Vice President of Technology Operations at Ivy Tech in Indianapolis, IN

Job description

• Under the direction of the Senior Vice President & Chief Information Officer, the Vice President of Technology Operations provides executive leadership for the College’s enterprise technology operations across a statewide, multi-campus environment. This role strengthens the reliability, security, and responsiveness of core technology services while continuously advancing modernization, innovation, resilience, and enterprise capability across the College. The VP shapes and executes operational strategy, governance, technical roadmaps, and service delivery for infrastructure, network, integration, shared services, and application support in ways that support campus operations, student success, workforce readiness, academic innovation, and service excellence.
• This position is intended for a forward-thinking technology leader who can balance operational excellence with continuous innovation, helping the College anticipate emerging needs, simplify complexity, and move the organization forward with disciplined execution.

Responsibilities

• Strategic and Technology Leadership
• Provide executive leadership for the College’s core technology operations across infrastructure, network, integration, shared services, and application support, ensuring priorities, standards, investments, and execution advance campus success and align with the overall technology strategy.
• Build a culture of innovation, operational discipline, and continuous improvement, encouraging teams to challenge legacy practices, adopt better tools and service models, and translate emerging technologies into practical improvements for students, employees, and campuses.
• Shape and execute the operational and technical roadmap needed to modernize proactively, reduce risk, strengthen resilience, support institutional growth, and enable emerging capabilities such as automation, advanced analytics, and responsible AI across the College.
• Enterprise Architecture and Technical Direction
• Maintain an enterprise architecture perspective, ensuring major systems, integrations, platforms, and infrastructure decisions fit together coherently across a complex, multi-campus environment.
• Establish and uphold technical standards, architectural guardrails, and integration principles that guide how technology solutions are designed, selected, implemented, and supported.
• Anticipate future technology needs while managing current dependencies, lifecycle risks, technical debt, and operational complexity.
• Ensure technology decisions preserve flexibility, interoperability, and long-term institutional choice, avoiding unnecessary dependency on any single vendor, platform, or solution approach.
• Governance and Investment Discipline
• Apply disciplined build-versus-buy analysis to major technology decisions, considering total cost of ownership, scalability, maintainability, security, user experience, and organizational capacity.
• Partner with the CIO, PMO, security officer, and business leaders to align portfolio priorities with available operational capacity, delivery risk, and institutional value.
• Evaluate vendor proposals, solution options, and cost models rigorously, bringing forward recommendations that are well-supported, innovative, sustainable, and aligned to institutional need.
• Evaluate options with attention to sustainability, interoperability, exit strategy, and the risk of vendor or technology lock-in.
• Service Delivery and Reliability
• Ensure reliable, secure, and responsive technology service delivery statewide, including core infrastructure, network connectivity, integrations, shared services, and enterprise applications that support campus success, student success, and effective daily operations.
• Establish campus support routines with clear escalation paths, consistent service expectations, timely access to technology operations expertise, and the operational support needed to advance campus success.
• Define and manage service expectations, performance measures, and accountability routines that drive consistent, high-quality operational outcomes.
• Lead operational response, recovery planning, root cause analysis, and continuous improvement following major incidents, in close partnership with the AVP of Security and other key leaders.
• Vendor and Budget Management
• Oversee budgets, contracts, and vendor relationships for core operational platforms, infrastructure, services, and supporting technology agreements.
• Lead renewal, sourcing, and contract evaluations with a focus on value realization, right-sized investment, service quality, risk reduction, and long-term sustainability.
• Maintain visibility into the technology vendor portfolio to identify redundancy, consolidation opportunities, cost avoidance, and areas where enterprise standards can improve service and efficiency.
• Cross-Functional Partnership
• Partner closely with the AVP of Security to embed security, resilience, access controls, configuration standards, and incident readiness into technology architecture and operations.
• Partner with data, analytics, and AI leaders to ensure infrastructure, integration, security, platform, and operating model decisions support the College’s data-informed decision-making, automation opportunities, and responsible AI priorities.
• Partner across the College with Academic Affairs, Student Success and Enrollment, Finance, Human Resources, campus leadership, PMO, business systems analysis, and administrative units to ensure needs are well understood, solutions are appropriately designed, and technology work is sequenced for successful adoption.
• Maintain strong executive relationships with campus leaders to understand local operational needs, anticipate service gaps, support campus priorities, and ensure statewide technology decisions translate into practical, dependable support in each community.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Business, or a related field is required. Master's degree preferred.
• Ten or more years of progressive technology leadership experience, including at least five years leading leaders, managing complex portfolios, and delivering results across a multi-team or matrixed organization.
• Strong technical fluency across infrastructure, network, cloud, integration, identity, service delivery, and application support domains, with the credibility to evaluate tradeoffs and engage effectively with technical experts.
• Demonstrated success leading modernization, transformation, operational improvement, and change management within a complex technology organization.
• Executive-level decision-making skills, including the ability to evaluate competing priorities, vendor proposals, cost models, technical risks, delivery capacity, and build-versus-buy tradeoffs.
• Exceptional communication skills, including the ability to translate technical complexity into clear recommendations for executive, campus, academic, administrative, and non-technical audiences.
• Demonstrated critical thinking, creativity, intellectual curiosity, and sound judgment, with the ability to challenge assumptions, solve complex problems, and identify practical, forward-looking solutions.
• Strategic thinking and sound judgment.
• Portfolio and project leadership.
• Collaborative influence and relationship building.
• Executive communication and decision facilitation.
• Planning, organization, and follow-through.
• Systems thinking and continuous improvement.
• Must consistently exercise independent judgment and discretion in matters of significance.
• Must demonstrate the ability to foster a respectful and inclusive environment in which students and employees feel valued and supported.
• Experience in higher education, public sector, healthcare, financial services, or another large, distributed, mission-driven institution.
• Experience overseeing large-scale infrastructure, network, cloud, integration, service management, application support, or shared services functions.
• Experience with enterprise platforms such as Banner, Workday, Salesforce, ServiceNow, or similar systems, as well as emerging technology areas such as cloud modernization, automation, analytics platforms, responsible AI enablement, and relevant security, accessibility, privacy, and compliance frameworks such as NIST, WCAG, FERPA, or related standards.

