Senior Director, Business Intelligence

The Pennsylvania State University (www.psu.edu) seeks a highly motivated leader with exceptional strategic, operational, and interpersonal skills and deep expertise in data analytics to join the leadership team of the University’s enterprise information technology function as Senior Director for Business Intelligence. Reporting to the Vice President for IT & Chief Information Officer and taking a newly conceived role, the Senior Director will be a key member of the CIO’s senior leadership group and will be expected to envision and implement a best-in-class data BI capability that directly advances Penn State’s missions in teaching, research, and service.

The Senior Director for Business Intelligence will provide new vision, energy, and leadership to the work of establishing and implementing a strategy and an appropriate set of technology resources to enhance the University’s use of data in planning, evaluation, and reporting performance against mission and operational goals. The Senior Director will manage an operating budget of $2.4M and a staff of 15. This position will work closely with colleagues within enterprise IT, including peers responsible for teaching and learning with technology and the Chief Technology Architect; with colleagues across campus who have a stake in the University’s use of data whether in academic-support functions such as faculty affairs and institutional research or in business services such as human resources; and of course with colleagues in student services to design and develop a set of policies, tools, and training programs that will advance the University’s data-analytics capacity.

The ideal candidate for this position has a proven track record of involvement with data analytics and business intelligence, ideally at both leadership and technical/operational levels. He/she will showcase the knowledge and willingness to continually stay on top of the latest industry products and technologies, and be able to internalize how new technologies can be integrated into PSU’s IT workflow to drive efficiency gains. Strong experience with simultaneously balancing immediate business priorities/projects while driving the overarching strategic vision of PSU is required as well as a demonstrated history of building and maintaining effective teams and successfully leading and driving strategic changes in complex, fast-moving organizations. An undergraduate degree from an accredited institution and at least 10 years of relevant professional experience is required. Professional activity at the national level is expected and experience in a large, complex, distributed organization is required.

Penn State is one of the leading public research universities in the nation. It enrolls over 97,000 students in one university on 24 campuses and online, and boasts over 645,000 living alumni. Penn State conducts over $800 million per year in research, employs 44,000 people, and has an annual budget in excess of $4 billion.  The University generates approximately $8.5 billion in direct and indirect economic impact annually within Pennsylvania. In its sheer size, in its impact on Pennsylvania, in its place in the nation, in its transformative effect on student lives, in the power of its research and in its cumulative history, Penn State is formidable.

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Penn State has retained Opus Partners (www.opuspartners.net) to support this recruitment. Craig Smith, Partner, and Katie Dean, Associate Partner, are leading the search and are being supported by Thomas Lapierre, Senior Associate. Confidential inquiries, applications, and nominations should be submitted by email to katie.dean@opuspartners.net.

Penn State is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer, and is committed to providing employment opportunities to all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status.