CIAIO Director

Job Description

Job Description

Position Summary

The Director, Enterprise Platforms & Business Systems will lead Karman’s enterprise business systems, ERP, corporate applications, and process-aligned technology platforms within the Chief Information & Artificial Intelligence Officer organization. This role is accountable for platform strategy, governance, delivery, operations, support, lifecycle management, and continuous improvement across Epicor/ERP, engineering, manufacturing and quality systems, corporate applications, operational reporting, and related integrations.

This is a business-facing people, platform, and delivery leadership role. The Director will stabilize a heavily reactive environment, translate competing demand into clear priorities and commitments, develop the team, and build a sustainable operating model. The role works within Karman’s enterprise architecture principles and partners with the Principal Enterprise Architect on target-state direction and material design decisions; the Director remains accountable for people, service delivery, platform operations, budgets, implementation, adoption, and measurable business outcomes.

Immediate Mandate

• Stabilize the Business Systems team and service environment with clear roles, priorities, capacity plans, support coverage, commitments, and escalation paths.
• Establish transparent demand intake, prioritization, backlog, roadmap, release, service-management, and performance-review disciplines.
• Improve Epicor/ERP reliability, governance, supportability, data quality, user adoption, process alignment, and control effectiveness.
• Advance platform standardization, application rationalization, and repeatable integration across Karman sites and acquired businesses.
• Reduce key-person and vendor dependencies through documentation, cross-training, knowledge transfer, succession planning, and sustainable support models.

Key Responsibilities

Enterprise Platforms & Business Systems Leadership

• Lead the enterprise platforms and business systems function across ERP, engineering, manufacturing, quality, corporate applications, reporting, and related business technology platforms.
• Translate enterprise and functional priorities into clear objectives, capacity plans, commitments, operating measures, risks, tradeoffs, and investment needs.
• Partner with Operations, Engineering, Quality, Finance, Supply Chain, Programs, HR, Legal, Business Development, and site leadership to align platforms with business outcomes and customer commitments.
• Drive practical standardization across sites while balancing legitimate customer, regulatory, product, operational, and integration requirements.

Operating Model, Epicor / ERP & Service Delivery

• Partner with Enterprise Integration & Technology PMO to manage intake, prioritization, sequencing, backlog, delivery planning, dependencies, and value realization within available capacity.
• Lead Epicor/ERP governance covering enhancements, configuration, release planning, testing, change control, training, adoption, support readiness, and continuous improvement.
• Improve ERP-enabled processes, master and transactional data quality, reporting consistency, transaction discipline, process compliance, and user accountability.
• Strengthen incident, problem, change, release, testing, documentation, knowledge management, and post-implementation stabilization disciplines.
• Partner with Finance, Internal Audit, and Cybersecurity, Compliance & Resilience to support SOX ITGC, CMMC, CUI, NIST 800-171, DFARS, access, change, logging, recovery, and audit-evidence requirements.

Engineering, Manufacturing, Quality & Corporate Applications

• Own delivery, operations, governance, and support for engineering, manufacturing, quality, program, and shop-floor platforms, including PLM/PDM, CAD integration, MES, QMS, inspection, configuration management, and related capabilities.
• Partner with Engineering and the Principal Enterprise Architect on a digital-thread roadmap connecting product definition, engineering change, planning, manufacturing execution, quality evidence, and ERP transactions.
• Own the lifecycle of business-facing corporate applications, including selection, implementation, support models, access governance, upgrades, renewals, adoption, rationalization, and retirement.
• Deliver integrations and workflow improvements across business platforms in partnership with Infrastructure & Site Operations, Cybersecurity, Compliance & Resilience, AI, Data & Automation, and Enterprise Architecture.

Portfolio, Data, Architecture & Business Process Alignment

• Maintain the business-systems portfolio and roadmaps, including ownership, support model, vendor, cost, lifecycle, usage, risk, business criticality, technical debt, compliance obligations, and strategic fit.
• Partner with accountable functional process owners to improve and standardize workflows, master data, controls, approvals, reporting, roles, training, and adoption.
• Partner with AI, Data & Automation and functional leaders to strengthen source-system data quality, operational reporting, analytics readiness, data ownership, definitions, controls, and stewardship.
• Ensure integrations use approved API, middleware, identity, security, data, and interoperability standards with clear ownership, monitoring, documentation, support, recovery, and lifecycle management.

