Business Architect - Individual Solutions and Institutional Retirement Solutions

At Securian Financial the internal position title is Architecture Sr Con

Overview

Securian's Enterprise Architecture team is seeking an innovative, intellectually curious, and outcome-oriented Business Architect to support our Individual Solutions (IS) and Institutional Retirement Solutions (IRS) business lines.

In this role, you will operate at the intersection of business strategy, enterprise architecture, and industry evolution. You will translate strategic objectives into capability-driven roadmaps and actionable architecture direction, while continuously assessing market trends, regulatory shifts, competitive positioning, and vendor ecosystems to identify opportunities for modernization and differentiation.

This role is ideal for an architect who combines strategic thinking with proactive industry engagement - someone who not only aligns technology to business goals but also helps shape how capabilities evolve in a dynamic marketplace.

Responsibilities

Business Capability & Portfolio Architecture

• Develop and mature business capability models, heatmaps, and maturity views to inform strategic planning and modernization sequencing.

• Translate business strategy into actionable, capability-driven roadmaps aligned to measurable outcomes.

• Define and evolve target-state architecture direction across application portfolios aligned to enterprise standards.

• Lead portfolio assessments to identify modernization, rationalization, resiliency, and risk mitigation opportunities.

• Shape investment decisions by connecting capabilities, business outcomes, and architecture direction.

• Facilitate cross-functional workshops to align business and technology leaders on priorities, tradeoffs, and transformation sequencing.

Industry Insight & Capability Advancement

• Maintain deep understanding of the Individual Solutions and Institutional Retirement markets, including products, distribution models, regulatory considerations, and competitive dynamics.

• Continuously evaluate industry trends, analyst research (e.g., Gartner and other advisory firms), peer institutions, vendor ecosystems, competitors, and emerging technologies.

• Engages with vendors, partners, and industry forums to assess innovative solutions and architectural patterns.

• Benchmark organizational capabilities against industry leaders and recommend areas for advancement or differentiation.

• Proactively identify opportunities to enhance customer experience, operational efficiency, compliance posture, and digital enablement through capability evolution.

Strategy-to-Execution Alignment

• Translate strategic capabilities into clear architectural guidance that informs solution design and delivery teams.

• Provide architectural leadership on strategic initiatives to ensure alignment with enterprise guardrails and long-term portfolio direction.

• Partner with business leaders, technology market leaders, enterprise architects, solution architects, engineering teams, and product leaders to ensure solutions realize intended business capabilities.

• Influence solution direction without assuming embedded delivery ownership.

• Balance business value, technical feasibility, financial impact, and risk in architectural recommendations.

Architecture Governance & Enterprise Alignment

• Guide initiatives through architecture governance using clear, outcome-focused decision frameworks.

• Assess planned and in-flight initiatives to identify impacts to current and future-state architecture, highlighting risks and dependencies.

• Identify opportunities to leverage enterprise platforms and shared capabilities to reduce redundancy and improve architectural consistency.

• Communicate and champion enterprise architecture principles and target-state direction within assigned market organizations.

• Collaborate with Enterprise Architects to evolve principles, reference architectures, and standards.

• Serve as a trusted advisor across business and technology leadership.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated experience applying business architecture techniques (capability modeling, road mapping, portfolio analysis) to drive modernization and investment decisions.

• Proven ability to translate business strategy into actionable architecture direction.

• Strong intellectual curiosity and interest in understanding industry trends, competitive positioning, and regulatory dynamics.

• Experience leveraging analyst research, industry benchmarking, or vendor engagement to inform strategic decisions.

• Strong stakeholder engagement and influence skills across executive, product, engineering, and architecture communities.

• Experience facilitating strategic alignment workshops and complex decision forums.

• Ability to operate effectively in ambiguity and bring clarity to complex environments.

• Working knowledge across architecture domains (business, application, data, technology, security).

• Understanding of enterprise architecture governance and operating models.

• Ability to evaluate technology options through the lens of business capability enablement and competitive differentiation.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience in insurance, retirement, or broader financial services domains.

• Experience with portfolio modernization and legacy transformation initiatives in regulated environments.

• Financial acumen including TCO, ROI, and investment tradeoff analysis.

• Familiarity with enterprise architecture frameworks (e.g., TOGAF) and business architecture practices.

• Knowledge of cloud-native architecture, particularly AWS.

• Experience working within agile product and platform delivery models.

• Bachelor's degree in information systems, Business, Computer Science, or equivalent practical experience.

This position will be in a hybrid working arrangement.

The estimated base pay range for this job is: $111,300.00 - $207,800.00

Securian Financial Group, Inc. does not discriminate based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, marital or familial status, pregnancy, disability, genetic information, political affiliation, veteran status, status in regard to public assistance or any other protected status. If you are a job seeker with a disability and require an accommodation to apply for one of our jobs, please contact us by email at View email address on click.appcast.io or by telephone View phone number on click.appcast.io (voice).