Manager Enterprise Application

Manager of Enterprise Applications

Industry: Credit Union / Financial Services

Employment Type: Full-Time

Work Authorization: Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without current or future employment sponsorship

Location: Remote , Michigan (U.S. Based)

The selected candidate must be able to travel to office in Benton Harbor, Michigan to pick up their laptop and badge and potentially attend 1-2 onsite meetings. Candidates should ideally reside in Michigan within reasonable driving distance.

The Manager of Enterprise Applications will lead the strategy, delivery, operations, and continuous improvement of the Credit Union’s business-critical application portfolio, including core banking, CRM, RPA, debit and credit card integrations, OnBase, SharePoint, DocuSign, Microsoft business applications, user interfaces, and related integrations.

This is an execution-focused leadership role. The successful candidate must translate strategy into production outcomes, establish accountability across the Enterprise Applications team, strengthen business partnerships, remove delivery roadblocks, and ensure initiatives progress from business need through design, testing, deployment, adoption, and support.

The Manager will also own application reliability, service performance, access governance, security and risk controls, vendor performance, business continuity, disaster recovery, and cross-training of critical technical knowledge.

Success requires a leader who can manage people, understand technology, influence senior stakeholders, manage vendors, and create a culture measured by what is successfully delivered into production and the business outcomes achieved.

Purpose

Lead the technology organization responsible for applications central to the Credit Union’s member and employee experience. The role provides broad ownership across enterprise applications, automation, AI adoption, governance, resiliency, vendor strategy, team development, and technology investment.

This opportunity is ideal for a technology leader who enjoys building strong teams, solving business problems, improving processes, introducing automation and emerging technologies, and delivering measurable production results.

Objectives

1. Build an Accountable, High-Performing Enterprise Applications Team

Within the first 90 days, assess the team, clarify ownership across critical platforms, and establish measurable expectations for delivery, production support, stakeholder responsiveness, and technical accountability. Identify knowledge gaps and implement cross-training and development plans to reduce key-person dependencies. Establish a practical management cadence covering priorities, commitments, risks, incidents, and delivery progress.

Success will be measured by clear ownership, stronger accountability, increased cross-training, predictable execution, and improved stakeholder confidence.

2. Deliver Business Automations into Production

Within the first six months, establish a repeatable process for identifying, prioritizing, designing, testing, deploying, and supporting automation opportunities. Partner with business stakeholders to identify high-value manual processes and apply RPA, Microsoft business applications, workflow technologies, APIs, integrations, and other appropriate tools.

Ensure initiatives move beyond proof-of-concept into secure, documented, monitored, supportable production solutions with clear ownership and business adoption.

Success will be measured by successful production deployments, user adoption, reliability, and reductions in manual effort, processing time, errors, or operational friction.

3. Improve Application Reliability and Resiliency

Within the first six months, assess operational health, dependencies, risks, service levels, and recovery requirements across critical applications. Resolve recurring issues, strengthen monitoring and escalation, and ensure systems and integrations meet service-level expectations. Partner with IT teams to validate business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities.

Success will be measured by improved SLA performance, fewer recurring incidents, stronger recovery readiness, greater availability, and increased confidence in critical applications.

4. Establish and Execute an Enterprise Applications Roadmap

Within the first 120 days, evaluate the application portfolio and establish a prioritized roadmap aligned with Credit Union objectives. Assess capabilities, technical debt, integrations, vendor performance, automation opportunities, security concerns, business needs, and emerging technologies to determine where to maintain, enhance, integrate, automate, replace, or retire capabilities.

Translate the roadmap into actionable initiatives with defined ownership, resources, budgets, risks, dependencies, and expected business outcomes.

Success will be measured by leadership alignment, approved priorities, predictable execution, and delivery of capabilities that support business goals.

5. Strengthen Governance, Security, and Vendor Accountability

During the first year, improve governance across access management, technical and administrative controls, change management, production readiness, application ownership, and vendor performance. Oversee decentralized access governance and balance member experience, operational needs, risk, and security. Hold third parties accountable for service, delivery, cost, and contractual commitments.

Success will be measured by improved compliance, timely risk remediation, stronger vendor performance, effective access controls, and fewer preventable production or security issues.

Key Responsibilities

• Assess the Enterprise Applications team, critical platforms, initiatives, production issues, dependencies, vendor relationships, service levels, governance practices, and stakeholder expectations during the first 30–60 days.
• Define primary and backup ownership across core banking, CRM, RPA, card integrations, OnBase, SharePoint, DocuSign, Microsoft business applications, interfaces, and other assigned technologies.
• Build and prioritize an automation pipeline based on business value, complexity, risk, security, maintainability, and expected adoption.
• Drive application enhancements and automation initiatives from requirements through design, development/configuration, testing, security review, deployment, adoption, monitoring, and production support.
• Remove technical and organizational roadblocks and prevent projects from stalling in prolonged analysis or proof-of-concept stages.
• Establish clear production-readiness criteria so solutions are secure, documented, supportable, monitored, and owned after launch.
• Review SLA performance, recurring incidents, access governance, technical controls, business continuity, disaster recovery, and production support practices.
• Ensure recovery requirements and application dependencies are reflected in the Credit Union’s IT Disaster Recovery Plan.
• Maintain the Enterprise Applications roadmap and translate priorities into operating and capital plans, resource requirements, vendor commitments, and measurable outcomes.
• Evaluate vendor performance and negotiate or escalate issues involving service, specifications, pricing, delivery, or technical capability.
• Provide concise executive reporting on accomplishments, risks, investment needs, application health, and upcoming decisions.

Ideal Candidate Profile

The strongest candidate will bring at least four years of successful technology leadership combined with meaningful experience in enterprise application planning, delivery, implementation, and production support. Experience in banking, credit unions, financial services, or another highly regulated environment is strongly preferred.

The candidate does not need to be the deepest technical specialist in every platform but must have sufficient technical breadth and judgment to lead teams responsible for core banking, CRM, RPA, card integrations, content management, Microsoft business applications, interfaces, and related dependencies.

The key differentiator is a demonstrated history of getting technology into production. Strong candidates should provide examples of identifying business problems, selecting appropriate technologies, leading implementation, overcoming delivery obstacles, deploying solutions or automations, and measuring business impact.

A bachelor’s degree in a relevant technical, quantitative, finance, or business discipline—or equivalent professional experience—is expected. A relevant technical certification such as Microsoft Azure, Data, Dynamics, or Security, plus an industry certification such as ITIL, PMP, or Project+, is desired.

Definition of Success

By the end of the first year, the Enterprise Applications organization operates with greater accountability, stronger technical ownership, improved cross-training, and increased stakeholder confidence. Critical applications are more stable and resilient, governance and recovery practices have improved, and leadership has a clear roadmap aligned with Credit Union priorities.

Most importantly, the team has established a track record of delivering automation and application improvements into production. Business stakeholders can point to specific solutions that reduce manual work, improve processes, increase reliability, and enhance the member and employee experience.