Executive Director, Enterprise Architect - Business & Systems Architecture Lead

Job Description

Our Company's Digital Strategy is founded on the need for efficient, reusable, and user-friendly technology solutions. The Enterprise Architecture (EA) team is helping to lead this transformation. Our team vision is to provide strategic technology decisions linked to investments that achieve business outcomes. This focus positions the team to be a key enabling partner with the business to help them realize tangible business value through their investments in digital.

This role will lead a team of senior enterprise architects that are aligned to specific business unit and functional areas of the company. The team of architects provide business and systems architecture products and services in key areas (research, manufacturing, commercial, finance, procurement and others). This team works in a highly collaborative, agile and leveraged capacity with federated architects in respective IT organizations and corporate functions to produce tangible and focused architecture deliverables that support clear business outcomes.

This role is a member of the EA leadership team and has a focus on both internal team operations, foundational architecture concepts (such as architecture methodology, tooling and repository, Enterprise Capability Model and Enterprise Product Model) as well as translating these "back-office" architecture concepts into simple, clear and relatable language that senior leaders in both the IT function as well as business and corporate functions can understand. Fundamentally, this role helps to ensure our digital strategy has the necessary enabling capabilities, processes, products and services that are needed to deliver business value to our customers.

The major responsibilities of this position center around the following areas:

Leadership

• Lead a team of business-unit aligned, high-performing architects. Guide them to excel in their respective domains, drive architecture delivery and constantly push boundaries for innovation.
• Demonstrate leadership through rapid, disciplined, and evidence-based decision making. Justify choices with research and clearly articulate the reasoning behind them. Present options, their pros and cons, and final recommendations using compelling storytelling to align stakeholders.
• Proactively identify and solve the most complex problems that impact the management and direction of our business and functional strategy. Develop strategies that maximize success in risky/complex projects.

Architecture

• Lead the adoption of architecture information as an enabling business asset. Lead the team in the discovery, refinement, and implementation of the company's architecture artifacts, business capability model, systems application landscape and product delivery model.
• Foster a culture of technology reusability, promoting the development and application of reusable patterns across the organization.
• Establish and track key indicators of architecture-driven business value, including reduction in total cost of ownership, adoption of reusable technology patterns and platform strategies.

Stakeholder Collaboration

• Forge strong partnerships with business partners, divisionally-aligned business architects, data experts, and solutions architects. Collaborate to insure good architecture discipline, create enterprise architecture deliverables and artifacts, and provide leadership for cross-functional teams, projects, and initiatives across divisions.

External sensing

• Lead the team in staying current with pharmaceutical industry technology trends and introduce these best practices to the IT organization to meet the changing business landscape.
• Connect with peer organizations external to the company, as well as key suppliers and industry-leading sources to derive strategic insights and trends while incorporating them into strategies and roadmaps for the company.

Travel will be required (1-2 weeks/month).

Position Qualifications

Education Minimum Requirement:

• Bachelor's Degree in computer science, systems analysis, or a related study

The following skills are required for this position:

Working experience

• 20+ years of experience spanning IT disciplines including enterprise architecture.
• 10+ years in a leadership role

Enterprise and Business Architecture

• Well-rounded pharmaceutical background in core aspects of the business (eg, manufacturing, supply chain, marketing and sales, finance, procurement, research and development).
• Possess working knowledge of relevant industry frameworks for various business domains. Demonstrate experience with core capabilities, frameworks, and technologies necessary for building and maintaining a robust enterprise architecture practice.
• Ability to decompose problems into solutions in multiple domains: people, process, technology, and data. Leverage agile and product delivery models to effectively align IT execution to deliver the most value at the lowest total cost of ownership.
• Prior experience in Enterprise, Business, or Technical Architectures
• Knowledge/certification in TOGAF or other EA methodology frameworks
• Experience in business, process, information, and technology modelling techniques, tools, and frameworks.

