Business Relationship Manager

Job Title:  Business Relationship Manager
Location: Columbus, OH
Client: Ohio Department of Commerce (ODOC)
Duration: 12 months
Hybrid - In-office requirement - 3 days/week

The Ohio Department of Commerce (ODOC), serving as the Chief Regulatory Agency for the State of Ohio, is seeking a strategic Business Relationship Manager (BRM) with a foundational background in IT consulting to support our agency’s technology modernization efforts. In this role, the regulatory mission and public service are the drivers, and technology is the enabler. 
Primary Responsibilities: Agency Strategy & Relationship Management
•    Strategic Agency Partnership: Partner closely with leadership across ODOC’s various regulatory divisions to rapidly develop a deep understanding of their unique licensing, permit, compliance, and enforcement processes. Define how technology can be designed to streamline regulatory operations and improve the citizen experience.
•    Shape the Modernization Roadmap: Move beyond taking order tickets. Shape and recommend the strategic direction of agency technology, guiding future system enhancements and platform releases to ensure IT investments align with ODOC’s broader mission as the state''''s Chief Regulatory Agency.
•    Catalyze Cross-Functional Collaboration: Act as the primary liaison between ODOC business divisions and agency IT leadership. Use your credibility to identify opportunities for process improvement, break down organizational silos, and align competing priorities across the agency.
•    Executive Communication & Value Realization: Translate complex IT initiatives into clear, non-technical terms for agency executives. Define success metrics and advocate for how technology investments improve regulatory accuracy, ensure compliance, and optimize taxpayer resources.
Secondary Responsibilities: Technical Translation & Solution Validation
•    Bilingual Translation: Serve as the essential bridge between ODOC business areas and agency/state engineering teams. Translate division needs into actionable requirements (e.g., Epics, high-level designs) for developers, and translate complex technical constraints into impacts on agency timelines and regulatory compliance for leadership.
•    Architectural Oversight: Leverage high-level Solution Architecture skills to evaluate technical proposals from internal state teams or external vendors. Ensure that designed solutions are scalable, compliant with stringent state security policies, and solve the identified regulatory problem without over-engineering.
•    Navigate Complex Legacy Issues: When complex, multi-technology issues arise within ODOC’s legacy environments, step in to analyze the situation from a public-impact perspective, guiding IT teams toward resolutions that protect critical agency operations and continuous regulatory processing.
•    Data-Informed Strategy: Collaborate with state data and analytics teams to interpret advanced data analysis, using those insights to build strong business cases for new ODOC technology initiatives.
Required Qualifications:
•    Experience: 5+ years of experience in Information Technology, with a proven track record operating in a Business Relationship Manager (BRM), Product Management, or strategic IT consulting capacity. Experience working within state government, public sector, or heavily regulated industries (e.g., financial services, insurance, healthcare compliance) is strongly preferred.
•    Technical Fluency: Prior experience or strong working knowledge in high-level Solution Architecture. You possess the technical depth to cut through technical jargon and validate engineering approaches, even if you are not writing code.
•    Mission-First DNA: A strict prioritization of agency outcomes and public service over technical perfection. You understand that technology is only valuable if it helps ODOC efficiently regulate and better serve the State of Ohio.
•    Stakeholder Management: Exceptional communication and facilitation skills, with the ability to confidently lead workshops with division directors, navigate state bureaucratic processes, and mediate between business and technical leaders.

Ardent Technologies, Inc., is an equal opportunity employer that relies on the strength of a diverse workforce.  All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.