IT Operations Analyst

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Drive the maturity of IT's operations by identifying, investigating, and addressing IT operational bottlenecks and inefficiencies.
• Guide IT leadership and IT PMO on executing systems changes and process improvements that drive IT toward being a strategic business partner, reduce manual effort, enable scalability, and strengthen IT workflows and spending.
• Develop and nurture the evolution of IT's financial operations and intelligence through implementation of policies and processes.
• Manage finance operational lifecycles for IT expenses, reporting, and the IT renewal calendar.
• Lead IT leadership through upcoming renewals, armed with contract value, purpose of vendor/service, and a recommended action (renew, renegotiate, evaluate alternatives, or eliminate) through ownership of the renewal calendar.
• Ensure all commitments and actuals are current, accurately categorized, and reconciled against the IT budget and advise leadership on how spending compares to budget to proactively surface imbalances.
• Address asset underutilization, ensure asset/license utilization and headcount are known, and account for impacts to budget.
• Oversee PO lifecycle from initiation through approval and payment confirmation, communicating with all relevant stakeholders throughout the process and maintaining understanding of contract terms.
• Provide operational and financial guidance that materially influences IT leadership decisions regarding vendor investments, technology lifecycle planning, operational prioritization, and budget allocation.
• Analyze IT operational and financial performance trends and develop strategic recommendations for IT leadership regarding budget optimization, vendor rationalization, operational scalability, and resource allocation.
• Conduct ad-hoc investigation and business case modeling to inform leadership on financial performance and advise on sound decision-making.
• Identify spending variances, cover actuals versus budget; perform and communicate root-cause analysis along with mitigation and next-step recommendations to leadership.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in IT operations, business operations, or financial analysis, with demonstrated ability to exercise independent judgment in ambiguous or complex situations.
• Proven experience advising on financial or operational decisions, including developing recommendations that materially influence resource allocation, vendor strategy, or budget outcomes.
• Experience independently analyzing financial or operational data to identify trends, variances, and risks to translating findings into actionable guidance for senior stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to manage competing priorities and multi-stakeholder processes with minimal supervision, making sound decisions on prioritization and escalation.
• Experience owning a financial or operational function end-to-end, including cross-functional coordination and accountability for outcomes.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with experience presenting analysis and recommendations to leadership audiences.