Director, Integration & Process Innovation

About the role

Join our community and experience Emerson College ! Reporting to the AVP of Enterprise Data & Solutions, the Director of Integration and Process Innovation is the strategic technology leader responsible for driving transformative solutions in data integration, process efficiency and cutting-edge AI applications. To align with the College's strategic initiatives and business needs, the Director establishes critical partnerships across academic and business units including TechMedia, Campus Life, Enrollment, Academic Affairs, Alumni Operations, Finance, and Human Resources. The role owns the full solution lifecycle - from technical assessment and business requirement gathering to project proposal generation, solution development, and deployment - ensuring results that drive efficiency and create a transformative user experience. Success is defined by building strong customer relationships, enforcing cross-departmental collaboration, and proactively identifying technology gaps to create strategic business opportunities. Exceptional communication, strategic thinking, and advanced technical skills in web service API, AI, data analytics, and business analysis are essential for this role. ESSENTIAL JOB DUTIES Strategic Leadership & Planning Lead the IT enterprise system development planning and execution, guaranteeing that the infrastructure and solution support business growth, enhance user experience and align with critical college initiatives. Prepare for and transform the team to implement emerging technologies to deliver innovative solutions, optimize business operations through automation and expand strategic opportunities. Elevate team expertise in emerging technologies (e.g., API, AI/ML) and direct campus-wide adoption programs, including training and ongoing support. Lead the development and deployment of AI-assisted applications and chatbots across core platforms (Workday, Google, Snowflake, NotebookLM etc.) Lead the development of technical and business proposals (SOWs, execution plans like the AI Development Plan) to define project objectives, deliverables, execution priorities, and required platforms (e.g., Vertex AI, Snowflake Cortex, software & tools) for enterprise systems strategic initiatives. Enterprise Platform & Integration Management Oversee the performance, operation and maintenance of all core enterprise development and integration platforms (e.g., Workday, Banner, Snaplogic, Salesforce CRM, BPLogix, Heroku, Oracle, GIT and Tomcat Oracle Linux). Serve as the technical lead on Workday projects including Workday Student implementation and support existing HR and Finance integrations, ensuring successful execution of integration development and end-to-end lifecycle testing. Organize and support semi-annual Workday release tests and adoption related to integration and support of business functional tests. Participate in Workday Support Committee meetings on regular bases, contributing to meeting agenda and follow through action items. Guarantee continuous operation and performance across all platforms, ensuring timely resolution of data integrity and application performance issues, including conducting semester-based Banner course registration load testing and providing oversight of specific operational checks. Drive the cross-functional collaboration with Institutional Research/ Business Intelligence (IR/BI), Security, and User Services to ensure the rapid resolution of all critical platform, user account and technical incidents. Lead the architecture and development of all core integrations (including API web services, Workday Studio and Extend) to ensure reliable, high-volume data exchange between Workday, Snowflake and 3rd party campus systems. Govern platform resiliency and business continuity by enforcing Salesforce Backup and Restore, managing regular sandbox refresh/validation, and partner with Infrastructure to rigorously test the IT Disaster Recovery plan. Develop and maintain the strategy for documenting IT software and process inventory, clarifying supporting responsibilities and orchestrating cross-training to ensure team knowledge overlap. Drive rapid, AI-assisted development (e.g., vibe coding) and system design to solve key business problems, ensuring all solutions meet enterprise security and code review standards while promoting fast, iterative prototyping . Data Management & Governance Follow the Data Governance process in partnering with Security and IR/BI, implementing a secure data sharing and access practice in Snowflake and in Google Drive. Govern team compliance with the IT Change Management Protocol. Project & Team Delivery Partner with Project Management Office (PMO) and business stakeholders to define, plan and deploy IT strategic projects, ensuring high quality deliverables that meet the business objectives and adhere to the project management framework. Direct team-managed projects, ensuring adherence to the PMO standards, and proactively manage