Team Lead for the IT Strategy Office

The IT Strategy Office (ITSO) team lead manages a compact, high-calibre team of 3-4 senior IT strategists, architects, and principal consultants (all 15+ years of experience). This is deliberately a small unit with only proven experts who operate with significant autonomy, no administration, and deliver through the leverage of virtual teams., Strategic Delivery: Personally lead or oversee the rapid production of high-quality strategic deliverables (strategy papers, target architectures, decision memos, business cases, risk assessments, vendor evaluations, feasibility studies, resilience scenarios, cost-benefit models, etc.).

• Cover the full breadth of enterprise IT topics: cloud & infrastructure modernization, application portfolio simplification & rationalization, generative/operational AI adoption, zero-trust & resilience, data streamlined access strategy, operating model redesign, tech integration, sustainability in IT, etc.

• Deliver most artifacts within 1-4 weeks; many executive "quick-turn" requests must be completed in 2-5 business days without sacrificing depth or credibility.

• Oversee the delivery of the "CSSI", the multi-year IT Strategy roadmap, ready for validation at both company level and HO level

• Ad-hoc engagements with other BNPP entities in Belgium

Leadership & People Management

• Develop and retain senior talent to ensure the team's success

• Remove roadblocks, allocate resources, and ensure consistent excellence in output.

• Foster a culture of intellectual rigor, constructive challenge, speed, and neutrality

Governance & Communication

• Maintain & publish the team backlog, optimizing team workload and allocation, balancing ad-hoc executive requests with longer-term strategic initiatives, ensuring clear prioritization and agreement on outcomes

• Run the weekly IT Strategy Board, chaired by the CIO and attended by CTO, CISO, CDO, Chief Architect, and selected IT MT members.

• Prepare concise, decision-oriented material; drive crisp decisions and clear actions; manage follow-up and accountability.

• Ensure effective communication of IT Strategy Board outcomes (presentations, minutes, key decisions, …) towards a.o. the architecture & engineering teams

• Ensure alignment with business strategy teams and with IT Architecture

• Ensure the team operates efficiently as a central hub for strategic information, with superior knowledge management practices

Project Management

• Act as the initiative owner for two transversal initiatives

• Architecture Simplification

• Application Lifecycle

• Ensure the IT4IT portfolio of initiatives is fully aligned with the IT Strategy Board members (clarity on scope, short term outcomes, meaningful KPIs, roadmaps, prevention of scope creep, …)

Do you have experience in Project management?, At least 15+ years in enterprise IT/technology strategy, project delivery, management consulting and/or senior architecture roles, * Proven experience leading complex, strategic initiatives from conception to recommendation in areas such as IT transformation, cloud strategy, management of innovation's pipeline, application simplification, AI strategy, cyber resilience, operating model redesign, digital transformation.

• Superior written and verbal communication - you can make the complex simple without losing accuracy, both for technical audiences and for an executive committee
• Strong personal brand as a trusted advisor to CIOs/CTOs in previous roles
• Experience mentoring or leading high-caliber professionals in a collaborative (not hierarchical) setting.

Preferable

• Hands-on architecture background (e.g., former Enterprise Architect, Domain Architect, or Distinguished Engineer).
• Successful delivery as IT Project Manager for large initiatives (over 2 MEUR) and/or program manager.
• Published articles, whitepapers, or conference talks on IT strategy topics.
• Prior experience in a top-tier strategy or technical consultancy (McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Accenture, Deloitte, or similar).
• Broad understanding of current technology trends (e.g. AI/ML, Cloud, Cybersecurity, Platform Engineering).
• Experience in Retail Banking

Business Experience

Preferable

• Proactive & Driven: Anticipates needs and operates with a strong sense of urgency and ownership
• Diplomatic & Influential: Builds trust easily and can align diverse, senior stakeholders without formal authority; able to turn skeptics into advocates
• Intellectually confident but low ego; able to challenge all stakeholders constructively
• Resilient & Pragmatic: Comfortable with ambiguity and pressure, focusing on delivering practical value

Soft Skills

• Communicative, strong networking and negotiation skills
• Organised, methodical and rigorous
• Creative, solution oriented
• Teamplayer (motivating and listening abilities)
• Able to make decisions