IT Business Relationship Manager

IT Business Relationship Manager
Company: Steptoe LLP
Location: Washington, DC (Hybrid – 3–4 days onsite per week)
Employment Type: Contract-to-Hire
Contract Pay Rate: $70–$80/hour
Salary Upon Conversion: $150,000–$160,000 annually
Target Start Date: November 9, 2026

About the Opportunity

Steptoe LLP is seeking an experienced IT Business Relationship Manager to serve as a strategic liaison between IT and key business departments across the firm. This individual will partner directly with senior business leaders to understand operational challenges, identify technology opportunities, and translate business needs into actionable technology solutions.

The ideal candidate brings a consultative mindset, strong business acumen, broad technical knowledge, and exceptional stakeholder management skills. This is a highly visible, business-facing role focused on building relationships, improving processes, and ensuring technology investments deliver measurable business value.

This is not a traditional IT support position. The successful candidate will act as a trusted technology advisor, helping business leaders evaluate solutions, prioritize initiatives, and navigate technology-driven change.

Key Responsibilities

Business Relationship Management

• Serve as the primary IT point of contact for assigned business units, practice groups, and administrative departments.

• Build trusted relationships with department heads and senior leadership across accounting, HR, facilities, conflicts, pricing, and marketing.

• Conduct discovery sessions to understand business priorities, operational challenges, and technology needs.

• Identify opportunities to improve efficiency, automate workflows, reduce risk, and support business growth.

• Manage stakeholder expectations and provide consistent communication regarding technology initiatives.

Requirements Gathering & Technology Solutions

• Translate business challenges and ideas into clearly documented business and technical requirements.

• Define workflows, user access needs, functional requirements, and measurable success criteria.

• Develop business cases, project proposals, and implementation recommendations.

• Partner with IT teams to evaluate technology solutions, assess feasibility, estimate costs, and determine build-versus-buy approaches.

• Participate in vendor evaluations, product demonstrations, and solution selection.

Demand Management & Strategic Planning

• Establish structured processes for collecting, documenting, and prioritizing technology requests.

• Develop intake questionnaires, templates, and documentation to support effective demand management.

• Identify overlapping requests and opportunities for shared solutions across departments.

• Balance competing business priorities against IT resources, budgets, and delivery timelines.

• Maintain visibility into the technology project pipeline and contribute to strategic planning and roadmaps.

Project Coordination & Change Management

• Collaborate with IT leadership, project managers, vendors, and business stakeholders to move approved initiatives into execution.

• Track project dependencies, milestones, risks, and deliverables.

• Communicate project progress and upcoming technology changes to business stakeholders.

• Support technology implementations, training coordination, user adoption, and organizational change initiatives.

• Evaluate project outcomes to ensure solutions deliver their intended business benefits.

Required Qualifications

• Proven experience in IT Business Relationship Management, business technology consulting, IT business analysis, or a similar consultative technology role.

• Demonstrated ability to engage senior executives and department leaders, build credibility, and translate business objectives into technology solutions.

• Strong experience gathering, documenting, and communicating business and technical requirements.

• Broad understanding of enterprise technology, including business applications, cloud platforms, integrations, and workflow solutions.

• Experience evaluating technology solutions and collaborating with technical teams on feasibility, cost, and implementation planning.

• Ability to establish processes, documentation standards, and structured intake frameworks.

• Strong organizational and prioritization skills, with experience managing multiple stakeholders and competing initiatives.

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to explain technical concepts to nontechnical audiences.

• Familiarity with Microsoft 365, collaboration platforms, and workflow automation tools.

• Understanding of IT service management concepts and project delivery methodologies, including Agile, Waterfall, or hybrid approaches.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in consulting, professional services, or a law firm environment.

• Exposure to legal technology platforms, including document management, matter management, time and billing, or legal AI tools.

• Familiarity with Microsoft Azure, AWS, and the broader Microsoft technology ecosystem.

• Experience with Microsoft Copilot, AI-enabled applications, automation initiatives, or digital transformation.

• Familiarity with ServiceNow or similar ITSM platforms.

• Experience building or formalizing an IT Business Relationship Management or technology demand management function.

• Experience supporting organizational change management and technology adoption.