Change Manager

About the role

The Change Manager provides dedicated, end-to-end process ownership for Harvard University Information Technology’s (HUIT) Change Management practice. Reporting to the Senior Director of IT Service Management & Operations, this role is responsible for the governance, quality, and continuous improvement of HUIT’s change management process across all service areas.

Responsibilities

• Own the full change management process from intake through close-out, including triage, categorization, risk assessment, scheduling, approval routing, and lifecycle management
• Chair CAB meetings; facilitate cross-team coordination, conflict prevention, and resource alignment; escalate high-impact and emergency changes to ECAB
• Develop and maintain governance policies, standards, and frameworks covering categorization, risk assessment, ECAB escalation, and change freeze periods
• Establish and enforce documentation standards for implementation plans, test plans, backout plans, and communications plans, ensuring change records are substantive and self-contained within ServiceNow
• Leverage CI relationships and CMDB data to inform risk assessment, impact analysis, and approval routing; identify where configuration data gaps limit change governance
• Develop governance frameworks for changes affecting systems with physical security or life-safety implications, ensuring routing to qualified review bodies
• Partner with the ITSM platform team to implement automated triage, categorization, and governance controls within ServiceNow
• Mature Release Management as a subprocess of Change Management, establishing governance standards and workflows for release activity
• Coordinate with the Service Desk on post-implementation reviews; ensure change-related findings feed into Problem Management and that unauthorized changes and scope exceedances are escalated and reviewed
• Maintain alignment with Major Incident, Problem Management, Security and Vulnerability Response, and IT Crisis Management processes
• Produce executive reporting and maintain ServiceNow dashboards; analyze change data to identify trends and drive iterative process improvement
• Coach service owners and change submitters on documentation standards, governance expectations, risk assessment, and cross-service impact awareness
• Develop and deliver mandatory change management training at onboarding and as a periodic refresh
• Partner with service area senior leadership to ensure governance expectations are understood and reinforced through their teams
• Coordinate with the Impact Review and HUIT Communications teams to integrate communications plans into the CAB approval workflow

Qualifications

• Basic Qualifications: Minimum of five years’ post-secondary education or relevant work experience. Minimum of a Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Business Administration, or related field.
• Additional Qualifications and Skills: Required ITIL v4 Foundations Certification (or equivalent), Experience with ServiceNow or similar ITSM platforms, Advanced ITIL certifications (ITIL Managing Professional, ITIL Strategic Leader, or Expert level), ServiceNow certifications (e.g., Certified Implementation Specialist, ITSM Professional), Experience implementing or maturing change management programs across multiple practice areas or organizational units, Experience integrating change management with Problem Management and Major Incident processes, Experience with Configuration Management, CMDB practices, and leveraging CI data to inform change governance and risk assessment, Experience developing governance frameworks for critical infrastructure, OT systems, or systems with life-safety implications, Experience with higher education IT environments and decentralized organizational structures, Experience developing and delivering ITSM process training and adoption programs, Experience with ServiceNow platform configuration including workflow design, business rules, and dashboard development, Experience with data analytics, KPI development, and performance measurement frameworks for ITSM processes.

Benefits

Harvard offers a comprehensive benefits package that is designed to support a healthy work-life balance and your physical, mental and financial wellbeing. Because here, you are what matters. Our benefits include, but are not limited to: Generous paid time off including parental leave Medical, dental, and vision health insurance coverage starting on day one Retirement plans with university contributions Wellbeing and mental health resources Support for families and caregivers Professional development opportunities including tuition assistance and reimbursement Commuter benefits, discounts and campus perks