The Chief Enterprise Architect (CEA) is the senior Information Technology (IT) leader accountable for translating
enterprise strategy into coherent, executable business and technology outcomes.
The role ensures that technology strategy, technology evolution roadmaps, and
technology selections are actively governed to enable the company’s customer
experience, growth, productivity, compliance, security, operational
simplification, capital allocation, and cost optimization goals.
Success for the CEA is demonstrated by:
· Clear alignment between
enterprise strategy and information technology strategy
· Formal management of 5-year technology
evolution roadmaps, refreshed annually
· Simplification of the technology
landscape, optimizing business processes, minimizing cost, and maximizing leverage
of capabilities across the enterprise
· Reduced architectural complexity,
technical debt, and IT operating cost
· A credible, high‑performing, outcome-oriented
architecture community actively engaged in executing the technology evolution roadmaps
People: Lead the IT Architecture Community
· Lead the architecture community
with a clear mission and governance model, and nurture the community to advance
business and technology acumen
· Establish architectural principles
that emphasize enterprise-wide leverage, process and technology simplification,
speed of execution, sound risk management, and revealing conditions for which specialized
technological solutions are needed
· Ensure the members of the architecture
community operate in a fashion that defines and manages precise architectural
standards while also actively engaging in efforts to architect and deploy
optimal solutions
· Partner with the CIO and
executive leaders to translate strategy into target operating models,
capability roadmaps, and investment priorities
· Lead future‑state architecture
across business capabilities, value streams, platforms, and ecosystems
· Connect strategy to execution
through implementable, sequenced roadmaps
· Provide fact‑based guidance on
readiness, trade‑offs, and change capacity
· Sponsor annual refreshes of the
Process-IT Landscape for the entire enterprise, covering all business functions
and business divisions
· Champion establishment and
annual refreshes of a rolling 5-year Process-IT Target State Landscape to guide
continuous evolution toward a simpler, more cost-effective, and capable
technology ecosystem
· Act as the integrator across
business units, product teams, and technology domains to continually manage understanding
of the Current State Process-IT Landscape and guide decisions that result in
progressing to the Target State Landscape.
· Ensure alignment between:
o Business capabilities and value
streams
o Product portfolios and platform
strategies
o Technology standards and
delivery autonomy
· Surface cross‑enterprise
dependencies, risks, and opportunities early
· Enable consistent architectural
decision‑making without slowing delivery
· Identify and contextualize
emerging technologies and ecosystem trends
· Sponsor the Technical
Assessment Council (TAC) to validate, assess, and disposition new technology
requests ensuring use of existing technologies is first priority
· Review and validate proposed
solution designs described in IT investment proposals
· Ensure architectural target
state guidelines enable re-use and rapid deployment
· Lead assessments of
architectural health, technical debt, and technology modernization priorities
· Champion the continuous
improvement of the CMDB ensuring accuracy, clarity, and completeness throughout
the knowledge base
· Sponsor targeted experiments
tied to tangible business outcomes
· Ensure successful innovations
scale into operational capabilities
· Engage the architecture
community to produce architectural designs for proposed IT investments leveraging
existing technologies to the greatest extent possible across the enterprise,
and utilizing new technologies only to address business-critical capability
gaps
· Partner with delivery and
infrastructure leaders to improve cost efficiency and time‑to‑market
The CEA serves as a trusted advisor to:
· CIO and IT leadership
· Business Division and
Functional leaders
· Finance, Strategy, and Transformation
leaders
The role requires executive‑level influence
and the ability to challenge constructively in guiding technology strategies
and selections to maximize enterprise leverage of capabilities and minimize
operating cost.
· Bachelor’s degree in IT or Engineering;
or equivalent experience
· 15+ years in enterprise
architecture, IT strategy, and business transformation
· Track record in executing
multi-year technology evolution roadmaps yielding tangible business outcomes
· Global IT community leadership
in delivering technology-powered business transformations in complex
environments
· Business and IT architectural
design
· Technology evolution roadmap
planning and business case development
· Technology trends assessment
and application (cloud, SaaS, platforms, data, AI)
· Executive communication and
facilitation
· Enterprise‑first,
outcome‑driven mindset
· Credible and persuasive with
senior executives
· Systems thinker balancing
long‑term integrity with near‑term delivery
· Pragmatic, commercially
grounded, and politically astute
· Builder of talent, trust, and
cross‑functional alignment
The Chief Enterprise Architect ensures
we invest in the right technologies, design architectures coherently, and evolve
the IT landscape to maximize enterprise leverage, minimize cost, and keep pace
with technological trends that enable competitive advantage.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in IT or Engineering or equivalent experience
- 15+ years in enterprise architecture, IT strategy, and business transformation
- Proven track record executing multi-year technology evolution roadmaps with measurable business outcomes
- Global IT community leadership delivering technology-powered business transformations in complex environments
- Business and IT architectural design expertise
- Technology evolution roadmap planning and business case development experience
- Technology trends assessment and application experience (cloud, SaaS, platforms, data, AI)
- Executive-level communication, facilitation, and stakeholder influence skills
What We Do
Sputnik Solutions Inc is a partner for IT excellence, providing customized, high-quality IT staffing, development, support, and managed services. The company builds its solutions on the collective experience, customer successes, and best practices of its technology experts, serving as an innovative provider of information technology and outsourcing services based in Schaumburg, Illinois.









