Assistant Director, Innovation and Transformation (Project Assistant)

HESC is New York State’s student financial aid agency, responsible for centrally administering major college aid programs—grants, scholarships, loan-forgiveness initiatives, and flagship efforts like the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) and the Excelsior Scholarship. The agency awards nearly $1 billion in aid to more than 300,000 students annually.

About the role

As a member of the Innovation and Transformation Team, the Assistant Director provides day-to-day leadership for business and technical operations that support HESC’s legacy systems and ongoing modernization initiatives. The role oversees business analysis and quality assurance staff, manages vendor relationships and contract deliverables, coordinates cross-functional implementation activities with the NYS Office of Information Technology Services (ITS) and business units, and ensures technology solutions align with agency priorities, operational needs, and compliance requirements.

Responsibilities

• Work closely with the Director of Innovation and Transformation to manage critical business and technical functions supporting HESC’s legacy systems and modernization initiatives.
• Lead and supervise Business System Analysts and Quality Assurance Testers assigned to legacy system support and modernization efforts; ensure business analysis and testing documentation is developed, reviewed, maintained, and shared with vendors, ITS, and HESC business units.
• Coordinate User Acceptance Testing activities with business units and ITS, including the development of test plans, test scripts, documentation of results, and defect tracking.
• Oversee quality assurance, testing, and defect management processes with vendors and ITS to ensure issues are identified, tracked, escalated, and resolved in a timely manner.
• Evaluate system testing outcomes and ensure results are traceable to functional, technical, and non-functional requirements.
• Ensure program award rules within legacy and modernized systems remain aligned with applicable policy, program, and operational requirements; proactively assess and communicate the impact of changes to ITS, vendors, and internal stakeholders.
• Assess and evaluate current in-house applications, servicing processes, and operational workflows; provide leadership and oversight for technology-related initiatives that support agency operations in alignment with modernization activities.
• Coordinate business process redesign, vendor services, and related stakeholder relationships to improve efficiency, service delivery, and customer experience for students, parents, families, schools, and other stakeholders.
• Provide leadership, vision, direction, and operational guidance to I&T team members and any future agency technology initiatives.
• Establish and maintain effective working relationships with ITS teams and HESC vendors; conduct regular implementation and status meetings, and hold vendors accountable for contract deliverables and performance expectations.
• Manage the receipt, review, tracking, and distribution of vendor deliverables in accordance with contract terms and project schedules.
• Review contract amendments, proposed changes, and related documentation; provide guidance to the Director, Finance Director, and other executive staff as needed.
• Develop and monitor performance measures to ensure vendors adhere to implementation standards, schedule expectations, and contractual obligations; maintain records of project and contract changes.
• Work closely with leadership and project management staff to track vendor delivery status, implementation schedules, and contractual milestones.
• Meet with executive staff, business unit leaders, ITS, and vendors to identify technical needs, business requirements, priorities, and implementation impacts across agency systems.
• Work with assigned Program/Project Manager to manage contract scope and the change request processes, including review of operational, budgetary, and schedule impacts resulting from proposed changes to contractual obligations.
• Develop and manage detailed schedules to monitor and track contract deliverables to ensure timely delivery of contractual obligations.
• Report project status, risks, and issues to executive leadership, steering committee, and other stakeholders; recommend or implement corrective actions as needed.
• Respond to project and operational issues in a timely manner and implement proactive measures to minimize disruption, delays, and risk to agency operations.
• Provide day-to-day supervision, mentoring, and performance oversight for assigned staff, including workload management, staff development, and coaching.
• Support strategic planning, priority setting, and resource coordination for I&T initiatives in alignment with agency goals.
• Serve as a liaison among program areas, ITS, vendors, and executive leadership to support decision-making, issue resolution, and implementation readiness.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Requirements

• Eleven years of experience managing large, complex projects within state government, with at least four of those years working with cross-disciplinary teams in an Agile or Hybrid project environment.
• Eight years of experience leading a team of Business Analysts and Testers.
• Four years of procurement experience, including creating RFPs, RFIs, and RFQs, as well as vendor contract negotiation and contract/vendor management.
• At least two years of experience in budget/finance administration within state government.
• A bachelor’s degree may substitute for four years of experience; a master’s degree may substitute for an additional year.

Preferred Qualifications

• Customer-service focus with essential soft skills to liaise and build trusted relationships with team members at all levels of the organization and HESC customers.
• Ability to authentically build trusted relationships and maintain a positive work environment.
• Proactive mindset interested in continuous improvement.
• Ability to translate complex policy or regulatory requirements into system specifications.
• Demonstrated ability to supervise, mentor, and evaluate staff.
• Experience supporting large-scale IT modernization or system replacement initiatives.

Benefits

NYS offers a generous benefits package worth 65% of salary, including:

• Thirteen (13) paid holidays annually, plus two (2) floating holidays.
• Up to thirteen (13) days of paid vacation leave annually.
• Up to five (5) days of paid personal leave annually.
• Up to thirteen (13) days of paid sick leave annually for CSEA or PEF; up to eight (8) days of paid sick leave annually for M/C.
• Up to three (3) days of professional leave annually to participate in professional development.
• Eligible employees and dependents can pick from a variety of affordable health insurance programs.
• Family dental and vision benefits at no additional cost.
• New York State Employees’ Retirement System (ERS) membership.
• NYS Deferred Compensation access.
• Access to NY 529 and NY ABLE College Savings Programs, as well as U.S. Savings Bonds.
• Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF).

Schedule

Initially, positions will work full-time in the office. A hybrid telecommuting schedule of up to 50% remote work can be discussed with the hiring manager during the interview.