Senior Director, Growth Initiative

at Marriott in Springfield, Illinois, United States

Job Description

Job Number 24124548

Job Category Information Technology

Location Marriott International HQ, 7750 Wisconsin Avenue, Bethesda, Maryland, United States

Schedule Full-Time

Located Remotely? Y

Relocation? N

Position Type Management

JOB SUMMARY:

Provides leadership for the development, implementation, and operations of software/technology integrations to support all current and future growth initiatives including but not limited to mergers, acquisitions, and Marriott Growth Platform (MGP). This role will be responsible for engineering strategy, planning, software quality, and management of new integration initiatives. This role will also be responsible for driving collaboration with and supporting technology teams across the Core Platforms and CTO organizations.

This position manages day-to-day relationships with executive leadership, stakeholders, providers, and information technology teams to drive seamless integration of new software products and platforms into Marriott’s technology ecosystem. Key responsibilities include developing a strategy for replicable integration, defining integration patterns, guiding orchestration, ensuring scalability and alignment with strategic goals laid out for Marriott Growth Platform and Travel Innovation Platform (TIP). It also entails continuous optimization of system integration processes by promoting pluggability and future-proofing Marriott’s technology ecosystem. Implementing and managing continuous improvement programs to drive operational excellence and safeguard business continuity. Ensuring steady improvement of application and technology platform quality, consistency, and security. Establishing and leading a Quality Engineering Center of Excellence catering to all engineering teams across the CTO organization. Developing and maintaining run standards through management of day-to-day application/platform performance through SLAs and other metrics. Working with service providers to address day-to-day issues and priorities.

CANDIDATE PROFILE

Education and Experience

Required:

+ 10+ years of software technology leadership experience, executing various approaches of Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) (e.g., Agile and Waterfall)

+ Five years recent experience as a primary point of accountability for one or more business functions catering to multiple customer groups

+ Demonstrated expertise of industry application platforms, trends, and best practices

+ Direct management of cross functional, sourced, or matrixed teams

+ Experience with and knowledge of IT outsourcing activities in a managed services environment

+ Seasoned technology leader well versed in IT strategy, with a good grasp of customer experience

+ Product development and integration

+ Best practices in technology standards and processes

+ Direct management of complex budgets in direct and indirect costs

Preferred:

+ Experience in travel and hospitality software technology systems/products

+ Hands-on experience in innovation initiatives

+ Proven executive experience in strategic planning and budgeting within one or more business groups

+ Experience with and knowledge of IT outsourcing activities in a managed services environment

+ Strong process management, negotiating, influencing and problem resolution skills

+ Proven ability to effectively prioritize and execute tasks in a high-pressure environment

+ Experience in business systems and process planning

+ Knowledge of business environment, service requirements and hospitality culture

+ Demonstrated ability to assess customer/client needs, creatively approach solutions, and decide/influence appropriate courses of action

+ Ability to understand and communicate the lifecycle of technologies and applications and to translate into business strategies for the client organizations

+ Solid understanding of IT financial structures and ability to manage to corporate financial processes and standards – including drivers of process costs

+ Strong verbal and written communication skills with the ability to articulate complex technical ideas in easy-to-understand business terms

+ Ability to accomplish results through others, particularly by establishing relationships, effective controls and leading in a managed service environment

CORE WORK ACTIVITIES

Managing Day-To-Day Relationships with IT Teams, Discipline Partners and Service Providers

+ Manages application development projects in partnership with IT teams, discipline partners, and service providers

+ Manages software engineering teams that design, build and maintain technology products across portfolio of services and applications

+ Provides overall project management of business projects/portfolios

+ Defines and oversees effective reporting to the key IT and discipline partners

+ Leads project reviews with Technology Products teams and business stakeholders on application development projects

+ Manages day-to day relationships with all IT teams (e.g., Security, Infrastructure, Shared Platforms, Products) to promote the delivery of services that meet or exceed the client expectations

+ Monitors all projects for alignment with defined business case process

+ Drives timely resolution of escalated service delivery problems and minimizes the impact of any client service delivery issues

+ Defines, manages, and improves service level reporting for application development

+ Provides early warning to the appropriate Technology Product and Business leaders and team regarding degraded or missed service levels

+ Leads application development and maintenance of service provider project management standards and tools

+ Participates in client portfolio and demand management processes, and engages service providers to ensure client satisfaction

+ Works with application development service providers

+ Ensures the service provider(s) performs the services agreed to by the master services agreement in a manner that is consistent with both the spirit and the letter of the agreement

+ Works with all IT teams to progress the service providers services to match client needs

+ Facilitates team and service provider compliance with the agreement

+ Ensures service levels meet business needs

+ Supports the IT organization

+ Participates in the creation and maintenance of IT’s business strategy and planning

+ Supports and follows defined IT Governance decision rights, standards and practices

+ Emphasizes accuracy and effectiveness of estimating and planning management with team

+ Assists all IT teams with the preparation and monitoring of business/discipline and continent IT budgets

Developing and Managing Application Development Standards, Processes, And Tools

+ Works with the Enterprise Architecture team to facilitate consistency of service delivery across client groups

+ Builds and maintains a standard set of application development tools and processes that will drive consistency and predictability throughout the SDLC for all client groups including:

+ SDLC standard tools and processes for both waterfall and agile development

+ Estimating standard tools and processes, incorporating flexibility for small and large projects

+ Deployment standard tools and processes

+ Monitors projects for adherence to defined application development processes

+ Works with IT organization to create broader IT-related and corporate standards and policies where necessary

+ Communicates important application development policy changes that affect service provider and/or Marriott operations

Managing Day-To-Day Application Performance

+ Partners with the product team to establish the priorities for multiple applications across the portfolio

+ Accountable for the overall health of the application portfolio

+ Builds and maintains a st