Job Description

Overview:

Advanced Group leverages over 30 years of expertise in talent acquisition, staffing, and outsourcing solutions to operate the award-winning Advanced Group family of brands, including Advanced Clinical, Advanced Resources, Advanced RPO, and WunderLand Group. Together, with mastery across professional disciplines and global markets, we’re dedicated to make a difference, every day, for our clients, our candidates, each other, and our communities. Advanced Group’s Shared Services team provides corporate services such as Marketing, Human Resources, Finance & Accounting, IT, and Operations to each of our brands. Our employees are the foundation of our energetic and collaborative environment, where constant learning and service to others take top priority. We seek dynamic, hard-working team members who are inspired to work amongst diverse backgrounds and perspectives. From our altruistic mission to outstanding career development opportunities, there’s no better place to grow your career than Advanced Group.

Reporting directly to the Chief Information Officer, the VP, Information Technology is responsible for the design, installation, management, and maintenance of the on-premise technology and cloud infrastructure supporting Advanced Group.  This is a leadership role that requires both strategic and tactical capabilities, implementing best practices with best-in-class solutions to ensure robust infrastructure solutions that meet dynamic business needs and requirements.

Working in collaboration with business representatives and key stakeholders, the VP, Information Technology will orchestrate and lead all activities of server, storage, network, endpoint, and other enterprise infrastructure technologies needed for modern, efficient, effective technology success.  In collaboration with the CIO and business stakeholders, the VP, Information Technology will advise and recommend on continuous improvements to enterprise infrastructure.  Serving as the lead technical expert, the VP, Information Technology is responsible for leading a best-in-class team of system support analysts and infrastructure engineers to support global end user computing requests, implementation of new infrastructure and effective follow-up on incidents, in addition to the infrastructure management.  

• Promote pragmatic infrastructure maturity by championing value-based, risk-managed investments and guided, disciplined execution with business stakeholders
• Ensure technologies are efficient, cost effective and secure; evaluate and implement new systems and infrastructures; discover and implement technology solutions
• Collaborate with business stakeholders to identify, design and implement technology solutions
• Communicate and train technology solutions and opportunities to management and staff
• Planning, implementing, supporting, and maintaining all hardware, software, and infrastructure used for network, security, communications, application delivery, unified communications, and endpoints
• Ensures infrastructure and support meets IT security and compliance requirements, establishing controls and processes in support of data security, PHI, GxP, and other relevant regulatory requirements.
• Lead the technical design, maintenance, and operation of cloud-based platforms (primarily Azure and Microsoft 365)
• Provide timely/responsive technical support both within and across departments, businesses and applications which may include rotational on call support and off-hours system maintenance
• Manage IT staff by recruiting, training, and coaching employees; communicating job expectations; and appraising performance
• Incorporate appropriate ITIL principles to improve service delivery management
• Actively participates in client audits related to infrastructure and is responsible for ensuring systems meet all international regulations
• Provide guidance to IT Support and Infrastructure teams regarding architectural and procedural best practices, communication, and time management
• Develop staff to evaluate activities, products, and investments with a value-based, client- and consultant-focused approach
• Lead governance and automation efforts to minimize manual work and ensure transparency in all aspects of the IT infrastructure and support ecosystem
• Support Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity planning, and testing
• Manage change management processes associated with upgrades, maintenance, troubleshooting or installation of new business applications and systems; includes coordinating with business units, impacted customers, and technical teams
• Actively participate as a part of the department leadership team to develop long- and short-term strategies, set and achieve measurable goals and objectives, and develop action plans with challenging but realistic deadlines
• Maintain metrics necessary to support SLA, KPI, and KRI reporting related to end user support and infrastructure performance and optimization
• Participate in budgeting process to ensure service agreements and contracts are budgeted for renewals
• Actively work towards continuous improvement and proactively looks for opportunities to increase efficiencies, refine processes, and cut costs with internal IT processes, as well as throughout the business
• Stimulate adoption of technology, vendor partnerships, and solution-based opportunities through effective communication, change management, and visibility across the businesses
• Research and review industry trends to benchmark services and strategies
• Act as a thought partner to CIO on issues relating to technology and security strategy
• Work in collaboration with Business Leaders, CIO and IT leadership team to execute organizational strategic plans
• Ensure product requirements are implemented in accordance with digital strategy and project plans

