Information Technology Director - Business Alignment and Strategic Engagement

Subaru•Camden, NJ

5h•$155,900 - $235,000•Hybrid

About The Position

As a direct report to the Vice President (VP) of Information Technology (IT), the Director of Business Alignment & Strategic Engagement (BASE) serves as a strategic liaison between IT and the business, ensuring technology strategy, digital initiatives, and IT capabilities are tightly aligned with enterprise objectives. This role proactively identifies emerging business needs and innovation opportunities, bringing advancing forward-thinking solutions that enable growth, efficiency, and competitive advantage. The Director partners closely with IT leadership, executive stakeholders, and cross-functional business teams to translate business priorities into actionable technology roadmaps and measurable outcomes. This leader drives portfolio prioritization, resource alignment, and stakeholder engagement to ensure the successful delivery of strategic initiatives. Additionally, the Director is accountable for building and developing high-performing teams through coaching, mentoring, and career development, while fostering a culture of collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement.

Requirements

Strong understanding of enterprise technology landscapes and how they support business strategy.
Demonstrated senior-level IT management experience; adept at shaping and executing complex IT strategies.
Executive presence in gaining consensus across all parties.
Proven track record managing budgets ranging from $4 million to $10 million, showcasing financial acumen in IT operations. Strategic thinking, problem solving, and escalation management.
Experience with agile, product centric, or modern IT operating models.
Proficiency in translating complex technical concepts into clear business language. Ability to work collaboratively in a team environment and build relationships across IT teams and across the organization.
Exceptional communication, facilitation, and stakeholder management skills.
Proficient in leading multiple IT disciplines, including software development, technical support, and systems architecture, showcasing adept project management skills.
Strong negotiation skills and a collaborative approach in dealings with third-party IT business partners.
Demonstrated ability to lead through influence, especially in matrixed environments.
Advanced decision-making and problem-solving skills, essential for navigating complex IT landscapes and swiftly addressing challenges.
Bachelor's Degree and at least 12 to 15 years of relevant IT, Enterprise Project Management, and/or Business Strategy Experience.

Responsibilities

Leads alignment between enterprise business strategy and IT strategy, ensuring technology investments directly support organizational priorities.
Facilitates IT strategic planning cycles, including annual department roadmaps, portfolio prioritization, budget planning to support short-, mid- and long- range planning.
Translates business objectives into actionable IT initiatives, KPIs, and measurable outcomes. Engage in governance processes to ensure decisions reflect business priorities and drive enterprise value. Maintain a clear, unified view of IT priorities and communicate them across the organization.
Evaluates technology proposals and initiatives to ensure they align with enterprise architecture, security standards, and strategic goals. Lead evaluation and selection of business-critical systems, including facilitating vendor discussions and contract negotiations. Periodically reevaluate existing technology and platforms to ensure they continue to align with business and IT strategy.
Oversees strategic IT portfolio alignment, ensuring that resources are allocated to the highest value and/or prioritized initiatives.
Monitors progress of major IT programs, identifying risks, dependencies, and opportunities for acceleration. Recommend portfolio adjustments to achieve goals.
Owns and evolve standardized tools for intake, evaluation, demand management, and capacity planning. Develop dashboards, scorecards, and reporting mechanisms to track IT performance, value delivery, and alignment to business outcomes.
Supports enterprise digital transformation efforts by aligning stakeholders, clarifying objectives, and ensuring readiness for change/transformation efforts by aligning stakeholders, clarifying objectives, and ensuring readiness for change.
Partners with Architecture, Cybersecurity, Infrastructure and Solutions teams to ensure initiatives are scalable, secure, and aligned with long term technology direction. Serve as a trusted advisor to leaders navigating technology driven change.
Drives efforts to shape and manage demand for enterprise technology solutions, ensuring alignment with organizational strategy and business objectives. Identify opportunities to leverage emerging technologies to improve business processes, customer experience, and operational efficiency.
Balances reuse with new acquisition to optimize ROI, reduce complexity, and accelerate time-to-value. management efforts to drive adoption of new systems, processes, and technologies.
Serves as the primary liaison between IT leadership and business units to ensure shared understanding of needs, constraints, and opportunities. Facilitate cross functional working groups to resolve alignment gaps, clarify requirements, and drive decision making.
Promotes a culture of partnership between IT and the business, emphasizing transparency, accountability, and shared ownership. Develop and maintain trusted advisor relationships with business leaders by understanding their strategies, goals, and priorities and helping translate these into actionable enterprise solutions. Build strong relationships with Product, Sales, Marketing, Customer Advocacy, Finance, HR, and other functions to ensure cohesive execution of technology initiatives. Provide insights to senior leadership on technology trends, business impacts, and strategic opportunities.
Builds strong relationships with product, sales, marketing, customer advocacy, finance, HR, and other functions to ensure cohesive execution of technology initiatives.
Provides insights to senior leadership on technology trends, business impacts, and strategic opportunities.
Maintains strong, positive relationships with the IT delivery organization. Understand IT delivery capabilities and provide value by organizing demand effectively and ensuring consistent, prioritized business requirements that enable successful delivery.
Leads communication strategies for major IT initiatives, ensuring stakeholders understand goals, impacts, timelines, and expectations.
Support change management efforts to drive adoption of new systems, processes, and technologies.
Supports change management efforts to drive adoption of new systems, processes, and technologies.
Develops engagement plans, feedback loops, and communication channels to ensure stakeholder needs are understood and addressed.
Provides leadership, mentorship, and direction to a team responsible for demand shaping, prioritization, and business solution definition (includes Analytics, PMO/Budget, Contracts, and Strategy/Alignment teams). Foster a culture of collaboration, accountability, and strategic alignment.
Operations Management - Maintains responsibility for establishing, monitoring, and reporting on team operational key performance indicators (KPIs).
Monitors implementations to ensure that financial and service targets are met according to timelines.
Evaluates the total cost of ownership and return on investment of various implementations as well as potential alternatives.
Works closely with other members of the IT leadership team during requests for proposals (RFPs), bids, contracts, and service agreements.
Drive adoption of modern ways of working (Agile, product centric models, automation, data driven decision making, etc.).