Chief Technology Officer; CTO

Position: Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) serves as a strategic technical leader within the Maricopa County Community College District's Information Technology Services (ITS) division, advancing the district's mission of academic excellence, innovation, and community impact through secure, modern, and reliable technology infrastructure. Reporting to the CIO, this executive partner helps shape the long-term technology strategy and vision for the district by recommending and implementing enterprise infrastructure modernization and investment decisions that ensure scalability, resilience, and alignment with institutional goals.

The CTO is instrumental in leading on-premise and cloud initiatives, which will increase network resilience and elevate service delivery across MCCCD.

With the support of the CIO, this role provides a unique opportunity to optimize technology architecture, infrastructure, and operational processes to establish a future-ready foundation. This position will work closely with the District Office Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and College CIO's to align best practices for network security and operational excellence with the goal to mitigate risk and reduce operational complexity.

The CTO will partner with college technical leaders to ensure a transparent technical strategy throughout the district and alignment across all technology domains.

The CTO will provide vision, leadership, and disciplined execution to ensure technology becomes a strategic enabler of organizational goals. This leader will be tactically focused with opportunities to lean into strategy as a member of the District Office Senior IT leadership team.

Essential Functions

Operational Stewardship (25%)

This role leads a high-performing infrastructure and operations organization. The CTO fosters alignment of district-wide technology initiatives across the colleges.

* Strategic Technology Leadership:
Develops and executes a comprehensive technology transformation strategy aligned with the enterprise's long-term objectives, ensuring modernization, standardization, and sustainability across all technology domains.

* Operational Excellence:
Establishes modern IT service management practices, operational frameworks, and performance standards that elevate reliability, security, and customer experience.

* Data & Analytics:
Builds a robust data strategy and ecosystem that enables advanced analytics, informed decision-making, and consistent data governance.

* Stakeholder Partnership:
Serves as a trusted advisor to executive leadership, operational leaders, and the Governing Board; communicates complex technical concepts with clarity and ensures alignment on priorities and outcomes.

* Vendor & Partner Management:
Oversees key technology partners, integrators, and service providers to ensure high-quality delivery and value.

Enterprise Engineering (25%)

This function provides executive oversight and operational leadership for MCCCD's enterprise infrastructure ecosystem, including IT operations, network, server, storage, and cloud environments. The CTO ensures reliable, secure, and scalable systems that serve as the foundation for academic and administrative success. By applying engineering best practices, automation, and performance analytics, the CTO drives operational excellence, service reliability, and continuous improvement across all infrastructure domains.

* Enterprise Architecture & Modernization:
Redesigns and rebuilds the core technology stack, including infrastructure, cloud architectures, enterprise applications, data platforms, and integration frameworks.

* Oversees the design, implementation, and maintenance of high-availability and high-performance enterprise networks across the district.

* Ensures secure and scalable server, storage, and virtualization platforms to support mission-critical applications and services.

* Leads migration strategies for cloud-based services while optimizing legacy systems.

* Optimizes resource allocation and usage across all infrastructure platforms, ensuring efficient operation and cost-effectiveness.

* Directs all aspects of network, server, storage, and cloud operations across multiple campuses and administrative sites.

* Oversees the architecture, engineering, and administration of infrastructure platforms to ensure performance, reliability, scalability, and security.

* Implements best-practice frameworks such as ITIL, NIST, and ISO to drive service consistency, automation, and proactive maintenance.

Team/Project Leadership (25%)

This role cultivates a culture of collaboration, accountability, and professional excellence. The CTO drives talent development, succession planning, and staff empowerment while ensuring performance expectations and team cohesion. Through strong mentorship and cross-functional engagement, the CTO strengthens organizational capability.

* Team Leadership & Culture:
Plans, organizes, assigns, supervises, reviews, and evaluates the work of staff; identifies training needs and promotes…