Director, Business Applications

About Bridgespan

The Bridgespan Group is a leading nonprofit consulting organization serving ambitious nonprofit leaders, philanthropists, and impact investors in North America, Asia, and Africa. We work with social change organizations, philanthropies, impact investors, and collaborative initiatives to help them achieve greater social impact.

We value diversity, passion, respect, candor, and impact while working toward societies characterized by equity and justice. We are committed to building a diverse team and leadership at all levels, developing a truly inclusive culture, and integrating equity into our work.

We are seeking an experienced Director, Business Applications to lead the strategy, delivery, operation, and continued development of the applications that support Bridgespan's core business processes.

Who you are

• You are an experienced business applications leader who can connect organizational strategy, business processes, and technology decisions.
• You have led multidisciplinary teams that include product managers or business systems analysts, system administrators, and engineers. You set clear direction while giving specialists the context and accountability they need to deliver.
• You understand that business applications require both a strong roadmap and disciplined day-to-day operation. You are comfortable moving between executive decisions, business requirements, technical architecture, delivery risks, release planning, and support issues.
• You build trusted partnerships with functional leaders and can translate needs from HR, Finance, Marketing, and other teams into practical system priorities and investment choices.
• You have managed external implementation and support partners and can determine when work should remain with a managed service provider and when bringing capabilities in-house would improve service, control, or cost.
• You are motivated by Bridgespan's mission and want to strengthen the systems that enable our staff to serve social sector leaders effectively.

What you will do

Reporting to the Chief Information and Technology Officer, the Director, Business Applications will be accountable for the strategy, roadmap, delivery, administration, reliability, and ongoing improvement of Bridgespan's enterprise business applications. The initial portfolio includes the organization's Microsoft Dynamics (CRM) and Workday (ERP) systems. The portfolio may expand to include other systems that support organization-wide business processes.

The Director will lead a multidisciplinary team of product managers or business systems analysts , system administrators, and engineers. The role combines the product and engineering leadership responsibilities needed to translate business priorities into a coherent roadmap, execute that roadmap, and operate the resulting systems well. The Director will also oversee external partners, including the managed service provider that currently supports the ERP system, and will recommend the right long-term balance of internal and external capabilities.

Success in this role will be measured by the business value, reliability, adoption, security, and cost-effectiveness of Bridgespan’s enterprise business applications; the clarity and execution of the roadmap; the quality of partnerships with business owners; and the strength and scalability of the enterprise systems team.

Key responsibilities

• Business systems strategy and roadmapSet the vision and multi-year roadmap and investment plan for CRM, ERP, and future business applications. Align priorities with Bridgespan's strategy, business value, system health, risk, capacity, and total cost of ownership. Own budget planning, forecasting, licensing strategy, contract economics, and benefits realization, and communicate the financial implications of system choices to senior leaders.
• Portfolio prioritization and governanceEstablish a clear process for evaluating requests, resolving tradeoffs, sequencing work, and communicating decisions. Ensure that roadmap commitments reflect available business, technical, and change-management capacity.
• Business partnership and requirementsPartner with HR, Finance, Marketing, and other business owners to understand processes, identify problems and opportunities, define requirements, and establish shared ownership for decisions, data, adoption, and outcomes.
• System delivery and lifecycle managementLead work from discovery and solution design through configuration, development, testing, release, adoption, and post-launch support. Coordinate dependencies across systems and keep complex initiatives on scope, schedule, and budget. Partner with Enterprise Architecture, Cybersecurity, and Infrastructure teams on solution & data architecture, system integrations, cybersecurity and infrastructure & operations governance, standards, processes, policies and guidelines.
• Engineering, configurations, and extensionsDirect the development and configuration of business applications and related extensions. Set expectations for architecture, development practices, testing, documentation, release management, data flow, maintainability, and technical quality.
• System administration and operational excellenceEnsure effective administration, access management, monitoring, issue resolution, vendor coordination, and user support. Define service expectations and operating practices that keep systems secure, reliable, usable, and well documented.
• Vendor and managed services oversightOwn relationships with implementation partners, software vendors, and managed service providers. Set performance expectations, manage contracts and costs, and hold partners accountable for service quality and delivery. Regularly assess whether capabilities should remain outsourced or move in-house based on service, risk, capacity, and cost.
• Data governance and quality Partner with the data governance function, data leaders, cybersecurity, and technology teams to help establish data definitions, lineage, quality standards, retention practices, and controls for data managed by the business applications within the scope of responsibility. Ensure that integrations and reporting use trusted data and that data issues are identified, prioritized, and resolved.
• Team leadershipLead, coach, and develop a multidisciplinary business systems team. Clarify roles and decision rights, strengthen collaboration across product, administration, and engineering, and build the capabilities needed for the future business applications portfolio.
• Risk, security, and business continuityWork with security, data, infrastructure, and business partners to identify and manage risks related to access, integrations, data handling, releases, vendor dependencies, system resilience, and continuity of critical business processes.
• Adoption, performance, and continuous improvementUse service data, system metrics, user feedback, and business outcomes to evaluate performance and adoption. Lead communication, training, and process changes needed to realize value from technology investments and improve them over time.

