The Lead Business Analyst will be part of the Cast & Guest Solutions (CGS) Strategic Planning team, and will report to the Manager Technology, Strategic Planning. This position will act as an interface between business partners and technology teams to deliver next-up products on the business roadmap plan. Responsible for gathering demand, guiding delivery teams through the funding process, maintaining alignment with business initiatives and supporting technologies, and managing the annual financial planning processes. The ideal candidate will be able to perform job requirements with minimal direction as an expert in the role, and will provide leadership to other Business Analysts by coaching them in the project funding process.
Responsibilities :
Project Initiation & Funding:

• Provide thought partnership with delivery teams and business partners during new product ideation and strategic planning
• Develops moderately complex business cases, in particular ensuring benefits align to strategic and tactical business objectives
• Lead capital project initiation, including scope definition, solution design and estimation, and funding approval for projects ranging $1.0M - $12M+
• Advanced knowledge of the capital funding process and rules

Portfolio Planning & Annual Financial Processes:

• Engage with a diverse set of stakeholders and executive business partners to gain a strong understanding of business strategies and align with Technology solutions
• Supports collection of raw demand with business partners, documents capabilities, and analyzes demand for overall prioritization
• Have detailed understanding of all projects in assigned portfolio, the dependencies between projects and relative value to the organization of each.
• Consolidate the prioritization and funding of the Technology roadmap based on business value and priorities across all CGS portfolio, partnering with each area for inputs
• Prepare project executive summaries, and detailed project status updates
• Prepare project content for reviews with various approving groups, including finance, capital planning business executives and technology executives

Leadership:

• Lead moderately complex analysis, providing guidance and oversight to other analysts on the team. Expert in the role; need minimal direction
• Inspire, motivate, and lead team to go above and beyond delivering value to CGS and business partners.
• Proactively identify and implement creative solutions to improve portfolio planning and delivery
• Supports the development of business planning analysis best practices for the organization

Basic Qualifications :

• 4+ years progressive leadership experience
• Experience creating business cases to secure project funding
• Strategic thinker that is able to connect business outcomes to technology solutions, strong collaborator, analytical, problem solving and decision-making skills
• Strong communication skills and the ability to communicate at all levels of the organization; this includes written, verbal, visualizations/deck building and facilitation skills
• Proven ability to successfully operate in a highly matrix organization with a diverse set of clients; demonstrated influence vertically and horizontally along with strong interpersonal, partnering, negotiating, and consensus-building skills
• Solid understanding of program and project management principles Experience in business analysis techniques, such as information gathering methods, requirements documentation, process modeling and process mapping.
• Strong understanding of all stages in a project lifecycle and delivery approaches, e.g. waterfall, agile, etc.
• Strong organizational and time management skills
• Understanding of value-driven business outcomes and metrics
• Expert proficiency in office productivity software and tools (MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Keynote, SmartSheet, etc.)

Preferred Qualifications:

• Expertise with project management tools and/or software packages (Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Tools, such as Clarity, etc.)

Required Education :

• Bachelor's degree in a technology, business-related discipline, communication, or equivalent experience.