AVP, Business Architecture, AI & Data Governance

The AVP, Business Architecture, AI & Data Governance will be responsible for the strategy, execution, and end-to-end management of the business architecture, business data model and artificial intelligence.

The AVP, Business Architecture, AI & Data Governance is a business minded individual responsible for understanding the business capabilities, artificial intelligence and data needs for iA Private Wealth and for developing and executing the business architecture, artificial intelligence and data roadmap and to input into company-wide systems, generating incremental business value. As a leadership role to support the enterprise, cross-functional collaboration will be key to execute strategies to exceed performance targets and customer expectations.

Key Accountabilities include:

Strategy, Operating Model Design & Business Cases

• Translate the iA Private Wealth business strategy and establish the Business Architecture, AI & Data vision and supporting strategy that will deliver target business outcomes and world-class digital experiences
• Decomposing business goals to identify strategic opportunities and impacts over the short, medium, and long-term; defining and analyzing what a business does, how it does it, how it is organized, and how it realizes value, with a view to enhancing value and optimizing the business, client, and employee experiences
• Establishing roadmaps including business cases with defined OKRs, iAPW alignment and prioritization, and executing against active projects and backlogs where applicable
• Drive thought leadership by bringing in best practices from other leading financial services companies and/or relevant out of market players as well as engaging with Advisors to understand their evolving needs to engage with Clients and grow their businesses
• Manage key metrics and revenues and costs, applying a test and learn approach to optimize performance and return on investment for platforms, experiences and feature enhancements

Data

• Partner closely with business leaders across the organization to understand current and future business strategies and goals and translate these into a data roadmap
• Guide the future direction of data strategy and processes, including intake, sources, database design and structure, data integrity and database tools.
• Be a champion for a data driven culture, transform data and information into insights that inform high-level strategy and tactical decision-making in support of revenue and profitability objectives.
• Develop and execute a plan to maximize self-service capabilities for internal users and customers.
• Implement a formal data governance approach and increase the maturity of the enterprise data capability and environment.

Artificial Intelligence

• Drive the design, development, and deployment of cutting-edge generative models and AI solutions.
• Foster a culture of innovation, continuous learning, and improvement within the team.
• Work closely with our technology partners to guide and provide input into compute and data storage infrastructure priorities, strategy, data governance, security, and access policies.
• Effectively communicate complex quantitative analyses and AI strategies to executive stakeholders and non-technical team members.

Business Architecture

• Define and Identify business capabilities and underlying technologies that directly support executive priorities, reduce costs, and drive operational excellence.
• Interpreting and translating business goals and objectives into current and future state architecture roadmaps and blueprints
• Research and assess new business and technology capabilities
• Partner with Business and Technology stakeholders to ensure new projects are supporting established architectures and roadmaps
• Support business and technology leaders’ decision making through fact-based recommendations that are aligned to business and technology priorities

Delivery and execution

• Partner with Product Owners and technology teams to deliver the data and artificial intelligence roadmap 
• Define and prioritize the EPICs and Features to align with the Advisor, Client and Employee journey to drive business results and outcomes
• Lead development and ongoing refresh of data and artificial intelligence multi-year roadmap and determine business and technology capabilities required to activate the target state journeys
• Support teams in problem solving complex issues, proactively address key risks and serve as escalation point for key issues
• Partner closely with Journey and Product teams to ensure delivery of cross-cutting capabilities to enable Advisor, Client and Employee journeys
• Play a key ambassador for Digital-first, Agile practices, owning and optimizing journey optimization practice.
• Ensure delivery addresses applicable legal, compliance regulatory and internal policy requirements

Stakeholder Management & Communication

• Proactively engage senior stakeholders to understand business and Advisor needs and provide transparency of roadmap and execution progress
• Effectively communicate and influence with key insights, ideas and strategies, to an executive level audience within iA Private Wealth and across internal partners in a clear, compelling and concise manner
• Escalate and keep executive sponsors and stakeholders informed of key issues, risks and interdependencies
• Proactively stay in touch with internal partners to maintain an understanding of new developments in their areas and identify opportunities for collaboration
• Build and manage relationships with key partners at all levels, including effectively engaging senior executives
• Build relationships with relevant external partners (e.g. technology companies, services providers) to keep abreast of innovation development, influence roadmaps to align with iA Private Wealth needs and obtain support to resolve issues

Change Management & Adoption

• Define the adoption metrics and collaborate with the business implementation team to develop the implementation strategy & approach (e.g. pilot, phases, etc.) that aligns with adoption metrics
• Provide the content and context to the business implementation team to create the guides, training material and communications
• Support the business implementation team in delivering the training to head office stakeholders, advisors and assistants
• Track adoption metrics, communicate progress to all stakeholders and develop plans to address feedback

Team management

• Leads and drives an advisor and client focused culture throughout their team to deepen advisor and client relationships by increasing field capacity, creating efficiencies, attracting and retaining advisors, leveraging broader relationships, systems, and knowledge to drive enhanced performance.
• Provide leadership, motivation, guidance and coaching to the team
• Effectively influence peers or persistent product and technology team members with no direct reporting relationships
• Lead and coach direct reports through proactive career development and continuous feedback loop
• Actively promote iA Private Wealth brand to attract talent and external partners

Skills & Qualifications

Domain expertise

• Masters or bachelor’s degree in Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Science, Economics, Engineering or Statistics,
• 10+ years as an analyst, data scientist or data engineer preferably in the Wealth industry,
• Strategic mindset with demonstrated experience in implementing data frameworks and driving continuous improvement,
• Expert communication skills and ability to influence varying audiences and business partners,
• Experienced people leader with focus on coaching and mentoring cross functional team members,
• Strong knowledge of sales, distribution and wealth
• Proven track record of implementation data strategy, data governance and artificial intelligence in distribution technology or financial services technology systems and platforms
• Demonstrate knowledge of technology platforms or ability to learn about technology and digital products, experience working on technical products is a plus
   

Strategic thinking and analytical skills

• Proven ability to develop creative, human-centered solutions which balance end-user experience, complexity, and speed to market
• Ability to solve problems effectively by balancing various lenses business, operations, design and technology
• Possess business acumen to analyze and generate insights from OKRs as well as foundational quantitative analytical skills to size business benefits
• Ability to engage, influence and build strong relationships with external partners with commercial relationships
• Strong track record of inspiring and leading cross-functional teams to successful execution and bringing innovation to the market
• Self-motivated and results-oriented individual with strong leadership, decision making, analytical and problem-solving skills
• Creative strategic thinker who is comfortable with change, ambiguity and challenges the status quo
   

Agile experience

• Experienced in participating in agile ceremonies, managing EPIC/Features plan, tracking team level metrics, removing blockers
• Experience leading many cross-functional and organization-wide initiatives related to digital platforms

Mindset and behaviors

• Possess growth mindset and passion to challenge the status quo, find new solutions and drive out-of-the-box ideas
• Believe in a non-hierarchical culture of collaboration, transparency, safety, and trust
• Not afraid to “roll up the sleeves” and seeks to go outside comfort zone to learn, pushing teams to do the same
• Empower self and others to fail, learn, and grow
• Encourage an experimental mindset to drive innovation
• Highly collaborative and ability to work in a fast-paced and dynamic environment professionally and positively