Hybrid Vice President, Business Systems – Central Technology

at Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

• Job title: Vice President, Business Systems – Central Technology
• Job type: Full Time
• Experience level: Lead
• Salary: $297,000 - $424,600 per year
• Degree requirement: Postgraduate Degree
• Location requirements: Hybrid, Redwood City, United States

About the role

• Vice President overseeing the vision and strategy for CZI’s enterprise platforms across Finance, People, and Brand & Communications. Leading a high-performing team to improve user experience and efficiency.

Responsibilities

• Define and own the product vision and multi-year strategy for business systems, ensuring internal platforms are designed around real user needs and aligned with CZI’s organizational priorities.
• Lead the evolution of Business Systems into a product-led internal tools organization, with clear product ownership, discovery practices, prioritization frameworks, and roadmap discipline.
• Treat enterprise platforms (e.g., Workday, Salesforce, Coupa, Greenhouse, Ironclad) as foundational infrastructure, designing cohesive workflows and user experiences on top of them rather than relying solely on out-of-the-box functionality.
• Build, lead, and mentor a high-performing, multidisciplinary team spanning product, program management, engineering, analytics, and systems leadership.
• Establish governance frameworks and cross-functional decision-making models that support product strategy, tradeoff clarity, and long-term platform health across Finance, People, Grants, Contracts (Legal), and Brand & Communications.
• Serve as a trusted executive partner to C-level leaders and domain executives, translating organizational strategy and operational needs into clear systems and product direction.
• Oversee systems architecture, integration strategy, and data flows to ensure platforms are scalable, secure, compliant, and designed for long-term evolution.
• Drive end-to-end workflow design, automation, and simplification, reducing manual effort while improving usability, transparency, and adoption.
• Champion change management, continuous feedback loops, and measurable improvement across all enterprise systems.
• Act as the primary executive voice for Business Systems within Central Technology and in cross-organizational strategic planning.

Requirements

• 20+ years of progressive experience across enterprise systems, internal platforms, digital operations, or technology leadership, including 5+ years in executive leadership roles.
• Demonstrated experience owning product strategy for internal tools or platforms, including defining user personas, mapping end-to-end workflows, setting roadmaps, and driving adoption and satisfaction — not just implementing or administering systems.
• Proven leadership of enterprise platforms at scale (e.g., Workday, Salesforce, Coupa, Greenhouse, Ironclad), with the ability to design thoughtful abstractions, integrations, and user experiences on top of core systems.
• A track record of leading large-scale systems or platform transformations, delivering measurable improvements in usability, efficiency, and organizational clarity.
• Strong technical fluency across business systems, integrations, and data architecture — able to partner deeply with engineers, architects, and vendors while maintaining product-level accountability.
• Experience shifting organizations from reactive, request-driven system support to product-led operating models, introducing roadmaps, feedback loops, success metrics, and clear ownership.
• Exceptional executive stakeholder management skills, with experience influencing and aligning C-level leaders on priorities, tradeoffs, and long-term systems strategy.
• Strong understanding of business operations across Finance, People, Grants, Contracts (Legal), and Brand & Communications, and how systems can unify and enable these domains.
• Proven ability to build and scale inclusive, high-performing teams that balance delivery, quality, and user empathy.
• Outstanding communication skills, with the ability to translate complexity into clarity for technical and non-technical audiences.

Benefits

• Provides a generous employer match on employee 401(k) contributions to support planning for the future.
• Paid time off to volunteer at an organization of your choice.
• Funding for select family-forming benefits.
• Relocation support for employees who need assistance moving