Chief Technology Officer - ERP

The Position: Chief Technology Officer - ERP

Location: Chennai

The Role :

The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) will be responsible for establishing & driving the ERP BU's technical vision and leading all aspects of technology transformation. The CTO is the BU's top technology leader, reporting to the BU Head, and will play an integral role in the strategic direction, development, and growth. As an innovator, the CTO must provide a vision and roadmap that tightly aligns with the business and customer requirements. The CTO will lead, develop, execute, and manage the technology function in all aspects of software, hardware, and technology infrastructure.

ERP Technology Priorities :

In support of our ambition to be the leading software business in all emerging markets - Asia, Middle East and Africa, our technology organization must:

- Create a common, modern, and open architecture, with a standardized UI/UX across products, and maximise reuse of technology components and off-the-shelf third-party tools

- Fast-track product roadmaps and move from having limited cloud installations and SaaS offering to launching cloud native SaaS offerings in a phased and prioritised way

- Develop a comprehensive suite of core and front-end / digital products. Develop & build a strong ecosystem play of ERP

- Shift from multiple versions of products with different levels of customization to a highly configurable and easy to deploy product suite

- Drive agility, collaboration, identify, engage and retain talent, and identify synergies & efficiencies in engineering

- Evaluate products, platforms and technology capabilities of potential acquisition targets to assess strategic fit and ease of integration with core technology stack

- Integrate products and technology functions from acquisitions rapidly and efficiently to drive maximum synergies, leverage, and technical leadership.

Key Responsibilities :

- Lead ERP BU's technology function and play a key role in transforming its technology environment to support the aggressive growth strategy and evolving needs of the business and its customers.

- As a member of the BU leadership team, challenge the status quo, bringing forward new ideas and driving the development of a winning future technology strategy for the company. Serve as a creative and innovative technology leader as well as a broad business and idea leader.

- Design the most effective technology organization, recruit and hire top talent and set the tone for a scalable, world-class, high performing technology team that achieves the reputation as an "employer of choice."

- Work across the executive team to deliver on the company's business goals and create tight alignment and coordination between functions.

- Represent the technology and development team in product strategy decisions and help set priorities that balance market needs with long-term system viability, scalability, and sustainability.

- Promote a culture of enablement, collaboration, accountability, innovation, entrepreneurship, and overall excellence within the technology organization.

- Drive the future state blueprint delivering cohesive enterprise architecture to define enterprisewide business processes and data elements.

- Ensure best in class engineering practices across the product development cycle

- Manage adherence to a set of enterprise information security policies as well as ensuring regulatory compliance with appropriate standards.

- Mentor team members across the organization in leadership, management, and best practices. Initiate and deliver leadership training including training new leaders and managers to create a strong leadership bench supporting organizational growth.

- Work collaboratively with the BU's product leads.

- Partner with the leadership team to understand build/buy/partner strategies on the technology side.

The Role Holder:

Pivotal Experience & Expertise :

- Technically credible with hands-on knowledge of current cloud technologies and a vision for technology and product evolution to help drive strategy and investment.

- Extensive experience in driving transformation from traditional, on-premise software products (in the ERP space in an advantage) to highly configurable SaaS solutions would be highly desirable.

- Uses customer data & analytics to create meaningful value for a business; recognizes potential/opportunity to create new business advantages, new businesses, or new revenue streams. Experience in ERP context is an advantage.

- Experience integrating/transforming/scaling a technology organization in a fast-growing company striving toward market leadership in an evolving marketplace. Has a track record of creating a technology organization that helps drive competitive advantage & differentiation.

- Has led an organization to support an enterprise at-scale. Understands the technology, infrastructure, processes and investment decisions (and timing thereof) to effectively support daily operations.

- Track record of success in investor-backed, dynamic growth scenarios is desirable.

Leadership Capabilities :

- Sense of urgency, strong intellectual horsepower, a thorough and insightful problem solver with a can-do attitude and demonstrated results

- Persistent focus on improvement; consistently anticipates the competitive landscape and works diligently to win

- Executive presence and the highest levels of personal and professional ethics and integrity

- Demonstrated success both in entrepreneurial and larger corporate environments with creativity, energy and determination to solve problems

- Accountable, self-motivated, hands-on, dynamic and passionate leader with ego in check

- Outstanding leadership, people management and change management skills with the ability to successfully motivate, challenge, and grow

- Exceptional interpersonal and communication skills at all levels, with the ability to flex according to audience

- Ability to roll up sleeves and implement, execute and do whatever it takes to get the job done

- Able to work collaboratively with colleagues and staff to create a results driven, team oriented environment

Culture Fit & Impact:

- An technology leader with strong intellectual horsepower who can quickly assess complex situations and respond effectively and decisively; a thorough and insightful problem-solver

- Has delivered business/financial performance during periods of growth and innovation; delivers evidence of outcomes and impact (and for investors, path to financial return)

- Is energized by operating in the "grey zone" and building capabilities that do not currently exist; doesn't require a blueprint or clear answers; quickly benchmarks and assimilates information to develop options/solutions in an agile manner

- Strong personal accountability ownership mentality; digs in with urgency and an intention to solve problems; perseveres through challenges while thinking about impact on the business and others to ensure sustainability

- Energized by the potential to create the largest, world-class ERP software organization out of Asia /ME