POSITION DESCRIPTION March 2016

Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) Vice President of Technology ABI seeks a proven IT manager/strategist with a career track record of selecting and implementing administrative and externally facing B2B & B2C systems solutions that: have a strong customer focus, deliver critical functionality, are easy to use & maintain, and are cost effective, secure, scalable and resilient.

Headquartered in Palo Alto the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology builds on the work of generations of women technologists, to advance the careers of new generations of women in technology. The organization originated in the mid-1980s with networking infrastructure and self-help events that enabled women in technology to share work experiences. ABI was formally incorporated in 1997 by computer scientists Anita Borg and Telle Whitney, and over almost 20 years has evolved considerably to be the world’s largest and internationally most influential community of women in technology. ABI programs include: ABI Events , generally provided under the umbrella of Grace Hopper Programs named to honor the inventor of the first computer language compiler, who also advanced the paradigm-altering concept of machine-independent programming languages. Programs include : • The Grace Hopper Celebration of Conference , the world’s largest gathering of women in computing and includes a forum that brings together high-level technology executives to discuss recruiting, retaining, and advancing technical women; This annual event is held in the US and in India. • Smaller, but no less significant events staged throughout the , India and other countries. ABI Community and Partner Programs create connections among women in technology, between women and companies, and among companies wishing to share best recruiting, cultivation and retention practices, including: • eMail and Online Communities that connect technical women. “Systers” is the largest private community of women in computing in the world, and provides a private space for women in computing to ask personal and technical questions. • ABI.local , a network of open, locally organized communities that bring women technologists together in cities around the world. • Corporate Partners that offer advice and perspective to organizations that make a year round commitment to increase the representation of women technologist in their organizations. • Partner Meetings provide opportunities for ABI partners to come together to learn effective strategies to increase the retention and advancement of women technologists in leadership. Research & Education , including: • Research that includes published reports, articles and statistics on the state of women in the technology sector. • Programs for Women Technologists that includes products and programs designed to recognize, inspire and guide women technologists as they advance their career.

Award Programs that draw attention to leading women in technology, and to companies that take concerted action to advance the careers of women in technology: • The Women of Vision Awards honors technical women with three awards presented each year in categories of Innovation, Leadership, and Social Impact. Past winners include: Mary Lou Jepsen ( and Facebook executive); Kristina M. Johnson (leader in the development of optoelectronic processing systems, 3-D imaging, and color-management systems); Mitchell Baker (Executive Chairwoman of the Mozilla Foundation and of Mozilla Corporation), and many others. • A range of other awards, including the: Social Impact Award, Technical Leadership Award, Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award, A. Richard Newton Educator Award, and Change Agent Awards. • The Top Company for Technical Women Award that recognizes companies for their recruitment, retention, and advancement of technical women. The first company to receive such an award was IBM in 2011, and subsequent annual recipients include American Express, Intel, Bank of America, and the BNY Mellon. Award events also serve as a mechanism allowing representatives from different companies to learn from each other and share best practices. The organization is based in Palo Alto, has a budget of $21M, a staff of 42, 53 corporate partners, and a community of well over 25,000. The IT Department has a staff of 4 and a budget of $1M, and functions as a general contractor selecting, engaging and managing subcontractors and vendors.

BASIC FUNCTION The Vice President of Technology’s (VPT’s) primary responsibility is to provide for stable, secure, documented, scalable and responsive systems that address the needs of internal and external ABI users. These internal and external users are viewed as customers of the IT function and their satisfaction is viewed as critical to the success of the Institute as a whole. It is the VPT’s job to ensure that systems cost-efficiently meet the functional requirements of the Institute, its community, business and other partners, and of prospective constituents. ABI currently runs a mix of different, overlapping, non-interoperable systems that inadequately deliver essential functionality. Current systems generally fall into five categories: • Event Management , including event registration, ticketing. Systems include etouches , eventbright , FreshDesk help desk, the ABI Resume Database (locally developed), and mobile applications that is still in the process of being decided. • Content Management , that allows ABI partners and community members to access materials based on permissions, and allows ABI staff to share internal documentation. Systems include Wordpress and Buddy Press . There is s significant investment in websites including ABI.org , ABI.local providing private support for local communities, BoardVantage for both ABI’s Board of Trustees and ABI partners. • Financial and Business Development Management , including financial accounting (GL/AP/AR), payroll processing, forecasting and planning, invoicing. Systems include Quickbooks, Concur , and Trinet . ABI has engaged an outside financial system’s consultant to review our financial workflow and systems in Q1 2016. ABI uses

