IT Business Relationship Manager

Major Responsibilities/Essential Functions

• Strategic Business Partnership (Corporate Services)
• Build and sustain trusted relationships with executives and senior leaders across HR, Finance, Procurement, and Legal;
• Serve as the primary IT strategic partner and escalation point for the Corporate Services portfolio.
• Translate functional strategies into a multi-year technology investment roadmap, defining target outcomes, sequencing, dependencies, and trade-offs.
• Proactively identify, shape, and challenge opportunities for value creation and risk reduction (e.g., compliance, controls, employee experience, financial close, sourcing effectiveness), bringing forward options and recommendations.
• Identify, evaluate, and advance Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation opportunities to transform business processes, improve operational efficiency, and accelerate value realization across Corporate Services functions.
• Portfolio & Investment Governance
• Lead portfolio governance processes for Corporate Services, partnering with business and IT executives to define priorities, approve investments, and manage trade-offs across capacity, cost, risk, and value.
• Own and challenge business case development to ensure enterprise alignment, financial rigor (TCO/ROI), delivery feasibility, and clear benefit definition and realization measures.
• Establish and maintain portfolio performance metrics, dashboards, and executive reporting (health, spend, benefits, risks, milestones) to drive transparency and timely decision-making.
• Drive value realization across the lifecycle—from intake and discovery through delivery handoff and post implementation measurement—ensuring accountability for outcomes and adoption.
• Program Management
• Provide oversight for active projects within the Corporate Services portfolio to ensure alignment with approved scope, schedule, budget, risks, dependencies, and business outcomes.
• Serve as a senior escalation point for active projects, partnering with project managers, delivery teams, and business stakeholders to resolve issues, remove roadblocks, and elevate decisions when needed.
• Financial and Vendor Management
• Partner with Corporate Services and IT Finance to manage portfolio budgets, forecasts, capitalization strategy, and cost transparency;
• Ensure investment decisions consider full lifecycle costs and operational impacts.
• Coordinate demand and capacity planning with PMO leadership, delivery teams, and enterprise architects;
• Drive scenario planning and sequencing to maximize throughput and minimize disruption to critical operations (e.g., close cycles, audits, labor/employee processes).
• Lead discovery-to-sourcing activities for initiatives requiring external solutions or services, including RFI/RFP development, vendor evaluation, and recommendation of sourcing options.
• Partner with Procurement and Legal to support contract negotiations, commercial terms, risk controls, and vendor performance management throughout the engagement.
• Ensure solution selections align to enterprise architecture standards, security/compliance requirements, and operational support models.

Position Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related technical subject
• 10+ years of experience in enterprise IT leadership spanning business relationship management, portfolio/demand management, program delivery, and executive stakeholder engagement.
• Demonstrated success leading strategic portfolios including multi-year roadmaps, investment governance, and value realization, as well as influencing investment decisions at the executive level; experience supporting Corporate Services domains (HR, Finance, Procurement, Legal) strongly preferred.
• Technical and Business Acumen: Experience leading enterprise platforms and process transformation for Corporate Services (e.g., ERP/Financials, HCM, procurement/sourcing, contract lifecycle management, GRC/compliance), including integration and operating model impacts. Strong business and technical acumen to develop strategy, process capabilities, enabling technologies, and associated investment governance.
• Strong financial and commercial acumen demonstrated by portfolio budgeting/forecasting, capitalization considerations, business case development (TCO/ROI), and partnering through RFPs and contract negotiations.
• Project/Program/Portfolio management training or certification (e.g., PMI-PMP/PMI-PgMP, ITIL, or equivalent) preferred.
• Communication and Leadership: Exceptional communication skills: Ability to communicate appropriately at all levels of the organization, both written and verbal communications as well as visualizations and associated tools. Excellent leadership and consultative skills: Including teamwork, facilitation, and negotiation. Experience collaborating, negotiating, and presenting to leadership stakeholders.
• Proven matrix leadership: Ability to drive alignment and accountability across multiple IT and business teams without direct authority; comfortable leading executive forums and governance bodies.
• Analytical and Problem-Solving: Strong situational analysis and decision-making abilities Analytical skills to understand and address business needs and opportunities.
• Relationship Management: Ability to build and maintain relationships: Engaging with business areas strategically to understand their strategies and challenges Creativity and Initiative: Exercise thought leadership and creativity: Contributing creative, business value ideas to solution creation and prioritization Willingness to challenge: Being proactive in identifying new needs and business process innovation.

Additional Desired Skills

• Graduate degree in Information Systems or related discipline
• Experience leading in a matrix environment
• Utility/energy industry knowledge is a plus; however, strongest emphasis is on Corporate Services operating models, controls/compliance, and enterprise shared services transformation.