution of Business Applications slows or stops;</li> <li>Pay it forward, ensuring that their teams share in the recognition of their successes with humility, while jointly taking responsibility for shortcomings without recrimination;</li> </ul>
Requirements: Functional: <ul> <li>Done it: 8+ years of experience in Business or Enterprise Applications management which includes, but is not limited to CRM, ERP, HCM or Project Management systems design, implementation, migration &amp; adoption, service management, information security, enterprise architecture, vendor &amp; contract management, strategic planning or similar;</li> <li>Know it: Undergraduate degree in a related field of study or equivalent experience;</li> <li>Show it: Develops the right apps, support &amp; infrastructure by planning, delivering &amp; running relevant projects &amp; improvement initiatives;</li> <li>Do it: Diverse Business Applications experience, with strengths in implementing &amp; monitoring business processes &amp; technologies, supported by people-first oriented teams innovating and executing effectively.</li> </ul> Competencies: <ul> <li>An innovator, extremely creative and constantly looking for ways to improve our ways of working;</li> <li>A relationship builder and a team player who identifies &amp; promotes best practices to business &amp; technology leaders, ensuring the case for change is internalized by their peers through influence &amp; persuasion;</li> <li>A leader, able to understand people, be patient, empathize and possess the EQ necessary to select, develop and get the most out of team members through thoughtful leadership;</li> <li>A proactive mindset, able to foresee issues/problems and properly plan to address issues before they arise; focusing on being proactive instead of reactive;</li> <li>Mindful of the employee experience - articulate, confident &amp; well-spoken in all forms of communication, comfortable to be the voice of our customer to LRW IT, and the face of LRW IT to our partners &amp; vendors;</li> <li>Looking to get in on the ground floor of something very exciting by building an IT organization that: <ul> <li>Has earned credibility &amp; influence (we don&rsquo;t talk about &ldquo;having a seat at the table&rdquo;)</li> <li>Has trust from teams, employees and leadership (even when we must deliver tough news or make hard choices)</li> <li>Truly delivers on our mission of People First.</li> </ul> </li> </ul>