Working at the World Bank Group provides a unique opportunity to help client countries solve their greatest development challenges. The World Bank Group is one of the largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries; a unique global partnership of five institutions dedicated to ending poverty on a livable planet.
With 189 member countries and more than 120 offices worldwide, the World Bank Group works with public and private partners, invests in groundbreaking projects and uses data, research, and technology to develop solutions to pressing global, regional and local challenges. For more information, please visit http://www.worldbank.org.
The organization has undertaken an ambitious exercise to revise its mandate, products and structure to adjust to the multiple, intertwined crises affecting the world today (see Evolution Roadmap), in the move to becoming a better Bank.
Business Unit Overview
The mission of the Information and Technology Solutions (ITS) Vice Presidential Unit (VPU) is to leverage information and technology as a force multiplier to accelerate, deepen, and sustain development impact. Their vision is to harness information and technology for a world free of poverty on a livable planet. For more information on ITS, check this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=VTFGffa1Y7w.
The Director and Chief Information Officer, Operations and Country Engagement Solutions is a critical role responsible for partnering closely with business leadership to deliver transformative Operations and Country Engagement technology solutions that enable the WBG to scale capabilities needed to achieve their mission of creating a world free of poverty on a livable planet.
In this role, this leader will lead, manage, and coach a global and diverse team of cross-functional resources to efficiently and effectively deliver technology solutions while fostering a culture of innovation, sustainability, and agility. The Director and Chief Information Officer, Operations and Country Engagement Solutions will collaborate with other members of the ITS Management and Leadership teams to continually evolve the ITS organization and maximize the value of technology investments at the WBG.
This role stands at the center of business and technology and requires an experienced strategic advisor who can forge deep relationships with the business and extended ecosystem to fully leverage the force multiplier effect of technology on driving business value. This leader will be a strategic visionary, collaborative leader, and change agent.
Duties & Responsibilities
The primary role and responsibility of the WBG Director and Chief Information Officer, Operations and Country Engagement Solutions:
Strategy & Business Engagement
•Collaborate with business and corporate partners to develop and execute a multi-year strategy and roadmap for the Operations and Country Engagement technology portfolio that drives measurable value for the business in alignment with the broader ITS strategy and WBG priorities.
•Be a trusted advisor for business partners, driving strategic discussions and influencing decisions on technology selection, design, and use. Create clear feedback loops with task team leaders (TTLs) and countries.
•Maintain deep understanding and knowledge of relevant business and technology trends, leading practices, and how the relevant WBG business areas run on a day-to-day basis to identify opportunities to deliver technology-driven business value.
•Represent ITS on different institutional bodies and governing forums.
•Manage relationships with owners of surrounding / interfacing solutions to ensure continued integration and minimize change impacts.
Business Solutions Leadership
•Maintain end-to-end accountability and ownership for technology products and solutions in the Operations and Country Engagement portfolio while effectively managing and mitigating risks and ensuring compliance with policies, standards, procedures, and security requirements.
•Continually assess and evaluate the impact of emerging technologies against strategic business needs and interpret business value for the leadership team.
•Manage successful delivery and operations of Operations and Country Engagement portfolio and associated capital and administrative budgets.
•Track and report portfolio performance against business value metrics jointly agreed with business partners, ensuring transparency into budget spend, cost allocations, and value delivered.
•Accelerate business digital transformation and scalability of WBG capabilities by embedding AI, ML, and other intelligent technologies into business solutions.
Business Solutions Delivery
•Lead the planning, design, configuration, and deployment of systems and business solutions in support of core organizational functions and processes.
•Lead the overall Solution Development Life Cycle (SDLC) from business/technical requirements including architecture through design, code delivery, testing and deployment
•Lead modernization of the SDLC function by adopting standard ITS agile ways of working and tools, rationalizing application architectures, and consolidating platforms. Maintain Kanban practices across the department.
•Coordinate implementation of system enhancements, upgrades, updates, patches, and fixes to assure optimal system performance, data integrity, and reliability.
Within the first year, this leader will be specifically responsible for:
•Evaluate current capabilities, strategies, roadmaps and staff, providing an informed current state assessment and future state proposal within 120 days.
•Develop framework to aggressively apply automation and/or AI to development activities including requirements discovery, transaction tracing, process discovery, coding, retrofitting, testing, deployment, and complete pilot. Establish baseline and set KPI for automation.
•Complete lean process redesign for at least two critical operational processes, in partnership with business colleagues. Quantify improvements.
•Create clear feedback loops with TTLs and Client Countries. Publish adoption and satisfaction metrics. Implement Client Ease Score, setting baseline and annual improving KPI targets.
•Deploy digital copilots for operations staff with high adoption rates. Quantify adoption and time efficiencies.
•Improve psychological safety in the unit.
•Publish the Knowledge Bank technology strategy within the first six months.
