Vice President and Chief Technology Officer - ACS Publications

Description:

 

American Chemical Society Publications (ACS) is looking for a technology leader who can help the organization evolve and strengthen its IT capabilities to meet the challenges of a multi-faceted environment, including a requirement to modernize its capabilities and infrastructure as well as support the development of new products and services. The CTO will provide vision and leadership for developing and implementing IT initiatives that align, enable, and support the Company’s business goals and strategies. This role will lead the planning and implementation of IT systems/applications that improve cost effectiveness, service quality, and operational performance as well as shape the future roadmap of technology. More specifically this role will be responsible for: 

 

Strategy 

• Set the long-term technology vision and strategy for Publications to deliver on ACS’s mission and strategies and create alignment across the organization on this vision. 

• Shape the technology transformation roadmap and plan to create a new future state set of capabilities in a cost-effective manner aligned with the capacity of the organization to absorb change 
• Lead our evaluation and selection of technologies we need to adopt and master to continue to set the gold standard for chemical research publishing globally. 
• Interact and engage with the senior leadership of ACS to articulate our technology strategy and initiatives. 

 

Partnering and Stakeholders 

• Partner with the broader organization as well as external strategic technology partners to align technology capabilities with business needs. 
• Partner with all functional business areas to develop technology strategies to enhance their business performance (e.g., Finance, HR, Marketing, Sales, Sales Operations, Journals Publishing Group,) 
• Be accountable for managing and negotiating all technology vendor relationships. 

 

Leadership and People Management 

• Define technology organization evolution and lead successful development of our technology team to deliver on our vision and goals 
• Build and lead a highly effective Technology team, providing training, direction, feedback, mentorship, and support to ensure all team members understand responsibilities and can develop and be effective in their roles. 
• Set clear priorities and implement transparent processes to achieve the goals of the technology organization. 

 

Operations 

• Develop and manage a technology department budget, which ensures appropriate investing in technology capabilities and staff, while ensuring solid return on our technology investments 
• Lead the technology operations group to manage infrastructure and support internal technology requirements. 
• Maintain existing technology applications by creating, maintaining, and enforcing standards/procedure/governance for the management of technology debt and technology lifecycle. 
• Ready the organization for IT security threats and audits by directing the security of network, systems, and enterprise information. 
• Drive for tangible and measurable results (e.g., new revenue streams, higher efficiency, faster time to market) and have a measurement system to analyze the effectiveness of technology as a tool at ACS. 

Innovation 

• Maintain up-to-date knowledge of technology standards, industry trends, emerging technologies, and engineering/development best practices 
• Recommend new technology solutions to problems encountered by the business and where appropriate, develop common technology tools to drive cost advantages and to create competitive advantages from a revenue generation standpoint 
• Manage an internal software development function to enable organic development of new products and services

 

Candidate Qualifications 

Given the critical nature of this role, qualified candidates must have: 

• Significant senior level IT leadership experience, including management experience, (15+ years) within a dynamic organization balancing needs to modernize its technology platform and services while delivering on its growth and cost objectives.   
• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science or Business Administration is required (Master’s degree is preferred) or related field and equivalent experience 
• A proven track record of success in IT strategy, planning and operations as well as team leadership and development (hybrid onsite and remote teams) 
• Specific expertise in deploying and optimizing enterprise platforms including Content management platforms, CRM systems, or similar applications. 

• Successfully led IT environments that include outsourced/manag