At Northwestern Mutual, we are strong, innovative and growing. We invest in our people. We care and make a positive difference.
What's the role?
As a Lead Business Architect working in the Enterprise Architecture department, you will be aligned a given business function or experience! You are ultimately responsible for ensuring strategies are well-informed, measurable, and aligned to the organization as a whole. This is achieved through partnerships with product, business, and engineering leaders as well as Enterprise Architecture peers!
What you'll do:

• Facilitates development of strategies for department and critical initiatives, including motivations, environmental analysis, innovation, opportunity identification, and business cases.
• Engages key business partners to identify business and technology-enabled innovation opportunities that enable and drive business strategy.
• Reviews and contributes to the enterprise capability, information, organization, partner, information, product, and value stream models.
• Constructs deliverables that demonstrate how to move the business toward realizing its strategic goals and targeted business outcomes.
• Assesses near-term and long-term needs, to establish business IT investment priorities, using meaningful and diagnostic deliverables to help the business and IT leaders make informed IT investment decisions.
• Uses the organization's existing business and operating model as the starting point for innovation, for example, by using new technologies to enable a building block.
• Seeks ways to drive adoption of new technology and reuse existing technology for enabling business capabilities, value streams and business processes.
• Contributes to and occasionally facilitates development of cross functional business solutions that combine knowledge of business capabilities, value streams and business processes.
• Collaborates with other IT functional areas to remain apprised of project and product status and informs line of business customer management of progress. Conversely, keeps the technology, service managers and agile teams aware of key LOB customer issues, identifying and resolving potential problems and conflicts.
• Consults with technical subject matter specialists to develop technical solutions. Advises on options, risks, costs versus benefits, and impact on other business processes and system priorities.
• Collaborates with agile teams to ensure continuous delivery of business value, as well as to use shared technologies, tools, value streams and processes that impact speed to value and time to market.

What we are looking for:

• Minimum of 6-8 years of experience in Enterprise Architecture roles.
• Strong relationship management skills with a focus on modesty, honesty, integrity, and approachability.
• Proven ability to influence without authority.
• Previous participation in or leading of strategic planning exercises.
• A passion for continuous learning and improvement.
• A strong ability to craft content and lead discussions tailored to the needs of the audience, topic and decisions to be made.
• Experience solving outstanding problems with broad impact on the business; requiring conceptual and innovative thinking to develop solutions.
• Ability to balance tactical versus strategic and local versus enterprise considerations.
• Using data to guide informed recommendations and decisions.
• Existing knowledge of common business architecture methodologies (BIZBOK) is a plus.

At Northwestern Mutual we have a competitive compensation package, coupled with a down to earth working environment that nurtures an outstanding working career.
This job is not covered by the existing Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Required Certifications:
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We are an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age or status as a protected veteran, or any other characteristic protected by law.
If you work or would be working in Colorado or outside of a Corporate location, please click here for information pertaining to compensation and benefits.