Skills

Required

• Executive-level decision-making skills
• Exceptional communication skills
• Strategic thinking and sound judgment
• Portfolio and project leadership

Benefits

• Ivy Tech is committed to supporting the well-being, growth, and financial security of our full-time faculty and staff. Our comprehensive benefits package includes:
• Health & Wellness
• Multiple medical plan options paired with a Health Savings Account with a generous employer contribution
• Dental plan with no-cost preventive services and coverage for orthodontia
• Vision plan with low-cost exams and allowances for glasses or contact lenses
• Employee Assistance Program offering no-cost confidential counseling sessions, legal consultations, financial planning consultations, and other resources
• Wellness program with opportunities to earn $250 in Wellness Rewards
• Flexible Spending Accounts for healthcare (limited purpose) and dependent care
• Retirement & Financial Security
• 10% employer retirement contribution, fully vested after two years
• Basic life insurance equal to annual salary paid by the College, with optional supplemental coverage
• Short-term and long-term disability benefits
• Educational Benefits
• Fee remission for employees, spouses, and dependent children
• Tuition assistance for undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs
• Paid professional development opportunities
• Work‑Life Balance
• Generous paid time off, including vacation, sick leave, holidays, and winter recess
• Flexible work arrangements where available
• Paid childbirth recovery leave (8 weeks)
• Paid parental leave (4 weeks)
• Additional Perks
• Eligibility for Public Service Loan Forgiveness
• Additional discounts on gym memberships, transportation, and various retail services
• Ivy Tech is proud to offer benefits that support your health, your family, and your future—because when our employees thrive, our students and communities thrive too. For more information on Ivy Tech Benefits, visit https://careers.ivytech.edu/benefits.
• Note: Employees who re-hire with the College within 180 days of leaving a full-time position with the College may be eligible for additional benefits depending on their bridged seniority date.
• Competitive benefits and professional development programs
• The most advanced technologies in our classrooms and training facilities
• Collaborative and innovative culture with a focus on creativity and employee belonging
• Commitment to adapting to meet Indiana's workforce needs and fostering a sustainable, inclusive workplace
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• SALARY STATEMENT: $185,000 annually with opportunities for annual incentive bonuses tied to institutional and individual performance goals.