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. a7 1157, or (iv) Asylee under 8 U.S.C. a7 1158, or be eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.