Associate Director-Innovation Applications

Role Overview

As the Associate Director-Innovation Applications, you will guide the operational stability, evolution, and longterm strategy of the organization s innovation-focused application ecosystem. This role combines handson technical leadership with strategic oversight, ensuring platforms are reliable today while positioning them for future enhancements driven by emerging technology and business needs.

You will manage a team of Applications Engineers, coordinate specialized external resources, and partner with Innovation, IT, Security, and other crossfunctional groups to execute a roadmap that balances agility with operational rigor.

What You ll Do

Team Leadership & Talent Development

• Lead, mentor, and support Applications Engineers responsible for daily monitoring, troubleshooting, and operational continuity of innovation application environments.
• Foster a culture of accountability, technical excellence, and continuous improvement.

Application Lifecycle Ownership

• Oversee stability, scalability, and performance of key innovation platforms through structured lifecycle management including upgrades, versioning, dependency tracking, and capacity planning.
• Ensure application health through proactive monitoring and performance optimization activities.

Resource & Vendor Coordination

• Manage the onboarding and coordination of contract or specialized resources supporting major system updates, transformation efforts, or new platform deployments.
• Maintain strong working relationships with external vendors to support licensing, maintenance, roadmap alignment, and escalation needs.

Enhancement & Delivery Management

• Partner with Innovation, IT, and business stakeholders to plan and deliver new features, integrations, and functionality improvements.
• Coordinate release activities, ensuring testing, documentation, and quality controls are in place prior to rollout.

Governance, Compliance & Risk Alignment

• Ensure applications conform to organizational security, risk, and Responsible AI (RAI) governance frameworks.
• Partner with compliance and risk teams to evaluate new capabilities and maintain auditready documentation.

Documentation, Reporting & Communication

• Maintain comprehensive documentation of configurations, architecture, operational procedures, and change history.
• Provide regular status updates, risk assessments, and performance insights to leadership, highlighting trends and opportunities.

Continuous Improvement & Optimization

• Identify systemic issues, performance bottlenecks, or user experience friction points and implement process or technical improvements.
• Champion automation opportunities and tooling enhancements to elevate reliability and reduce manual effort.

What You ll Bring

Education

• Bachelor s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related discipline or equivalent handson experience.

Experience

• 8+ years of experience overseeing application operations, platform support, or enterprise application management, ideally within legal, corporate, or professional services environments.

Leadership Capability

• Demonstrated success leading technical teams, coordinating external partners, and driving shared accountability in hybrid, distributed, or crossfunctional environments.

Technical Ecosystem Familiarity

• Working knowledge of Microsoft 365 services, automation frameworks, and custom enterprise applications.
• Strong understanding of application lifecycle management, integration patterns, and performance tuning.

Governance & Security Awareness

• Experience navigating enterprise risk, compliance, and security frameworks, including alignment with Responsible AI and data governance standards.

Communication & Analytical Thinking

• Ability to translate technical issues into business-relevant insights, influence decisions, and drive timely resolution of operational and delivery challenges.
• Practical, results-oriented approach to problem solving.

Preferred Experience

• Exposure to legal operations technology, legaladjacent platforms, or professionalservicesspecific applications.
• Familiarity with specialized tools such as AIenabled legal applications, document automation, discovery platforms, analytics tools, workflow optimization suites, and related emerging technologies.