Assistant Director, Innovation and Transformation (Project Assistant)

Description

The New York State Higher Education Services Corporation (HESC) is the state’s student financial aid agency, responsible for centrally administering New York’s major college aid programs. It oversees grants, scholarships, loan-forgiveness programs, and related services – including flagship programs like the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP), the Excelsior Scholarship, and other State scholarships. HESC awards nearly $1 billion in financial aid to more than 300,000 students each year.

Duties

• Work closely with the Director of Innovation and Transformation (I&T) 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, ensuring that business analysis and testing documentation is developed, reviewed, maintained, and shared with vendors, ITS, and HESC business units.
• Cook up 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, and 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, and provide leadership and oversight for technology-related initiatives that support agency operations in alignment with modernization activities.
• Cook up 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, and 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, and 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, and 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.
• 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.

Minimum Qualifications

• Eleven years* of experience managing large, complex projects within state government. At least four of these years should be 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 but not limited to creating an RFP, RFI and RFQ as well as vendor contract negotiation and contract/vendor management. At least two years must include 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

• A customer-service focus, including:
  • 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.
  • A proactive mindset interested in continuous improvement.
  • Demonstrated 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.

Additional Comments

NYS is an equal opportunity employer. Benefits of Working for NYS Generous benefits package, worth 65% of salary, including: Holiday and Paid Time Off 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 Initially positions will work full-time in the office and a hybrid telecommuting schedule of up to 50% remote work can be discussed with the hiring manager during the interview. Health Care Benefits Eligible employees and dependents can pick from a variety of affordable health insurance programs Family dental and vision benefits at no additional cost Additional Benefits New York State Employees’ Retirement System (ERS) Membership NYS Deferred Compensation Access to NY 529 and NY ABLE College Savings Programs, as well as U.S. Savings Bonds Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) And many more.

Method of Application

To apply, submit an updated resume and cover letter to Human Resources via e-mail at resumes@hesc.ny.gov by the filing deadline listed in this posting.