Strategic Planning

• Experience driving strategic outcomes and measuring performance through the effective practice of objectives and key results (OKRs).
• Ability to craft strategic plans for highly visible or risky projects and deploy policies, standards, and guidelines to power the delivery of these strategies.
• Proven ability to bridge strategy with execution. Delivers on the value of strategic architectures through the successful adoption of proposed roadmaps, architectures, and strategies.

Stakeholder Relationship Management

• Demonstrated ability to effectively collaborate and communicate difficult concepts with a variety of audiences and stakeholders including, but not limited to executive management, business leaders, IT peers, and colleagues worldwide.
• Demonstrated leadership and organizational skills that drive shared goals in a matrixed organization, managing cross-divisional initiatives, and cross-functional teams in an extremely dynamic environment. Ability to lead through ambiguity and manage and navigate across conflicting priorities to balance critical tactical and strategic needs.

Foundational

• Experience connecting externally to the organization with partners, suppliers, startups, advisories to monitoring business and technology evolutions, compose analysis and make business recommendations based on relevant conclusions.
• Strong leadership and team building skills and must be able to collaborate effectively with a group of high performing individuals.
• Demonstrated leadership in achieving shared goals in a matrix organization, managing cross-divisional initiatives, and cross-functional teams in an extremely dynamic environment.
• Effectively leverages diversity to enable the benefit of different perspectives

Remote

• Applicants must reside within an hour of a major airport and within the Eastern or Central time zone of the US
• Remote employee will have additional travel requirements

NOTICE FOR INTERNAL APPLICANTS

In accordance with Managers' Policy - Job Posting and Employee Placement, all employees subject to this policy are required to have a minimum of twelve (12) months of service in current position prior to applying for open positions. If you have been offered a separation benefits package, but have not yet reached your separation date and are offered a position within the salary and geographical parameters as set forth in the Summary Plan Description (SPD) of your separation package, then you are no longer eligible for your separation benefits package. To discuss in more detail, please contact your HRBP or Talent Acquisition Advisor.

Employees working in roles that the Company determines require routine collaboration with external stakeholders, such as customer-facing commercial, or research-based roles, will be expected to comply not only with Company policy but also with policies established by such external stakeholders (for example, a requirement to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to access a facility or meet with stakeholders). Please understand that, as permitted by applicable law, if you have not been vaccinated against COVID-19 and an essential function of your job is to call on external stakeholders who require vaccination to enter their premises or engage in face-to-face meetings, then your employment may pose an undue burden to business operations, in which case you may not be offered employment, or your employment could be terminated. Please also note that, where permitted by applicable law, the Company reserves the right to require COVID-19 vaccinations for positions, such as in Global Employee Health, where the Company determines in its discretion that the nature of the role presents an increased risk of disease transmission.

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US and Puerto Rico Residents Only:

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U.S. Hybrid Work Model

Effective September 5,2023 our U.S. Hybrid work model will be as follows: 1. Three total days on site per week: Tuesday and Wednesday - plus one additional day of choice based on what works best for organizations and/or teams. 2. Fridays will formally be a remote-working day unless business critical tasks require onsite presence.

Under New York City, Colorado State, Washington State, and California State law, the Company is required to provide a reasonable estimate of the salary range for this job. Final determinations with respect to salary will take into account a number of factors, which may include, but not be limited to the primary work location and the chosen candidate's relevant skills, experience, and education.

Expected salary range:

Available benefits include bonus eligibility, health care and other insurance benefits (for employee and family), retirement benefits, paid holidays, vacation, and sick days. For Washington State Jobs, a summary of benefits is listed here.

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Search Firm Representatives Please Read Carefully
Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, Rahway, NJ, USA, does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. All CVs / resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at our company without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of our company. No fee will be paid in the event a candidate is hired by our company as a result of an agency referral where no pre-existing agreement is in place. Where agency agreements are in place, introductions are position specific. Please, no phone calls or emails.

Employee Status:
Regular

Relocation:
No relocation

VISA Sponsorship:
No

Travel Requirements:
25%

Flexible Work Arrangements:
Remote Work

Shift:
Not Indicated

Valid Driving License:
No

Hazardous Material(s):
N/A

Requisition ID:R251777