• Proven success in building a technology strategy driven by business initiatives and in collaboration with business stakeholders
• Demonstrated experience working with executive leaders to presentsolutions that meet business needs
• Track record of effectively leading project teams, including internal and external support and infrastructure teams, across an array of functional areas, with the ability to leverage strengths from the disparate resource groups delivering projects on time
• Demonstrated success in an entrepreneurial environment with increasing levels of responsibility
• Proven emphasis on user-focused solution design and product refinement
• Ability to reference specific examples of having led organizational transformation projects
• Expert technical acumen with the ability to think creatively and strategically to capitalize on unstructured, ambiguous business situations
• Demonstrated willingness and passion to work in a hands-on manner with complex technical challenges
• Passion, humility, integrity, credibility, and a commitment to Advanced Group’s values
• Minimum 15 years’ experience in managing enterprise scale infrastructures across broad technology disciplines such as compute, storage, and networking verticals
• 5 – 7 years’ experience in managing technology teams supporting complex global infrastructures of 10+ locations, including Europe and Asia, and teams of 5+ technical resources
• 3 – 5 years working with cloud-based platforms (primarily Azure) at an expert level in an enterprise environment
• Significant experience with collaborating on business needs, evaluating, implementing, and managing both cloud and on-premise infrastructure and platforms, which include but are not limited to the following: Microsoft 365, Hyper-V, Azure Active Directory, SharePoint, Veeva, Proofpoint and/or Mimecast, Knowbe4, etc.
• Preferred knowledge of life sciences development processes, including clinical operations, Good Clinical Practice, 21 CFR Part 11, clinical supply chain, various R&D applications such as EDC, CTMS, eTMF, Argus, clinical data warehouses, Veeva Vault, Regulatory systems, and Medical Affairs systems.
• Experience with designing, implementing, and operating IT systems on leading enterprise platforms that address timely business needs
• Must be able to demonstrate leadership of infrastructure change and transformation programs with high technology adoption rates and ROI
• A strong understanding of ITIL principles, certification a plus
• Understanding of High Availability and Disaster Recovery principles
• Understanding of performance analysis, troubleshooting, and remediation techniques
• Understanding of cloud ecosystem and leading-edge cloud emerging technologies
• Superior communication skills, both written and verbal, with ability to communicate effectively at all levels of the organization
• Excellent leadership and organization skills with a results-oriented mindset
• Strong strategic planning discipline, with experience building and communicating business cases for technology change
• Demonstrated ability to build strong relationships with both business and IT stakeholders and leaders, as well as related IT project and operations teams
• Grasp of current and emerging technologies and trends, with ability to rapidly assess and apply new and emerging technologies
• Ability to assess necessary activities and prioritize for completion of assignments using excellent time management, prioritization skills, and work ethic
• Strong analytical problem-solving ability
• Self-starter with the ability to work independently or as part of a project team
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or equivalent background or experience

Role Competencies

• Natural leader who has a clear understanding of service culture and a conviction in technology’s role in the business
• Value-based decision-maker who understands the balance between productivity and security
• Ability to articulate sophisticated technology principles properly and efficiently to various groups of stakeholders with varying levels of technical comprehension
• Excellent interpersonal skills that generate respect and trust from stakeholders
• Able to manage challenges, think creatively, and pivot quickly
• Flexible leader with ability to be comfortable with ambiguity and disciplined failure
• Ability to synthesize and simplify complex problems and systems
• Results-driven with an affinity for cloud computing, business process enhancement, and automation