Director of Information Technology; WIDA)

WIDA is an educational services organization that advances language development and academic achievement for multilingual children in early childhood and grades K-12, providing educators around the world with high-quality language standards, assessments, professional learning, and research. WIDA is part of UW-Madison's nationally ranked School of Education.

The Director of Information Technology position is located within the Operations department and will report to the Chief Operating Officer (COO). This position will be responsible for leading and overseeing WIDA's technology ecosystem, including customer relationship management (CRM) systems, learning management systems, cloud technology, data analytics, websites, cybersecurity, technical support, systems integration, and business analysis.

This role partners closely with consortium stakeholders, state partners, and internal leaders, as well as technical leaders across the University, acting as WIDA's main point of contact when technology is part of an incident or needed for a solution.

The Director will ensure technology solutions meet changing business needs, support data-informed decision-making, help staff adapt to new technologies, and position WIDA for long-term success. They will also consult on data warehouse design; user authentication for WIDA's consortium of 42 states, territories, and agencies; and compliance with data security requirements. The ideal candidate champions innovation by identifying opportunities to responsibly leverage emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, to improve processes and organizational effectiveness while adhering to institutional policies and ethical practices.

This is a strong manager role with technical expertise who translates strategy into action by developing talent, assigning ownership, and empowering technical experts to deliver results. The Director of IT manages a team including IT analyst staff, support specialists, administrators and developers, assigning them to projects and operational challenges.

Remote work is an option for this position on a voluntary basis; however, due to UW policy and travel expectations, this position requires living in Madison, WI, or the surrounding area, as this position may occasionally require on-site work at the Madison office.

• Directs strategic information technology planning initiatives and establishes divisional objectives to ensure appropriate use of financial, administrative, and staffing resources, and alignment with the strategic plan
• Leads cross-functional technology planning and roadmap efforts to identify organizational needs, prioritize investments, and drive adoption of technology solutions through strong stakeholder partnership and organizational buy-in
• Serves as the divisional IT liaison representing the division's interests to internal and external stakeholders
• Leads enterprise technology architecture, systems integration, and data governance initiatives to ensure secure, reliable, and scalable technology solutions across the consortium's technology ecosystem
• Develops and implements technology modernization strategies, including cloud services, artificial intelligence capabilities, automation, and emerging technologies
• Advises institutional or divisional leadership on information technology operations and business models
• Develops operating policies and procedures to comply with regulations, institutional policies, and divisional objectives
• May perform manager functions through subordinate managers
• Exercises supervisory authority, including hiring, transferring, suspending, promoting, managing conduct and performance, discharging, assigning, rewarding, disciplining, and/or approving hours worked of at least 2.0 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees
• Develops and audits the budget

• Minimum of five (5) years of IT leadership experience, including responsibility for managing technical experts and managing a technology roadmap aligned with organizational objectives
• Demonstrated expertise designing, implementing, and managing complex enterprise data integrations across multiple platforms and applications, ensuring reliable and secure data exchange across CRM, LMS, web, analytics, and cloud-based systems for at least a decade
• Demonstrated ability to leverage data analytics to support business intelligence
• Understanding of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence enabled efficiencies
• Experience with identity and access management, including authentication and single-sign on (SSO) implementations
• Experience with Canvas learning management system
• Knowledge of Salesforce CRM, Eloqua email marketing platform, Drupal CMS, AWS service architecture, Google Analytics and web analysis, Jira or other agile project management tools
• Experience with web development technologies, including website architecture, content management systems (CMS), user experience (UX) principles, and web security best practices
• Experience…