Executive Director of Business Applications (0994)

Job Class: 0994 Executive Director

Salary Range: $164,038 - $213,383/annually

Appointment Type: Permanent Exempt (what does this mean?)

Calendar: Full Time / Full Year

SFUSD seeks an experienced and strategic technology leader to serve as the Executive Director of Business Applications. Reporting to the Chief Information and Technology Officer, the Executive Director will provide strategic leadership, governance, and operational oversight for the District's enterprise business and student information systems.

The Executive Director will lead the BASIC, Student Systems, and Systems Solutions portfolios identified within the proposed DIT organizational structure.

The successful candidate will combine strong application and data management experience with executive leadership, strategic planning, business process improvement, project governance, and customer service. The Executive Director will partner closely with academic and operational departments to ensure that District applications effectively support teaching and learning, student services, human resources, finance, business operations, compliance, and data-informed decision-making.

Essential Duties:

The duties specified below are representative of the range of duties assigned to the job code/class and are not intended to be an inclusive or exhaustive list.

As the Executive Director of Business Applications, you will:

• Provide strategic and operational leadership for the District's enterprise business applications, student information systems, administrative systems, integrations, and related application services.
• Develop and execute a multi-year business applications strategy and roadmap aligned with District priorities and the overall DIT strategic plan.
• Provide executive oversight for the ERP Systems including HR, Payroll, Finance modules, Student Systems, Integrations and Systems Solutions functions.
• Establish application governance, standards, policies, procedures, and lifecycle management practices across the District's enterprise application portfolio.
• Ensure enterprise applications are reliable, secure, scalable, accessible, properly supported, and aligned with District business and instructional requirements.
• Partner with academic and operational departments to understand business requirements and translate them into effective technology solutions.
• Provide strategic leadership for student information systems and associated platforms supporting enrollment, scheduling, attendance, grades, student records, reporting, and other student-related business processes.
• Provide leadership for enterprise administrative and business systems supporting areas such as Human Resources, Finance, Payroll, Procurement, Operations, and other District functions.
• Establish a structured application lifecycle management process covering requirements, selection, architecture, implementation, testing, deployment, maintenance, upgrades, and retirement.
• Lead modernization of legacy applications and reduce application-related technical debt through strategic planning and investment.
• Establish standards and governance for application integrations, APIs, interfaces, data exchanges, and system interoperability.
• Partner with Infrastructure Engineering and Cybersecurity to ensure applications meet District architecture, security, identity management, data protection, and availability requirements.
• Establish and maintain appropriate application access controls and role-based access practices in collaboration with application owners and cybersecurity staff.
• Partner with District departments to improve business processes and identify opportunities for automation, standardization, and operational efficiency.
• Establish application service-level objectives and performance measures, including availability, incident resolution, customer satisfaction, application performance, and project delivery.
• Provide leadership for application incidents and major system issues and coordinate technical and business resources through resolution.
• Establish change management, release management, testing, documentation, and production support standards for enterprise applications.
• Develop application business continuity and disaster recovery requirements in partnership with Infrastructure Engineering and business owners.
• Establish application documentation and knowledge-management standards to reduce organizational risk and dependency on individual staff members.
• Lead enterprise application implementations, upgrades, migrations, integrations, and modernization initiatives.
• Partner with the Project Management function to establish project scope, requirements, schedules, resources, risks, dependencies, and implementation plans.
• Manage application vendors, consultants, software licensing, maintenance agreements, contracts, and professional services.
• Participate in technology budgeting, forecasting, procurement, contract negotiations, and evaluation of technology investments.
• Recruit, develop, mentor, and lead high-performing application and business systems teams.
• Establish clear roles, responsibilities, performance expectations, and accountability across application teams.
• Develop cross-training, succession planning, and knowledge-transfer strategies to improve organizational resilience.
• Communicate application strategy, project status, risks, investments, and performance to the CITO, executive leadership, business owners, and other stakeholders.
• Evaluate emerging technologies, including cloud platforms, automation, data integration, and artificial intelligence, for their potential to improve District services.
• Perform other related duties as assigned.

