VP Technology - ScienceDirect

Elsevier ,
London, Greater London
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Overview

Job Description

Create and implement technology strategy (approx. 20% of time) * In conjunction with the wider Technology management team, work with the Corporate R&D division to deliver a clear technology strategy to support the division's online business objectives. * Partner with divisional management and product commercial owners to deliver clear functional and technical roadmaps for each online product and service within the division. * Partner with Business Development to advise on how technology can help deliver the division's strategy. * Support merger and acquisition activity. * As part of the engineering group, assist with the identification and introduction of industry best practice in terms of Software Architecture, Software Development, Support and Testing. Ensure efficient and effective project & product delivery (approx. 40% of time) * Take ownership of all software product development for the Corporate R&D division and ensure that all developments meet user and commercial objectives, are delivered on time, to budget and to the quality standards agreed. * Where assigned by the CIO, take ownership of platforms and services and ensure that all developments are delivered on time, to budget and to the quality standards agreed. * Work with the Project organisation to agree secondment of appropriate Project Management resource in a controlled and timely fashion to ensure your projects can be delivered. * Ensure governance and reporting processes defined by Projects organisation are followed consistently within your Product Development teams. * Monitor development activities across all projects within the group to ensure that they are being executed in an efficient and responsible way, and to the standards set. * Ultimate accountability for all software releases produced by the group in terms of how the solution has been implemented, technical documentation and the ability to support the solution. Staff leadership and development (approx. 20% of time) * Provide leadership and drive to ensure that the Product Development team consistently meets its objectives on time, to budget, to quality standards agreed. * Ensure product development is resourced in a flexible and cost effective way to meet defined roadmaps and objectives. * Oversee the recruitment and development of staff in line with departmental and corporate guidelines. * Establish a close and trusting working relationships with colleagues across Elsevier and Corporate R&D * Establish and maintain an excellent and collegiate style working relationship with all other functions within technology and ensure that this style is propagated throughout the team. Ensure high standards of support for production systems (approx. 10% of time) * Ensure that all delivered solutions are maintainable through adherence to agreed standards and effective handover procedures where required. * Ensure that the group has sufficient resource not assigned to project work in order to provide high quality support for the production systems. * Ensure that staff assigned to support activities are equipped to discharge their duties to agreed service levels and that they understand the significance and impact on business function of the solutions within their support domain. * Ensure that the base line source code for all current supported solutions can be efficiently retrieved and rebuilt. * Work with other functions within the group to ensure that critical system fixes can be developed and released quickly, efficiently and safely. * Ensure that staff coverage provides cost efficient support. Fiscal and Process management (approx. 10% of time) * Prepare and agree an annual budget and operational plan for the Product Development organisation and then, once agreed, manage and report on the group's progress against this plan and budget through the year. * Work with divisional management team to agree cost allocations and manage through the year. * Take responsibility for the quality of all services and solutions delivered by the Web Solutions group. * Play an active part in the continuous improvement of quality processes and standards to ensure that the global organisation provide efficient, high quality and cost effective solution development that supports an iterative and agile development methodology and a dynamic business. * To actively promote quality throughout their division and ensure the quality of all deliverables. Required Experience, Education and Technical Skills: * The successful candidate will have a successful background in Software Product Development, with significant experience leading and managing large Software/Product Development departments (c100 people as a guide), in a major organisation or top tier software house/consultancy organisation. * Highly service focused with extensive experience in designing and building complex web based/platform based solutions. * Proven track record of developing highly performant, n-tier, multi-client, multi-platform software applicatio

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