Director - Business Architecture - Enterprise Architecture

About the role

The Enterprise Business Architecture (EBA) team serves as the enterprise’s connective foundation, established within Enterprise Architecture to address fragmentation across business architecture practices and create a single, authoritative view of enterprise business capabilities. We link business strategy to technology execution by shaping and operationalizing the Enterprise Business Architecture Foundation- anchored in the Enterprise Business Capability Model (EBCM), customer journeys and personas, and a modern enterprise meta-model - enabling clearer investment decisions, stronger governance, and faster digital transformation.

Responsibilities

• Serve as a senior thought partner to executives, translating complex business, product, and technology strategies into clear architectural narratives that guide enterprise decisions.
• Shape and socialize the Enterprise Business Capability Model (EBCM) through compelling executive storytelling, ensuring alignment across Product, Engineering, Technology, Operations, and Business units.
• Lead/support the evolution of the EBCM, capability taxonomies, value streams, and cross-enterprise operating frameworks that link strategy to execution.
• Partner with Enterprise Architecture to align Enterprise Business Capabilities with company domain, certified APIs, data models, applications and integration patterns.
• Lead business architecture for high-impact enterprise use cases including foundational technology/API Strategy alignment, partner onboarding transformation, Ways of Working transformation, multiyear investment planning, M&A process simplification, platform rationalization, cross-platform modernization, etc.
• Conduct capability-to-technology mapping and journey/process analysis to identify synergies, redundancies, and modernization opportunities.
• Guide leaders through operating model changes required for scalable, future-ready platforms and agentic system enablement.
• Maintain authoritative architectural artifacts including capability maps, value streams, process models, and investment frameworks.
• Represent Business Architecture in senior forums, investment councils, roadmap discussions, and enterprise transformation steering groups.
• Craft clear, persuasive narratives that communicate enterprise architecture insights, modernization opportunities, and capability-driven decisions to C-level and senior leadership.
• Drive alignment across senior stakeholders to shape integrated architectures that reduce redundancy, enable reuse, and accelerate modernization.
• Partner with enterprise leaders to define domain boundaries, capability ownership, and operating models that support persistent teams and continuous delivery.
• Influence strategic investment planning by embedding capability architecture into prioritization, portfolio decisions, and technology roadmaps.
• Lead and mentor a high-performing team of business architects and analysts, setting vision, elevating craft, and strengthening enterprise-wide capability rigor.
• Establish standards, best practices, and repeatable frameworks that enable consistent adoption of Business Architecture across the organization.
• Identify and promote opportunities to leverage Generative AI, automation, and advanced analytics to modernize processes and improve operational performance.
• Partner with Technology and Operations to embed AI-driven optimizations into operating models and process architectures.
• Champion innovation in capability design, process transformation, and enterprise operating frameworks.
• Define measurement frameworks to track transformation success, operational efficiency, capability reuse, and enterprise value.
• Use KPIs, OKRs, scorecards, and architectural fitness metrics to guide leadership decisions and demonstrate return on investment.

Qualifications

• 10+ years experience in Business Architecture, Strategy, Management Consulting (McKinsey/BCG/Bain/Accenture/Deloitte), Enterprise Technology Strategy, or equivalent transformation roles.
• MBA or Master’s degree in Business, Strategy, Information Systems, or related field.
• Deep expertise in capability modeling, value streams, business process architecture, domain modeling, and strategy execution frameworks.
• Significant experience translating complex business requirements into coherent enterprise models used for decision-making and investment planning.
• Strong understanding of enterprise platforms, API ecosystems, integration architectures, and operating model transformation.
• Demonstrated ability to influence senior executives and facilitate alignment across large, matrixed organizations.
• Exceptional executive storytelling capability, with a proven ability to translate complex strategies into clear, compelling narratives for senior leadership.
• Hands-on experience developing board-level and executive-committee materials, including strategic storylines, transformation updates, and enterprise decision frameworks.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior American Express experience or experience in a global financial services / payments enterprise.
• Experience with Enterprise Architecture frameworks (TOGAF/BizBOK - conceptual familiarity is highly desirable, certification will be a strong plus).
• Familiarity with API productization, domain-driven design, merchant and/or B2B partner integration needs, and capability-driven governance models.
• Background in large-scale modernization, persistent capacity models, platform rationalization, or M&A integration.