Key Areas of Responsibility:

ERP Systems: Provide strategic leadership and governance for the District's BASIC application portfolio and associated business processes. Ensure applications are effectively managed, maintained, integrated, documented, and aligned with District operational requirements. The proposed organization currently places a Director and multiple senior/business analysts within this function.

Student Systems: Provide executive oversight of student information systems and related applications supporting student records and District academic and administrative processes. Responsibilities include application governance, data quality, system integration, access management, regulatory reporting support, lifecycle planning, vendor management, and coordination with District departments. The proposed structure includes a Director of Student Systems and multiple senior business analyst positions supporting this portfolio.

Systems Solutions Provide leadership for enterprise systems solutions, application development/configuration, integrations, automation, and technology solutions addressing District business requirements. The proposed organization places Systems Solutions, including its Manager II and Program Administrator functions, within the Business Applications organization.

Leadership and Governance: The Executive Director will establish a business applications governance model that creates clear accountability between DIT and District business owners.

• Establish application ownership and decision-making responsibilities.
• Develop standards for application intake, evaluation, prioritization, acquisition, implementation, and retirement.
• Establish application portfolio management and lifecycle review processes.
• Improve visibility into application costs, licensing, utilization, risks, dependencies, and business value.
• Establish standards for business requirements and functional documentation.
• Promote standardization and reduce unnecessary application duplication.
• Ensure appropriate stakeholder participation in application decisions.
• Establish escalation and decision-making processes for critical application issues.
• Develop application performance metrics and provide regular reporting to DIT leadership.
• Ensure major application investments align with District strategic and operational priorities.

Data, Integration, Privacy, and Security: The Executive Director will work collaboratively with District technology and business leaders to ensure enterprise applications appropriately protect District information.

• Establishing appropriate application access and authorization practices.
• Supporting role-based access control and least-privilege principles.
• Ensuring application vendors comply with District security and privacy requirements.
• Coordinating application security reviews with Cybersecurity.
• Establishing standards for application integrations and data exchanges.
• Supporting data quality, integrity, retention, and governance practices.
• Ensuring application changes are appropriately tested before production implementation.
• Supporting compliance with applicable student and employee data privacy requirements.

The Strongest Candidates Will Have:

• Deep knowledge of enterprise applications and information systems in a large, complex organization.
• Strong understanding of K-12 student information systems and administrative technology environments.
• Demonstrated experience leading enterprise application portfolios and application modernization initiatives.
• Experience with ERP, HR, finance, payroll, student information, data integration, workflow, and related enterprise platforms.
• Strong understanding of application architecture, system integrations, APIs, data exchanges, cloud/SaaS applications, and identity management.
• Experience establishing application governance and lifecycle management practices.
• Demonstrated success improving business processes through technology, automation, and standardization.
• Experience managing large-scale application implementations, upgrades, migrations, and integrations.
• Proven ability to develop and lead high-performing technical and business analyst teams.
• Experience managing vendors, consultants, contracts, software licensing, and technology budgets.
• Strong analytical and systems-thinking skills with the ability to use data to inform priorities and decisions.
• Ability to work effectively across academic, administrative, technical, and executive functions within a complex organization.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to translate technical issues into understandable business impacts.
• Demonstrated experience leading organizational change and technology transformation.
• Experience supporting enterprise applications within a large K-12 school district, public-sector organization, higher education institution, or similarly complex multi-site organization is highly desirable.

These leadership characteristics closely align with the existing SFUSD Technology Services Officer description, which emphasizes K-12 technology knowledge, resource planning, team leadership, cross-functional collaboration, communication, organizational change, and systems thinking.

Minimum Qualifications:

Education: Bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university in Computer Science, Information Systems, Business Administration, Education, Engineering, or a closely related field.'

Experience: Five (5) years of progressively responsible professional experience in information technology, enterprise applications, business systems, application development, systems analysis, or a related field, including at least four (4) years of management or senior technology leadership experience.

Substitution: Up to 4 years of education requirement may be substituted for additional experience on a year-for-year basis.

What We Offer:

SFUSD offers a competitive salary of $164,038 - $213,383/annually annually, commensurate with experience in a similar position. We offer a comprehensive benefits plan including dental and vision pla