Sr. Director, Application Strategy & Transformation (on-site Omaha, NE)

First National Bank•Omaha, NE

1d•Onsite

About The Position

The Application Transformation Leader partners with business and technology leaders to shape the IT and Application strategy, ensuring technology decisions align with standards and practices for Core Modernization and M&A activity. The role establishes early direction, makes key application decisions, and then transitions execution to the appropriate domain aligned product, platform, and engineering teams. This role combines deep application and financial systems expertise with strong relationship and communication skills to ensure technology decisions are aligned to business strategy and outcomes.

Requirements

Bachelor’s in Computer Science, Information Systems, Information Technology or related field / experience.
10+ years of experience with application development and modernization.
Knowledge of financial applications and solutions (core banking, payments, lending, digital).
Experience with cloud-native architectures, APIs, and integration patterns.
Proven track record of leading platform transformation and business-aligned technology strategies
Strong ability to communicate complex technology strategies in clear, business-relevant terms to business leaders and stakeholders.
Candidates must possess unrestricted work authorization and not require future sponsorship.

Nice To Haves

Experience with acquisition integration is preferred.

Responsibilities

Core system modernization direction/strategy.
Application-focused M&A due diligence and integration strategy.
Business partnership and executive stakeholder alignment.
Clear transition from strategy to execution.
Act as a trusted technology partner to business leaders.
Translate business strategy and M&A objectives into clear application direction.
Build strong relationships to enable timely, well-informed decisions.
Communicate complex technology topics in business-relevant terms.
Partners with Banking / Partnership leaders and strategy teams to ensure alignment between strategic roadmap and inorganic growth opportunities (i.e. branch strategy working group).
Partner with Architects and other domain experts to define the target-state application landscape aligned to business capabilities.
Lead application portfolio decisions: retain, retire, refactor, replace.
Ensure solutions follow establish modernization patterns and guardrails (API-first, cloud-native).
Guide core modernization approaches (decouple, renovate, replace).
Define modernization sequencing and interim-state architectures.
Transition execution to product, platform, and engineering leaders.
Accountable for technology and application-focused technical due diligence.
Assess application overlap, financial systems complexity, and readiness.
Define Day 0 / Day 1 / Day 100 application strategies.
Set integration and application consolidation direction.
Lead the Technology Work Stream to Legal Day 1, then transition post-close execution to long-term owners.