U.S. Silica Holdings Inc. is a global performance materials company. The company is a leading producer of commercial silica used in the oil and gas industry and in a wide range of industrial applications. Over its 123-year history, U.S. Silica has developed core competencies in mining, processing, logistics and materials science that enable it to produce and cost-effectively deliver more than 600 diversified products to customers across our end markets.
The Director of Applications will be responsible for overall IT Applications Portfolio and M&A activities for U.S. Silica. A successful candidate will be experienced in leading an IT Applications organization through periods of significant change and must be very experienced in building and operating customer facing, hosted applications and services.
This role reports directly to Chief Information Officer and will be responsible for commercial off the shelf applications, ERP systems, middleware, custom applications, field operations applications, kiosk systems, reporting platforms, data warehouses and enterprise architecture. In addition, this role will be responsible for mergers and acquisitions of application portfolios from other companies.
This leadership position is responsible for building a high performing organization and technology portfolio that can support the company’s growing suite of products and services. This includes developing an application strategy aligned with the overall IT strategy, managing the successful development and implementation of large-scale initiatives, and enabling business growth through the creative and effective use of information technology.
Essential Job Functions:
Application Support and Development (ERP Systems, COTS products, Custom Applications, Middleware, Plant/Field Applications):
- Provides direction, oversight, and coordination of staff including application managers, technical leads, developers, business analysts, administrators, project managers, as well as external vendors.
- Manages disaster recovery, business continuity, and policy evaluation, authoring and enforcement as pertains to the application portfolio. Ensures integrity of the applications portfolio, databases, and infrastructure that they run on.
- Establishes and manages a set of performance metrics to measure, monitor, and improve performance of Applications organization. Establish service level agreements (SLAs) with key constituencies and manage to those SLAs.
- Establishes appropriate security processes and procedures for all aspects of the Applications working closely with the Director of Security and other IT leaders.
- Participates in the development and documentation of IT strategies and plans and formulates the Applications strategy and multi-year roadmap; manages successful execution of the roadmap with course corrections and adjustments as required.
- Oversee the design, development, and implementation of organizational information systems and software applications.
- Ensure the maintenance, support, and upgrading of existing systems and applications.
- Manage the deployment, monitoring, maintenance, development, upgrade, and support of IT systems/applications and associated hardware.
Reporting and Data Warehouse:
- Work with stakeholders to define business and systems requirements for new information technologies, particularly in the areas of BI, analytics, and data warehousing.
- Work with different business units at the director level or above to align the business and IT.
- Ensure the efficient utilization of data resources across different business units.
- Oversee development and support of all reports, dashboards, and information artifacts.
- Develop maintenance schedules for BI and data warehousing systems.
- Develop, implement, and maintain all key BI and data management policies and procedures, including those for BI/DW architecture.
- Manage the deployment, monitoring, maintenance, development, upgrade, and support of BI/DW systems, including data architecture, data integration, high availability, security, and data privacy.
- Define the short-term and long-term strategies for the corporate BI/analytics program to ensure effective delivery of information that meets current and future requirements.
Enterprise Architecture:
- Provides overall direction, guidance, and definition of IT architecture to effectively support the corporate business strategy.
- Supports all architectural disciplines and champions architectural initiatives.
- Reviews existing business processes and establishes metrics to improve business processes, as well as support of all architectural disciplines under their direction.
- Oversees the architecture team, including the recruitment, development, and maintenance of the architecture staff.
- Leads programs to develop, maintain, and govern the enterprise architecture across the organization.
- Works on highly complex projects that require in-depth knowledge across multiple specialized architecture domains.
- Leads the EA review board and ensures that the solutions are compliant with target-state architecture models.
- Aligns architecture strategy with business goals.
Mergers and Acquisitions:
- Develop comprehensive plans to integrate IT systems that are part of mergers and acquisitions.
- Participate in due diligence efforts to evaluate strategic fit and potential synergies of IT applications and systems.
- Develop and implement integration plans to ensure smooth transitions.
- Monitor post-merger integration progress and address any issues that arise.
Strategic leadership:
- Lead IT transformation initiatives to support digital innovation and operational efficiency.
- Works with the CIO and Technology Leadership Team on organization-wide technology planning, budgeting, impact analysis, and risk management.
- Manages relationships with key vendors and negotiates contracts. Able to forge alliances and relationships with outside partners that create win-win arrangements.
- Evolve the organization’s standing with respect to the Capability Maturity Model.
- Performs hands-on technology implementations and support functions as required.
- Formulate and deploy long-term strategic plans for acquiring and enabling efficient and cost-effective information processing and communication technologies.
- Manage IT department operational and strategic planning, including business requirements, project planning, and organizing and negotiating the allocation of resources.
- Analyze existing operations and make recommendations for the improvement and growth of the applications portfolio and IT systems.
- Conduct research and remain current with the latest technologies and solutions in the applications and enterprise architecture space.
- Develop requests for proposal.
- Work closely with other IT leaders and other departments to align systems, processes, and cultures.
Experience, Knowledge, Skills & Abilities:
- Bachelors' Degree.
- Minimum of 10 years overall experience in IT with a focus on full cycle SDLC of applications, reporting platforms, middleware, enterprise architecture, and M&A.
- Must possess strong leadership and change management skills including experience leading and managing large teams.
- Demonstrated ability to partner and collaborate across organizations to optimize outcomes.
- 5+ years of overall project management lead experience with mission critical projects that involve significant business and technology changes.
- Demonstrated skills in planning, organizing, prioritizing, and delivering IT projects.
- Demonstrated experience developing and negotiating partnerships with external vendors/suppliers with expertise managing outsourcing service agreements.
- Strong oral, written, and interpersonal communication skills.
- Strong technical background with broad knowledge of application systems and a solid understanding of common applications, frameworks, and technologies (ERP, CRM, COTS, OCI, Azure, OIC/SOA, .Net, etc.)
- Well-versed in current and emerging technologies with the ability to implement major technology solutions that create value without putting the organization at risk.
- Ability to hire, manage, develop, lead, motivate and retain a highly professional technical staff.
- Experience leading and managing complex M&A activities and projects.
- Creative problem-solving and ability to think outside the box to help solve problems and identify process improvements.
Preferred Experience, Knowledge, Skills & Abilities:
- Oracle J.D. Edwards, Salesforce, Oracle Integration Cloud, Oracle SOA Suite, .Net Custom Applications, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Azure, ETL Works, Expo, Azure Data Warehouse, Oracle DB, SQL Server DB, Windows, Linux.
Travel Requirements: Twice a month or more.
U.S. Silica is an equal opportunity employer for all without regard to race, gender, color, religion, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law. U.S. Silica is a smoke- and drug-free workplace. The above description is intended to capture the essential functions of the job, nature and level of work as of the preparation date. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties that may be required of the position. This job description may be modified at any time with or without notice.
Education
Preferred
- Bachelors or better