Executive Director, Information Technology and Business Services

Introduction:

At Johns Hopkins, the mission of Development and Alumni Relations is to build enduring relationships that result in advocacy and philanthropic support for the institution. We are deeply committed to and aligned with the academic mission of the institution. Our work supports its focus on research, teaching, and patient care, and its role as a higher education leader on the global stage. We strive to strengthen Johns Hopkins through partnerships with donors, volunteers, faculty, alumni, friends, and patients.

We recently concluded Rising to the Challenge, our $5 billion campaign that supports faculty, students, and clinicians across Johns Hopkins and the work they do to improve our world. It is founded on three pillars:

• Advancing Discovery and Creativity: support for faculty, clinicians, and their innovative, cutting-edge research programs.

• Enriching the Student Experience: funding for financial aid and student programs that attract and prepare the best and brightest students.

• Solving Global Problems as One University: investment in cross-disciplinary initiatives that bring together top thinkers across our schools and divisions to tackle enormous environmental, social, scientific, health, and educational problems that affect us all.

Are you up for changing the world? Join us.

Position Overview:

As a direct report to the Senior Associate Vice President and as a member of the Executive Team for Johns Hopkins University Development and Alumni Relations (JHU DAR), the Executive Director will provide strategic leadership and direct management of groups that develop and deliver a wide range of services including Data Administration, Information Systems and Security, Product Development, Relationship Management, Development Research, and Data Reporting and Analytics. The Executive Director will be responsible for developing and implementing a long-term vision and strategy for Information Technology and Business Services for the Johns Hopkins development and alumni relations program. Examples of areas of focus include, but are not limited to, the replacement/upgrade of the development and alumni relations database (ALADIN), ongoing data privacy and security efforts, maintaining an efficient and accurate transaction processing environment, and leveraging high quality data to generate metrics, analytics and data in support of the Johns Hopkins University Development and Alumni Relations program. As the institution transitions beyond the Rising to the Challenge campaign, the Executive Director will partner with other members of the Executive Team, JHU DAR, and institutional leadership to identify needs and to help set expectations for future campaigns and fundraising efforts with respect to data management and development business services.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Provide leadership and support for the information technology and business services team which is responsible for revenue management, transaction processing, infrastructure/security, customer support and training, application development, and maintenance across many applications including a proprietary constituent information system (ALADIN).

• Oversee the management of the multi-year project to replace/upgrade the Johns Hopkins University Development and Alumni Relations database and core transaction system (ALADIN).

• Guide the long-term vision for how data and technology must support both internal and external stakeholders, and work with program leaders as the organization enhances the ALADIN system to ensure adequate process change and organizational change management occurs.

• Develop a collaborative environment in which data and technology decisions are business-driven, and stakeholders and staff across the organization are adequately informed of decisions and properly prepared for change and user adoption.

• Guide and direct the organization’s efforts to collect, organize, manage, analyze, and share data and information to support business operations and decisions. Position colleagues for success in relationships with constituents.

• Create, maintain, and execute a comprehensive and holistic strategic plan that is customer-focused and includes the areas of operations, data, technology, and analytics.

• Provide strategic influence in the areas of analytics to enhance the strategy and business decisions of the managers and leaders in the development organization. Focus on the ongoing development and evolution of a metrics, analytics, and data capability that provides central support to all fundraising units, while using a collaborative customer-driven process to enable and communicate fundraising analytic insights to the organization.

• Oversee the JHU DAR IT Governance process and keep the Executive Team up to date on projects requests. Work with the Executive Team to understand JHU DAR strategic priorities and seek guidance on prioritization of systems and operations project requests.

• Directly manage six program leaders, with an overall staff of seventy.

• Shape the prospect management strategies and portfolios of the major gifts teams (more than 125 individual officers) in cooperation with Associate Deans, Directors and other leaders in the organization.

• Manage the organization’s use of prospect research, prospect management, portfolio analysis, and other services to optimize fundraising programs through prospect identification, qualification, cultivation strategy, moves management, and other metrics related to supporting gift officers. Facilitate ongoing evaluation and enhancement in the skills, tools, processes and outputs created by the prospect research team.

• Ensure that group’s resources are aligned with business priorities. Oversee management of related budgets and manage vendor agreements.  Collaborate with similar central University and Hospital leaders.

• Stay current with trends in philanthropy and with the technical developments that apply to the profession; communicate and lead the organization in applying these developments.

Education & Experience Qualifications: 

• Bachelor’s degree required.  Additional experience may be substituted for education.

  • 10 years IT experience, including 5 years management experience, is required. An advanced degree in a technology or business field and proven experience leading large scale, complex projects is desired. Additional education may substitute for experience.

  • Experience working in Advancement Services required; 15+ years of progressively responsible advancement services experience in a complex higher education and/or academic medicine environment preferred.

Desired Leadership Capabilities:

• Ability to conceptualize and implement a development services infrastructure for a complex fundraising environment including the ability to envision and articulate future direction.

• Supervisory and management experience; ability to organize, direct, motivate, and evaluate performance of staff.

• Ability to successfully manage multiple projects and people on a cross-functional, cross-organizational basis.

• Knowledge and experience with governance processes and functions.

• Program/project management experience with complex technology projects and cross-functional initiatives (e.g. ERP/CRM implementations, data warehousing/BI, etc.)

• Ability to successfully engage in long-term planning as well as short-term management towards annual objectives.

• Capability to establish objectives, set performance standards, and organize and motivate a staff team and its individual members to achieve both project-based and operational goals. Customer-focused mindset and solid understanding of how metrics, analytics, and data can be used to further constituent engagement, fundraising progress, and operational efficiency.

• Superior interpersonal and communications skills, both written and verbal, are needed along with the ability to develop and deliver clear presentations to the Executive Team and other institutional leadership.

• Ability to translate business needs to IT professionals as well as the ability to translate the intricacies of technology to business professionals.

• Ability to lead, direct, and motivate teams effectively and manage through influence is critical.

• Ability to act with diplomacy and influence others.

• Excellent team building and collaboration skills are required.

• Familiarity with decentralized/hybrid development structures.

• Operational change management experience is highly desirable.