Managing Director, Technology Enablement

Managing Director, Technology Enablement

At Associated Electric Cooperative, we're committed to providing reliable energy to the communities we serve with passion and precision. We're a tight-knit team dedicated to keeping the lights on and the energy flowing smoothly across our expansive network!

From technical to operational to professional disciplines, our team brings a wide variety of skills, talents, and expertise to the table. We believe in both dedicating ourselves to excellence and investing in your growth.

We are building amazing technology at Associated.

Right now, one team is designing a sophisticated digital twin for our power plants. Another team is adding new capabilities to our big data system that models the future of the cooperative. Yet another team is planning to modernize a transmission asset management system used by seven cooperatives. These are just a few samples. Across Associated, teams are continually building technology that delivers outsized impact for the enterprise and our members.

But these teams are building alone.

Each team figures out its own architecture, user interface style, data storage mechanism, API method, and technology practices alone. And it's not just limited to IT teams anymore. Engineers and analysts across the business are building data solutions alone. Looking to the future, GenAI could offer building power to every person at Associated an enterprise of builders, building alone.

Building alone gave us speed and flexibility in the past, and we've made the most of it. But it doesn't scale. It also means that we recreate capabilities instead of sharing them, expertise stays trapped inside teams, and every new solution adds another thing to connect, secure, maintain, and support. As more people build and what we build becomes more critical, the cost of building alone compounds.

We're going to create one unified way of building technology together at Associated. One way to build user interfaces so every team gets excellent at it, together. One way to create data products so that data can become the fuel of the enterprise. One way to train AI solutions so we can scale expertise across the company. One way to create integrations so we can connect systems seamlessly.

Only one thing is missingyou.

Reporting to the Chief Information Officer, you will lead our new Technology Enablement function. You'll own the full lifecycle of how technology gets built at Associated: the architecture, the developer tools, the platforms for applications, data, and AI, and the infrastructure it all runs on, from cloud to our own datacenters and network. And you'll manage this toward one goal: enabling technology builders to build safely, sustainably, and productively together.

This will be a tough problem to solve. You can't buy or mandate one way to build. Each way must be designed with the teams who'll use it, proven through real implementations, and packaged into accelerators that make adopting it together easier than building alone. And there's one unique aspect of our utility business that must be considered: while most building is done in the cloud, our critical systems that operate the grid can't exist there. From the grid control center to the IoT field devices at our plants and substations, they must be self-sufficient and able to keep running even when cut off from everything else. You must find a way to keep these critical systems from being left behind.

The good news is that you won't be starting alone. Associated's CIO sponsored the design and funding of this organization. Teams are in place, each with leaders and engineers ready for your leadership. And there's early momentum being built. A cross-functional team that includes your customers is working ahead at documenting our systems and is ready to advance the mission with you.

This opportunity may be filled at the Vice President or Managing Director level, reflecting the selected candidate's experience, leadership depth, and strategic capability.

Here's what you'll do

• Create the Foundation: Lead your teams to raise each region of the shared foundation data products, enterprise apps, business apps, enterprise integrations, and others. Make these technology regions so compelling that teams want to migrate because they can build safely, sustainably, and productively. Then lead the great migration until building together is the only way. This is the way.
• Form the Architecture Function: Stand up enterprise architecture as a working function, with architects who wear three hats: registry keepers who maintain the authoritative view of what exists and where it's going; tool-crafters who build the accelerators and reference patterns for the builders; and sleeve-rolling consultants who work alongside teams to help them build safely, sustainably, and productively.
• Turn Data into Fuel: The first region to build is Data Intelligence. Today our data is treated as exhaust, a byproduct of our systems. You will make our data into the fuel of the company: we need trustworthy and discoverable data products that teams publish from their systems, builders certified to use analytics and machine learning, and an AI-ready platform that lets us package and scale organizational expertise.
• Modernize our Craft: Associated's 1st party products (Elysia, Mantis, Project Hub, the digital twin) and dozens of smaller solutions were built with the tools and practices of the team at the time. Modernize the craft of building products AI-integrated development, modern toolchains, a shared UI framework, and low/no-code capabilities for business apps and then bring every product forward with it.
• Cloud-Power the Grid: The systems that operate the grid cannot be fully migrated to run on the cloud because they must keep running in a scenario where Associated is cut off from everything else and must bring back power to the Midwest. Design a future that delivers cloud-era engineering without cloud exposure: a modern network architecture and on-prem datacenter services such as containerization for our grid systems.
• Ride the Waves: The AI wave is still moving and building momentum, and we need to continue riding it. Beyond AI, new waves of technology will come. Watch what's coming, determine what Associated needs next, and open each new region before teams and technologists feel like they even need to build alone again.

What we're looking for

Leaders who can do this are rare. If your focus has only been on infrastructure, or development services, or architecture this isn't the job for you. We are putting everything it takes to build technology into one organization, under one enterprise-wide, full stack technology leader serving both business and builders. That leader needs the following attributes.

• Full-Stack Strategist: You guide the full-stack lifecycle of technology across the entire enterprise: from the network and datacenters underneath, through the platforms hosting apps, data, and AI, and the developer tools on top. You watch the waves of technology emerging in the world and know what they mean for us; maintaining a living, business-centric view of everything deployed, where it runs, and how mature it is. Your roadmap for technology exploration and investment helps us all see the value ahead, and the path to get there.
• Platform Builder. You create platforms with the people who use them. You bring diverse teams together to create beneficial consistency the minimal set of ways to build that best serves everyone. You know that excellence in few ways is better than mediocrity in many. Behind the scenes, your platforms may span multiple vendors, technologies, and components. To the builders, that complexity disappears: the platform just works and keeps working, even as everything underneath it evolves.
• Engineering Enabler: You make builders better at building. You know a platform only works if it's adopted, so your services deliver help where the building happens. You've sent architects to guide teams, engineers forward to build alongside them, and adoption aids that meet each team where they are. And you measure yourself not by activities like trainings held, but by outcomes: how safely, sustainably, and productively we build.
• Disciplined Transformer: You patiently, but relentlessly transform the enterprise, preferring momentum over speed, and engagement over mandate. When everything pulls at you builders wanting the newest products, new waves demanding adoption now, projects claiming exception you still adopt deliberately, sequence patiently, and finish what you start. You hold teams and executives alike accountable to reach the end goal of transformation.
• Reliability Protector: You thrive in environments where technology has significant safety, reliability, and financial consequences if it fails. You know how to manage critical infrastructure and balance resilience, security, and currency. You've carried and can enforce security, regulatory, risk, and operational requirements, engineering it in with strong controls and processes, never bolting it onto your systems afterwards.
• Culture Enhancer: You enjoy developing people. You've helped leaders grow beyond the roles they originally excelled in, guided organizations through meaningful change, and left teams stronger than you found them. You are excited to work inside an IT culture of Creativity, Craftsmanship, Community, Communication, and Change. A culture that you are expected to model and enhance over time.

Qualifications