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Salesforce as its primary business development system, and is in the process of updating its usage model. • Office Automation Systems , including for word processing, spreadsheets, desktop sharing, video conferencing, etc. Systems include Dropbox , WebEx , Slack and Microsoft Office . • Collaboration and Email Management are facilitated by a range of email and permissions-based collaboration platforms that connect diverse ABI community members with the organization or each other. Systems include Outlook, Emma, and Teamwork . The Mailman system has been the platform used as the Systers listserv for many years. • In addition to the above list, there are a number of department specific processes and systems that are in use that need to be incorporated into an overall and rational software stack that minimizes duplicate data and functionality (and avoids data reconciliation processes) as the organization grows. • One of the critical decisions that need to be made is the data architecture for storing and retrieving critical data about ABI’s community. Historically this information was stored in the Salesforce system and in and ABI’s former registration system called RegOnline . Both have proven ineffective and unwieldy. There are three initial priorities for the VPT in the next 12 – 18 months. First , ABI must find a way to function using a simplified combination of systems currently installed at the Institute. While there are too many overlapping and redundant systems in use by different departments, it will not be possible to quickly transition from the current mixed architecture to one that is both lean and rational. The VPT must find practical compromises that enable ABI to serve its community and advance its mission, while also helping the organization to transitioning to components that are interoperable and scalable. Second , one system must function as a master record for every member of the ABI community. It is currently not possible to produce a snapshot of data for any ABI community member, whether an individual or a business partner. There should be a single master record and transaction history for each member of the ABI community, and one for each partner. Third , invoicing and accurate financial reporting are a particular challenge. There are too many routes by which “billable” transactions are executed between ABI and partners or community members; and workflows that connect to AR–type processing, ticketing, attendance for events, etc. are tangled. The VPT must craft an approach that produces clear data that can be used as a basis for accurate invoicing and financial reporting. Once implementation of core systems improves, the next phase of the VPT’s work is to collaborate with the leadership team to develop and implement a range of web-based self- service systems for the ABI community. The VPT reports to the President & CEO and will work closely with other senior staff, partners and vendors. ABI pursues a permanent agenda of lean innovative practice that favors off-the- shelf solutions and proven technologies. The VPT must work with the professional staff and other advisors to strike a balance between ideal solutions, practicality and cost. This is a roll up your sleeves, participatory organization, and staff teams form flexibly around projects. The VPT should be willing and able to act as a strategist in shaping a technology environment to advance ABI’s work, and as an architect, collaborator, manager and tactical implementer.

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The First 120 Days and Beyond The VPT will immediately assess the state of play of in-process technical projects, assess short term risk to any part of ABI’s technical infrastructure, and review changes and upgrades to the operating infrastructure. In consultation with the CEO, the management team and staff, the VPT will shift priorities as appropriate and manage delivery of such activities to time and budgetary targets. In the first 120 days, the VPT, in consultation with all members of the ABI leadership team, will review and enhance all IT plans, shaping a revised plan, with at least the following 5 sections: internally facing core systems; externally facing software, including the website and self-service modules; technical operations, including hardware/cloud architecture, network requirements, backup, recovery and security procedures; staffing or contractor/vendor plan; department budget. This plan will be continually updated and shared with other members of the management team as appropriate. On an ongoing basis, the VPT will: • Chair an IT Steering Committee (ITSC) comprised of senior managers representing a cross-section of ABI key business users and departments; continually assess and address ABI’s various IT requirements, and annually update the IT strategic plan and budget. • Manage the day-to-day activities of the IT department, including all vendor, subcontractor and partner relationships. • Evaluate, assess and evolve staff capabilities, the systems roadmap, and vendor and partner relationships to ensure that the IT function is scaled to meets the changing needs of ABI and its constituents on an ongoing basis. • Approve, coordinate and lead all projects related to selection, acquisition, development and installation of major information systems; provide advice on evaluation, return on investment, user experience and other factors that guide system evaluation. • Develop and enforce appropriate IT policies and procedures to protect ABI’s data and its investment in IT. ABI has a special obligation to community members, partners and others to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of all data and to minimize the risks of security exploits of any kind. Standards must be established to maximize data security and for seamless continued operation in the event of catastrophic failure of individual components. The VPT will immediately review and enhance these standards, as needed, on an on-going basis.

IDEAL EXPERIENCE Candidates should have the following type of experience and qualifications: • At least 10 – 15 years of experience with packaged software implementation, preferably experience implementing diverse modules of integrated software packages with ERP, CRM and HR functionality; experience managing complex environments with many stakeholders and conflicting priorities where triaging skills are essential to focusing limited resources on those IT investments that are most critical; experience coordinating the activities of departments that ‘own’ particular systems functions (finance, CRM, resource planning, data warehousing, event and reservation systems, etc.); 4

• Strong, practical, line IT-management experience delivering diverse software solutions, including an understanding of: • A broad range of tools and approaches for implementing new systems and functions, including: systems selection, , custom systems and interface development (particularly approaches that minimize the need for any custom development); • Strong experience in development and on-going refresh of customer-facing web-based systems, including content management and self-service systems; solid familiarity with the integration of cloud-based capabilities into the IT solution-set; • Various approaches for managing, changing and documenting systems that have already been implemented, including support incident management, re-engineering workflows to improve efficiency, training on new functionality, etc.; • Experience in managing mixed teams of staff, temporary staff, subcontractors and software vendor personnel to deliver results in a cost and time efficient way; experience implementing accountability standards into contracts, RFPs, evaluation instruments, and compensation plans; diverse metrics of effectiveness and user satisfaction; • An advanced degree (MS, MBA) is preferred but is not required; • A track record as an exceptional communicator that is able to convey complex concepts to people of differing levels of knowledge and experience in writing as well as verbally; experience preparing and making effective presentations to diverse groups large and small with different interests and priorities; a good listener and strategist; comfortable receiving input from many sources, and able to analyze and formulate disparate information into a sound, well-organized plan; • A person with the experience and judgment to focus scarce financial, staff and technical resources on addressing the highest priorities first, with a sophisticated understanding of how different types of investment in technology might yield a positive return on investment for an organization like ABI; • A charismatic communicator, able to convey the underlying logic for decisions to invest or not invest in functionality that particular constituents might desire; exceptional verbal and written communication skills, tact and political acumen are very important; • A hard worker with a high energy level; a “doer” with a willingness to work hands-on; emotionally mature with a very good sense of humor and the flexibility and sensitivity to work with diverse personalities and situations. For more information please contact: Lisa Grossman (650) 323-3565 or [email protected] Mark Oppenheim (415) 762-2640 or [email protected] m/Oppenheim Associates 425 Market Street, Suite 1020 San Francisco, CA 94105

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