Director-Enterprise Applications

Job Overview

Reporting to the Chief Information Officer, the Director of Enterprise Applications provides strategic, operational, and project leadership for Wheaton College’s enterprise systems and data platforms. This role oversees teams responsible for systems integration, data architecture, and enterprise reporting—including the College’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and campus-wide Data & Analytics platforms.

The Director plays a key role in maintaining and modernizing enterprise applications, leading cross-functional technology projects, and enabling data-informed decision-making. This position collaborates closely with senior leadership, functional departments, and external partners to deliver secure, scalable, and mission-aligned technology solutions that support the College’s academic, administrative, and strategic initiatives. This is a full-time position and pays between $110,000-$130,000 annually.
 

Duties and Responsibilities

• Lead the strategic direction and technical delivery of enterprise applications in alignment with Wheaton College’s mission, institutional goals, and evolving technology needs.
• Collaborate with academic and administrative departments to identify, prioritize, and implement enterprise system enhancements and digital transformation projects that deliver measurable institutional value.
• Serve as the primary liaison between college departments and the Enterprise Applications team, ensuring effective communication of project scope, business requirements, risk, impact, and resource needs.
• Provide leadership and oversight for a strategically significant data and analytics initiative, ensuring successful delivery of a scalable, cloud-based reporting infrastructure using Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, and Azure Data Factory.
• Oversee the transition from legacy reporting systems and ETL tools to a modern data platform, ensuring strong governance, data quality, and adoption of self-service analytics across campus.
• Collaborate with the CIO on long-term enterprise systems architecture, including cloud-first strategies, systems integration, and platform rationalization.
• Provide technical leadership for the college’s ERP systems, including Oracle Cloud (HR, Finance) and Ellucian Banner (Student), ensuring data integrity, security, and alignment with institutional workflows and compliance requirements.
• Manage integrations across a wide range of enterprise and departmental systems, including CRM (e.g., Slate, Salesforce), document management, identity systems, and cloud services.
• Guide the ongoing development and governance of the Wheaton Gateway portal, a unified digital platform that enhances campus engagement, streamlines access to services, and integrates communication tools for students, faculty, and staff.
• Collaborate with cross-functional leaders on strategic planning, project intake, and delivery for enterprise systems and college-wide initiatives, including admissions, financial aid, student success, finance, human resources, and alumni engagement.
• Oversee lifecycle planning, budgeting, and vendor management for enterprise systems, ensuring cost-effective and sustainable technology investments.
• Champion best practices in application lifecycle management, change control, DevOps, and system documentation to support service quality, scalability, and business continuity.
• Provide effective people management by developing, mentoring, and motivating technical staff; fostering a collaborative and service-oriented team culture; and aligning individual strengths with organizational goals.
• Lead complex projects by setting clear objectives, building cross-functional teams, managing timelines and budgets, ensuring consistent communication with stakeholders, and delivering enterprise technology solutions that meet institutional goals.
• Ensure appropriate system testing, monitoring, backup, and disaster recovery processes are in place for all critical enterprise systems and integrations.
• Maintain strong relationships with key vendors and technology partners, ensuring SLAs are met and Wheaton receives timely support and product roadmap visibility.
• Drive customer service excellence across enterprise applications by ensuring timely response to support requests and consistent communication with stakeholders.
• Monitor trends in higher education technology, cloud computing, security, data privacy, and AI-enhanced platforms to inform continuous improvement and future planning.

Foster a culture of innovation, collaboration, and service within AIT and across the institution, supporting the college’s mission through effective digital enablement.

 

This job description is intended to represent key areas of responsibilities; specific assignments may vary from time to time, and other duties may be assigned. 

Qualifications 

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical or related discipline (e.g., Information Systems, Computer Science, Engineering, Data Analytics), or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• 7+ years of progressive experience in enterprise application leadership, including ERP system management, business analysis, data systems, and at least 5 years in a people management or project leadership role.
• Proven experience managing or integrating cloud-based ERP systems, such as Oracle Cloud (HCM/Finance) or Ellucian Banner (Student).
• Demonstrated success leading enterprise data and analytics initiatives, including implementation or support of platforms like Microsoft Power BI, Fabric, Azure Data Factory, or similar modern BI tools.
• Strong understanding of relational databases (Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL), including proficiency with SQL and working knowledge of data governance and data modeling principles.
• Familiarity with modern integration platforms and technologies such as REST APIs, JSON, webhooks, and secure SSO methods (e.g., SAML, OAuth).
• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional teams and enterprise-scale projects, with excellent communication, documentation, and stakeholder management skills.
• Experience managing vendors and cloud/SaaS contracts, including contract negotiation, service-level agreements, and vendor performance oversight.
• Ability to thrive in a mission-driven, collaborative environment and align technology with strategic institutional goals.

Preferred:

• Experience with CRM systems such as Slate or Salesforce, or with student success platforms and enrollment management systems.
• Experience building or managing a data warehouse or data lake architecture.
• Familiarity with document imaging and workflow platforms, such as Hyland Perceptive or similar.
• Working knowledge of automation and scripting tools, such as Python, PowerShell, or Microsoft Power Platform (Power Automate).
• Experience in higher education IT, with a strong grasp of the needs of academic and administrative units.
• Advanced degree (e.g., M.S. in Information Systems, MBA, M.Ed.) is a plus.

Physical Requirements 

The employee is regularly required to sit, talk, or hear; frequently required to use repetitive hand motion, handle or feel, and to stand, walk, reach, bend or lift up to 10 pounds.

FLSA Status - Exempt

As a Christ-centered community, Wheaton College faculty and staff must affirm the College’s Statement of Faith as expressing their own theological convictions and agree to live by the moral standards in Wheaton’s Community Covenant, modeling these commitments for the Christian formation of our students.  Wheaton College faculty and staff also support the Christ-Centered Diversity Commitment which highlights our desire to treat all individuals as equal image-bearers of Jesus Christ through diversity, inclusion, justice and unity.