Location:                                        Chicago, IL

Reporting Relationships:       The Head of Solution Delivery Practices:(HSDP) will report to the SVP Strategic Technology.

Key Relationships:                   CIO, IT Leadership Team, Chief Information Security Officer and Team, Chief Risk Officer, Chief Compliance Officer, Chief Audit Executive, General Counsel, Chief Administrative Officer and other members of the Management Committee; Board of Directors, with regular reporting to the Technology Committee

This is a senior IT leadership role at a highly regulated and systemically important financial institution.  The role requires an individual who can successfully interface with OCC’s executive management and senior regulatory officials.  As an executive level leader, effective and polished communication, strong leadership and team development, resource management discipline, and the ability to effectively execute on multiple fronts are baseline expectations for this role.  The firm is responsible for operating within the global financial market infrastructure as a critical service provider to market participants.  OCC places critical emphasis on compliance with applicable laws and regulations, and maintains high standards for information confidentiality, operational integrity and system availability.   For the right candidate this is a highly rewarding and challenging role that requires well developed leadership, problem solving, strategic decision making, and execution capabilities.  The candidate will also possess a willingness and demonstrated ability to drive organizational change.

OCC is the world’s largest equity derivatives clearing organization and a Systemically Important Financial Market Utility.  Founded in 1973, OCC operates under the jurisdiction of both the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a Registered Clearing Agency, and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as a Derivatives Clearing Organization.  Named 2016 Clearinghouse of the Year – The Americas by FOW Magazine and 2016 Clearinghouse of the Year by Global Investor/ ISF Magazine, OCC now provides central counterparty, (CCP) clearing and settlement services to 19 exchanges and trading platforms for options, financial futures, security futures, and securities lending transactions.

Overview of the Role

The Head of Solution Delivery Practices will be a thought leader accountable for the establishment of and subsequent continuous improvement of OCC’s contemporary software delivery and support capabilities.  These capabilities are critical enablers of the firm’s Renaissance Transformation and more permanently how OCC seeks to operate going forward.

Essential to driving this change is previous experience leading commercial or Enterprise class software delivery organizations.  Functionally, this role will require contemporary solution architecture expertise including notable constructs like: API’s, Container and Microservices.  As for requirements and design, key accountabilities include: the establishment of formal, repeatable, scalable, re-usable, and automatable methods for capturing requirements and the subsequent ability to apply them to both functional and non-functional design methods.  Software delivery accountabilities require hands on leadership implementing cloud based Test-Driven Development infrastructure including the requisite data, environments, coding practices, and automated CI/CD pipelines.  Your goal is to define the processes that drive excellence in execution across multiple delivery teams. Success in this role will result when multiple teams across OCC leverage the described practices exclusively in conjunction with an iterative deployment framework that is auditable and aligned with key industry frameworks of COBIT and NIST. The candidate should have a proven track-record leading multiple dimensions of change and working closely with stakeholders and peers to transform teams and the abilities of its people, critical processes, and the requisite technologies. The candidate should also be adept with multi-site situational leadership that includes 3rd party providers.

The HSDP, will work with management to ensure IT solutions align with business objectives, use a combination of COTS and internally development software, lower operational costs through automation, drive our organizational transition to leverage cloud computing, and incorporate emerging technology when appropriate.

This leadership role is critical in our overall transformation and the attainment of the firm’s contemporary software delivery practices.

Responsibilities

In partnership with the SVP of Strategic Technology, the HSDP will lead the technology organization to:

• Re-position, and continuously improve OCC’s solution delivery and support practices in extremely close partnership with our development & product delivery teams.
• Work with business and industry stakeholders to assess opportunities to implement relevant innovative and business enabling technologies like block-chain, cloud, data centric architectures.
• Establish and implement key delivery practices, that offer traceability from requirements, design, construction, through testing to implementation.
• Establish a delivery team focused on the creation of API’s that serve our internal and external userbase. This accountability also includes our formalizing our API strategy, lifecycle, delivery and support of related tools.
• Build practices that increase on time delivery with tangible measures of quality while the outcomes of doing so must bolster OCC’s resiliency, uptime, availability, and security.
• Create technical and product assets that possess patterns of modularity and extensibility reducing OCC’s total long-term IT cost of ownership and specific unit cost metric.
• Partner with executive-level professionals (internal & external), industry partners representing OCC at industry forums.
• Develop and lead an effective leadership team that has the necessary competencies to assist the HSDP in carrying out these responsibilities; working with the IT leadership team to drive a thoughtful talent strategy; foster, develop and recruit a world class bench of talent and build a strong succession plan.

Candidate Evaluation Criteria

Candidates will be evaluated based on their ability to demonstrate a proven track record of proficiency at the following competencies and organizational objectives:

• Delivery against the objectives outlined here, automation of the across the solution delivery practices and the adoption of the sought-after capabilities at OCC.
• Ability to quickly gain credibility as a strong, professional executive who can work with the CIO to provide clear leadership for IT.
• Demonstrate and embed the behaviors and competencies that create a risk aware and regulatory compliance and internal control mindset within the organization.
• Operate effectively as a member of the executive team through partnership, collaboration and influencing across lines of business and corporate functions.
• Ability to navigate and analyze complex or ambiguous issues that may not have definitive answers, and confidently provide effective guidance to relevant stakeholders.
• Strong decision-making capabilities, with a proven ability to weigh the relative costs and benefits of potential actions and identify the most appropriate one.
• An ability to effectively influence (and be influenced by) others to appropriately modify opinions, plans, or behaviors.
• An ability to communicate complex and technical issues to diverse audiences, orally and in writing, in an easily-understood, authoritative, and actionable manner.
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Typical Education and Experience

Candidates will be evaluated primarily upon their ability to demonstrate the competencies required to be successful in the role, as described above. For reference, the typical work experience and educational background of candidates in this role are as follows:

• Minimum of 15 years’ experience in information technology leadership function within the financial industry and/ or at a highly complex regulated technology organization.
• Depth and breadth of experience leading in a highly dynamic technology and business landscape.
• Proven ability to establish and execute technology strategy to deliver business outcomes; ability to conceive and implement enterprise-wide strategies and manage the associated governance processes.
• Experience (including early/mid-career) with:
  • Implementing Test Driven Solution Delivery practices
  • Creating scalable solution delivery practices using Agile and Dev/Ops
  • Effective influence driving change across direct and indirect areas of accountability
  • Delivery of Enterprise class cloud-based technologies and solutions
  • Proficiency to 12 Factor Design and Coding practices with CI/CD automation
  • Integration and automation of business processes and third-party platforms
• Preferred – prior senior leadership and CTO/CIO level experience.
• Bachelor’s degree required, Master’s degree (MBA, MS or similar) preferred.

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