Senior Manager Solution Architecture at KCB Bank Kenya

The Position:

The KCB Group and Architecture and Governance department is mandated to define and own the Enterprise Architecture Strategy that influences and supports KCB Group Business Strategy. The department is also responsible for defining the future direction of Information Systems Applications and Technology and steering IT investment decisions around the enterprise (projects and transformations) and in alignment to corporate strategy.  

The role will report to the Head of Group Enterprise Architecture and Governance and will be responsible of leading a team of solution architects, business architects. He/She will be responsible of solution-level decisions and analysis of their impact on the overall business goals and outcome and will leverage on their profound knowledge of available technologies to suggest the best solution according to the incoming requirements and existing environment. The key deliverable of this role is to provide a set of technological solutions and the strategy of their implementation.

Key Responsibilities:

• Analyzing enterprise specifics- Facilitate the identification and analysis of the Bank’s business drivers to deliver enterprise business, information, technical and solution architecture requirements. The solution architect will be expected to provide solutions budget estimates and presenting these to the stakeholders.
• Analyzing and documenting requirements- Elicit business requirements using interviews, analysis, requirements workshops, surveys, site visits, business process descriptions, use cases, scenarios, business analysis, task and workflow analysis.  
• Setting the collaboration framework- Liaise with the Business subject matter experts in the development of business architectural framework developing a clear roadmap of Business solutions.
• Manage, lead and mentor other Solution Architects, Business Architects and Business Analysts in their day-to-day work and professional development
• Participating in technology selection-Participate in identifying fit for purpose technologies solutions for the Bank
•   Analyzing the technology environment- Provide an analysis to determine best path for solving business problems/opportunities that may include process improvement vis a vis information technology systems enhancement.
• Controlling solution development-Participate in solution developments to ensure technical and business requirements are adhered to.
• Supporting project management- Provide architectural oversight of projects and ensure that requirements are in alignment with business strategies and business architecture roadmap/framework
• Leverage’s business capabilities as a platform for illustrating the link between business needs with decisions to their technology, solution, business and information architecture efforts
• Translates strategic initiatives into delivery-focused change initiatives, while translating business processes and issues into effective conceptual and logical models.
• Lead effort to work with business leaders to identify business capability needs and IT integration
• Function as a liaison to Business and IT partners in order to gain a broad understanding of industry trends and innovations, and their impact on technology.
• Build and maintain repository for deliverables, methodologies, and business development documents
• Independently facilitate discussions with groups of diverse stakeholders and manage the flow of conversation while driving to meet business objectives.
• Independently manage conflict among diverse cross portfolio stakeholders related to competing interests and requirements. Able to help stakeholders objectively examine real needs versus wants and ways to collaborate to achieve win/win resolutions.

The Person:

For the above position, the successful applicant should have the following:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Technology or a related field of study from a recognized university.
• At least one certification from the following CBAP, TOGAF, ITIL Foundation or Design Thinking and Innovation.
• 6 years’ experience in Information Technology with at least 5 years’ experience in at least two IT disciplines such as (business architecture, application architecture, application development, middleware, microservices and SOA).
• Prior working experience in a leading formal enterprise architecture framework of at least 3 years. 
• Exposure to multiple, diverse technologies, cloud and processing environments.
• Excellent understanding of software delivery processes, (DevOps) and methodologies (i.e. waterfall, agile, hybrid).
• Exceptional interpersonal skills, including teamwork, facilitation and negotiation.
• Excellent planning and organizational skills with ability to breakdown complex items to actionable elements.
• Ability to liaise with all levels of management and subject matter experts across the industry and within the organization to drive adoption of Business Architecture.