Enterprise Data Architect (Assistant Vice President)

Job description / Role

Reports to: Head of Enterprise Architecture

GROUP FUNCTION AND BUSINESS AREA PURPOSE:
To establish and maintain the overall enterprise architecture for the BANK Group. To define, coordinate and monitor all governance activities relating to enterprise architecture across organisational tiers. Aligning the execution of the BANK Group business strategy with the IT strategic plan execution, achieved by facilitating cross functional collaboration within IT and between IT and BANK lines of business.

ROLE PURPOSE:
Responsible for the definition, maintenance and execution of the complete enterprise architecture (EA) relating to the Data architecture domain of specialization, the interoperability with the Business-, Data- and Application architectures across BANK, as well as creating and executing on the associated transformation roadmaps. Establishing cross functional communities of practice for the EA Domain within IT and BANK and coordination of the EA Agenda across organisational tiers. Establish EA governance forums. Implement a common knowledge repository with all relevant EA artefacts. Provide executive management dashboards relating to overall EA landscape.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES:
- Define the strategic enterprise application landscape blueprint for BANK in support of the BANK business and technology strategy
- Support the development of the IT enterprise architecture governance framework and associated principles, policies, processes and standards and enforce the implementation thereof
- Take ownership of and coordinate all architecture gated reviews for area of expertise across the systems development life cycle
- Communicate and demonstrate the purpose and business value of Enterprise Architecture and Data management
- Obtain a thorough understanding of the current IT levels of strategic and operational capability and actively drive the development of integrated and aligned architecture solutions
- Ensure the integrity and alignment of all proposed solutions, regardless of being commercial off the shelf or bespoke development, to the enterprise architecture domain architectures (business, data, application and infrastructure), ensuring both tactical as well as strategic business objectives are met
- Develop detailed enterprise architecture domain roadmaps for each BANK division as well as for IT, aligned with the BANK business strategy and IT strategic plan
- Take full responsibility for the enterprise knowledge repository and all associated artefacts for the domain of expertise
- Identify and manage all architecture risks and actively ensure that mitigation plans and actions are developed, tracked and implemented
- Train and equip relevant stakeholders in International Best Practices and Open Standards with regards to Enterprise Architecture
- Evaluate the effectiveness of processes and systems in use in BANK and make recommendations for improvements
- Stay abreast of industry and operational trends and ensure that the Enterprise Architecture function is well positioned to provide competitive and industry leading services to BANK
- Contribute to the cross functional development of the EA team members by sharing best practices and specialist knowledge
- Challenge the established practices and recommend improvements to continuously enhance and improve Enterprise Architecture within BANK
- Build and foster relationships with colleagues and business stakeholders and other role players in order to improve the overall effectiveness of the EA Function
- Ensure the completeness / fit-for-purpose of the architecture by adequately addressing all the pertinent concerns of the stakeholders
- Decide on the various architecture views that should be developed during architecture engagement, taking into consideration practicality and fit-for-purpose principles and maintain the integrity of the Enterprise Architecture by connecting all the various architecture views to each other
- Maintain professional relationships with BANK and IT executives to gather and articulate the Architecture Vision
- Ensure Enterprise Architecture compliance with regards to Financial Industry compliance frameworks

KEY STAKEHOLDERS BUSINESS ACCOUNTABILITY:

* Internal
- CIO(EVP), Heads of IT departments(SVP), Head of Enterprise Architecture, IT Architects (Applications, Infrastructure, Data), Head of ITPMO (AVP)

* External
- COO, Heads of BANK Business Units and associated Business Architects, Chief information Security Officer, Head of Group Strategy and Planning, Head of Business Intelligence; Head of PMO, Heads of BANK Business Operation functions, Head of Service Quality
- Vendor Solution providers
- Responsible for the execution alignment of Enterprise Architecture and Technology Strategy with the BANK Business Strategy and IT strategic plans.
- Although no budget allocation is made to the function, the EA role will have direct decision making responsibility and influence about allocation and spending of the Technology budget aimed at strategically transforming the bank of over AED 150 million.
- Accountable and direct influence on the correct strategic technology choices pertaining to Business and Technology transformation projects.

KEY ISSUES OVER THE NEXT 12 - 24 MONTHS
- Establish and fully operationalise Enterprise Data Architecture
- Re-evaluate the baseline architecture and ensure that the current state assessment for each architecture domain has been properly documented in the EA knowledge repository
- Obtain a full understanding of the business drivers and objectives for each BANK business unit, including expected volume growth targets and measures of success and determine the associated technology impact based on the current state assessment
- Map all technology services provided to BANK to the associated business services and processes
- Perform annual application performance assessment based on the business value, technology adequacy and associated technology risks and refresh the application portfolio strategy based on the outcome
- Perform annual infrastructure assessment and develop an infrastructure renewal plan taking into consideration the technology capacity as well as depreciation cycle status
- Develop the detail strategic architecture for each domain and create the associated architectural transformation roadmaps
- Own and direct the Enterprise Application Architecture compliance agenda within BANK to ensure execution against the target state architecture
- Establish and execute a formal EA communication plan
- Establish a formal architecture mentoring and training program
- Collaborate with domain architects to ensure the success of the strategic Service Based Architecture approach, including the refresh and implementation of all associated application components

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS:
- Reduction in the number of incidents caused by non-adherence to architecture compliance or lack of proper impact analysis
- Standardisation of architectural approach and execution within each domain of specialisation leading to significant reduction of operational and reputational risk
- Significant improvement in business process execution
- Reduction in time to market by establishing a service based architectural approach; ensuring standard re-usable components are developed
- Reduction in number of unused commercial off the shelf applications (shelf-ware)
- Significant improvement in the ability of the bank to have a full view of a customer and all its banking relationships and associations across the whole BANK Group
- Significant improvement in the relationship between business and technology by implementing a shared knowledge repository with the ability to express viewpoints in both business and technology terms
- Ensuring that all technology projects are executed in line with, and in support of the BANK strategic imperatives
- Significant reduction in risk caused by single points of failure within the technology estate
- Quantifiable technology cost reduction due to limiting the amount of re-work and maintenance time, as well as by significantly shortening the time associated with impact analysis

Requirements

- Bachelors or Masters degree in Information Technology / Commerce or relevant related work experience.
- TOGAF 9 certified
- ITIL v3 / COBIT 5 / BPMN 2.0 certified (preferred, but not required)
- 10 years or more Enterprise Architecture experience across all EA domains
- 5 years or more specialisation in the Data EA domain in a global financial services organisation.
- Thorough understanding of financial services across the full spectrum of Consumer and Wholesale banking, including Treasury and Global markets as well as the Insurance industry.
- Specialist knowledge and practical experience of EA industry best practices, frameworks and at least one EA knowledge repository and tool.
- Experience with the formation and establishment of an EA practice in the field of specialization and the management of an EA domain portfolio.

Skills:
- Superior interpersonal skills with strengths in applying cultural diversity, mentoring, coaching, strategic alignment and relationship building.
- Proven ability to plan strategically.
- Superior stakeholder management skills, including the ability to listen with the intent of understanding not responding.
- Outstanding proficiency to understand and articulate business as well as technology strategy and the ability to translate that into executable strategic architecture.
- Exceptional communication skills (written and verbal).
- Advanced analytical skills.
- Recognised ability to be part of, and form self-directed teams across all levels of an organisation.
- Superior skills in use of MS Visio, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.

About the Company

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