The ideal candidate should have

Required qualifications

• 10 or more years of experience in business applications/ systems, product management, software delivery, or a related technology field.
• At least five years of experience leading people and multidisciplinary teams, including professionals working in product or business analysis, system administration, and engineering.Experience owning the strategy, roadmap, delivery, and operation of MS Dynamics CRM, Workday ERP, HRIS, finance, or comparable business applications.
• Experience leading complex system implementations, major enhancements, integrations, and ongoing lifecycle management.
• Working knowledge of application architecture, APIs and integrations, data flows, software development practices, testing, release management, security, and support operations.
• Experience implementing or improving data governance, data quality, ownership, controls, and reporting practices across business applications and integrations.
• Experience managing software vendors, implementation partners, or managed service providers, including performance, contracts, costs, and sourcing decisions.
• Strong portfolio management and prioritization skills, including the ability to evaluate business value, risk, dependencies, capacity, and total cost of ownership.
• A record of building effective partnerships with senior leaders, functional owners, and technical teams and translating business needs into clear decisions and executable plans.
• Experience collaborating with colleagues across multiple geographies
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical choices, delivery risks, and tradeoffs to non-technical audiences.
• Sound judgment, accountability, and the ability to bring structure to ambiguous and changing situations.
• Passion for Bridgespan's mission and a demonstrated commitment to racial equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience with marketing technology systems and the integration of marketing, CRM, and enterprise data.
• Experience evaluating or executing a transition between outsourced and in-house system administration or engineering capabilities.
• Experience supporting digital transformation in a consulting, professional services, nonprofit, or other mission-driven organization.
• Familiarity with delivery and documentation tools such as Jira and Confluence.

Remote Work Eligibility

This is a remote position. However, due to employment authorization requirements, we can only employ individuals who reside in states where we are currently authorized to operate.

Eligible U.S. states: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Washington, D.C.

Candidates must reside in an eligible state at the time of hire. Candidates residing outside these states are not eligible for this position.

Please note: Candidates must be eligible to work in the U.S. without sponsorship. The Bridgespan Group is unable to provide visa sponsorship.

At Bridgespan, we are committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion because we are passionate about helping our clients achieve breakthrough results. An organization that reflects the diversity of our clients and their beneficiaries will produce deeper relationships, engagement, and insights. Bridgespan is committed to providing equal opportunities. We serve diverse organizations and are committed to non-discrimination. Bridgespan will not discriminate against any employee with respect to any term or condition of employment, including but not limited to less favorable treatment, exclusion from employment or employment opportunities (including hiring, assignment, performance assessment and promotion) on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, citizenship, ancestry, gender (including pregnancy), gender identity, age, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, expression, veteran’s status or other protected characteristics or status. We actively partner with organizations representing minority concerns and interests to build high-performing teams that mirror the communities we serve.

All company sponsored programs including training, job, social and recreational activities are required to be nondiscriminatory and all human resource practices are monitored to ensure equal opportunity.

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