M&A Integration, Site Standardization & Risk Management

• Lead Business Systems workstreams for acquisitions, new sites, consolidations, and entity restructuring, including Day 1, Day 30/60/90, and longer-term planning.
• Assess acquired platforms, process maturity, data quality, support models, integration complexity, control exposure, technical debt, unsupported systems, fragile interfaces, and rationalization opportunities.
• Lead ERP onboarding, application rationalization, data migration, access setup, process harmonization, testing, training, adoption, and operational readiness.
• Integrate acquired entities into approved enterprise standards while protecting business continuity, customer commitments, financial reporting, compliance, and operational stability.

Vendor, Budget, Team & Talent Leadership

• Lead, coach, develop, and hold accountable Business Systems analysts, ERP administrators, application owners, reporting resources, support personnel, and external partners.
• Create a respectful, inclusive, candid, and accountable environment with clear roles, priorities, standards, decision rights, performance expectations, and development plans.
• Manage workload, interruptions, support coverage, performance, and resource constraints while building documentation, cross-training, succession, and backup coverage that reduce key-person and vendor dependency.
• Own platform budgets, licensing, support, maintenance, vendors, service levels, renewals, resource plans, and roadmap investments; partner on vendor selection, commercial terms, SOWs, controls, and delivery expectations.

Decision Rights & Key Interfaces

• The Director owns the Business Systems team, platform operations, service delivery, day-to-day priorities, delivery commitments, functional budget, vendors, implementation, adoption, and portfolio outcomes.
• Business process owners remain accountable for policy, process design, control ownership, transaction discipline, adoption, and operational outcomes.
• The Principal Enterprise Architect owns enterprise architecture principles, standards, and target-state guidance; Enterprise Integration & Technology PMO owns enterprise intake, portfolio governance, cross-functional sequencing, integration coordination, and value-realization discipline.
• AI, Data & Automation owns enterprise AI products, data governance, analytics strategy, and automation; Business Systems owns source-platform enablement, data quality, operational reporting, and production support. Cybersecurity, Compliance & Resilience owns security, compliance, risk, incident-response, and resilience standards.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Business, Engineering, Operations, Finance, or a related field; equivalent relevant experience may be considered.
• 10+ years of progressive experience in enterprise applications, ERP, business systems, manufacturing systems, digital transformation, or business process improvement.
• 5+ years of people-leadership experience managing business systems, ERP, applications, product, delivery, or transformation teams.
• Demonstrated success stabilizing teams, setting priorities, managing capacity and commitments, developing talent, handling conflict, and addressing performance directly.
• Experience leading platform operations, application portfolios, roadmaps, demand and release management, service delivery, business adoption, integrations, data quality, reporting, access and change controls, resilience, and lifecycle management.
• Demonstrated ability to manage budgets, vendors, contracts, enterprise application initiatives, business partnerships, and executive stakeholders, with strong communication of decisions, tradeoffs, commitments, and value.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Epicor ERP strongly preferred; SAP or comparable enterprise-platform experience is also valuable.
• Experience in aerospace, defense, multi-site manufacturing, engineering, or another regulated environment involving CMMC, NIST 800-171, DFARS, CUI, SOX ITGC, ITAR/EAR, export controls, or audit-driven systems.
• Experience with PLM/PDM, CAD integration, MES, QMS, configuration management, manufacturing execution, or related engineering and quality platforms.
• Experience supporting M&A integration, site standardization, ERP harmonization, data migration, reporting, data governance, integration platforms, APIs, workflow, automation, or post-acquisition integration.

ITAR REQUIREMENTS:

To conform to U.S. Government export regulations, applicant must be a (i) U.S. citizen or national, (ii) U.S. lawful, permanent resident (aka green card holder), (iii) Refugee under 8 U.S.C. § 1157, or (iv) Asylee under 8 U.S.C. § 1158, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities. The contractor will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor’s legal duty to furnish information.

Karman is committed to equal employment opportunity. We will not discriminate against employees or applicants for employment on any legally recognized basis (“protected class”) including, but not limited to race; color; religion; genetic information; national origin; sex; pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions; age; disability; citizenship status; uniform servicemember status; or any other protected class under federal, state, or local law. Our management is dedicated to ensuring the fulfillment of this policy with respect to hiring, placement, promotion, transfer, demotion, layoff, termination, recruitment advertising, pay, and other forms of compensation, training, and general treatment during employment.