Chief Technology Officer

Position Summary

A premier financial services firm seeks an experienced Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to lead the technology strategy, governance, operations, and modernization initiatives of a growing financial services institution. The CTO will be a member of the executive leadership team and will be responsible for ensuring that their technology environment is secure, resilient, compliant, scalable, and aligned with business objectives. This position requires exceptional experience managing technology vendors, outsourced service providers, service-level agreements, operational risk, and third-party performance. The ideal candidate will have significant experience within a regulated financial services area and a strong understanding of cybersecurity, technology risk, regulatory requirements, third-party risk, cloud technologies, and operational resilience.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and execute the enterprise technology strategy and multi-year technology roadmap.
• Provide executive oversight of all outsourced technology environment, including infrastructure hosting, infrastructure management, end-user support, help desk services, cloud services, and other managed technology services.
• Establish strong governance and accountability for third-party technology providers, including service levels, performance metrics, contractual obligations, cybersecurity requirements, regulatory compliance, risk remediation, and business continuity.
• Oversee technology infrastructure, cloud services, applications, data platforms, networks, identity services, and technology operations.
• Ensure technology operations meet regulatory requirements, as applicable.
• Partner with Information Security, Risk, Compliance, and Internal Audit to maintain strong cybersecurity and technology-risk controls.
• Represent Technology during regulatory examinations, internal and external audits, third-party assessments, and risk reviews.
• Oversee cybersecurity-related technology controls, including identity and access management, vulnerability management, endpoint and network security, backup, recovery, and incident response.
• Maintain effective business continuity, disaster recovery, cyber-recovery, and technology-resilience programs, including contingency planning for critical third-party providers.
• Lead vendor selection, due diligence, contract negotiations, service-level management, performance monitoring, security assessments, issue escalation, and vendor transition or exit planning.
• Ensure appropriate oversight of critical technology vendors, including review of SOC reports, cybersecurity controls, financial viability, regulatory compliance, and concentration risk.
• Lead major technology modernization, cloud integration, automation, and transformation initiatives.
• Establish technology governance, policies, standards, architecture, change-management, and service-management practices.
• Provide governance and oversight of the AWS and Microsoft environment and other cloud services.
• Develop and manage technology operating and capital budgets, including technology investments, licensing, cloud services, managed services, vendor expenditures, and major transformation initiatives.
• Lead internal technology resources and provide executive oversight of contractors, managed-service providers, and other outsourced technology teams.
• Provide regular technology, cybersecurity, vendor-risk, investment, and performance reporting to executive management.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Information Systems, Engineering, Cybersecurity, or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience.
• Minimum 20 years of progressively responsible technology experience.
• Minimum 12 years of technology leadership experience, including responsibility for enterprise technology operations, strategy, teams, budgets, vendors, and major technology initiatives.
• Minimum 10 years of technology experience within regulated financial services.
• Minimum 5 years of recent experience leading technology services in a bank.
• Demonstrated experience managing significant technology operating and capital budgets, including technology investments, vendor expenditures, cloud services, licensing, managed services, and major technology initiatives.
• Demonstrated experience leading enterprise technology organizations and managing a combination of internal employees, contractors, managed-service providers, and outsourced technology resources.
• Demonstrated experience managing significant outsourced technology operations, infrastructure providers, cloud providers, managed-service providers, and other critical third-party technology vendors.
• Strong experience with vendor governance, contract management, service-level agreements, performance management, escalation, and third-party technology risk.
• Significant experience with cybersecurity, technology risk management, regulatory compliance, audit, and technology controls.
• Experience participating in regulatory examinations and responding to audit or examination findings.
• Experience with business continuity, disaster recovery, incident response, and operational resilience, including resilience planning involving third-party providers.
• Strong understanding of cloud and hybrid technology environments.
• Strong executive communication skills, including experience presenting technology, vendor, cybersecurity, investment, and risk matters to senior management and/or Boards of Directors.
• Significant experience overseeing highly outsourced or managed-service-based technology environments.
• Proven track record leading cloud migrations, digital transformations, mergers/acquisitions, or major technology modernization programs.
• Expert knowledge of NIST CSF 2.0, third-party risk management, GLBA, and financial-services cybersecurity requirement.

Preferred Qualifications

• 20+ years of progressively responsible technology experience, including prior experience as a CTO, CIO, SVP/VP of Technology, or comparable senior technology executive.
• 5+ years of senior executive or enterprise-wide technology leadership experience.
• Master's degree or MBA Preferred
• Experience managing annual technology budgets of $25 million or greater and/or significant multi-year technology investment portfolios.
• Experience leading or providing executive oversight for technology organizations comprising 75 or more internal and external resources, including employees, contractors, managed-service providers, and outsourced technology teams.
• Experience developing, implementing, or governing artificial intelligence initiatives within a regulated environment, including generative AI, machine learning, intelligent automation, or AI-enabled decision-support tools.
• Experience establishing AI governance addressing cybersecurity, data privacy, regulatory compliance, responsible AI, third-party AI risk, model risk, and human oversight.
• Experience with data governance, automation, APIs, and emerging technologies.