Vice President Enterprise Applications

About Our Company

Lids Sports Group is the largest licensed sports retailer in North America, selling fan and fashion-oriented headwear and apparel across the US, Canada, Mexico, Europe, and Australia. Operating out of Indianapolis, IN, our retail stores offer officially licensed headwear and apparel from collegiate and professional sports teams, plus top brands like Nike, New Era, Adidas, and Mitchell & Ness.

We currently operate 1,200+ locations domestically and 50+ internationally, including specialty concept stores for the NBA, NHL, Paris Saint-Germain, and numerous MLB teams. In recent years, Lids has built partnerships with iconic global brands including Marvel, Playboy, and the Harlem Globetrotters, and gained ambassadors like Justin Jefferson, Quavo, and Josephine Skriver – creating a community for both sports fans and fashion lovers.

The company is currently expanding with the goal of becoming the largest licensed brick-and-mortar sports retailer across the globe.

General Position Summary

Reporting to the CIO, The Vice President Enterprise Applications is responsible for the delivery, implementation, and management of solutions that support Lid’s customers, employees and partners.  As a member of the IT senior Leadership Team, the Vice President Enterprise Applications is an influential role, helping to set application roadmaps, negotiating and managing vendor contracts, delivering on a portfolio of application projects, and recruiting and developing high performing teams.

Principle Duties and Responsibilities

• Build a culture of innovation and engagement, focusing on strengthening the organization’s employer brand to position Lids as an IT employer of choice.
• Lead a team managing all aspects of application development and delivery across multiple functions, business units and business lines.
• Effectively initiate, plan, schedule, control, and bring to closure multiple high priority projects.
• Develop and lead a collaborative and Agile software development approach that improves velocity, while maintaining a strong focus on both quality and scalability.
• Drive the cultural changes necessary to enable a continuous delivery model, and foster a strong focus on automation of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
• Foster a strong customer service mind-set throughout the application development team, while championing thought leadership and partnership with the business.

Additional Principal Duties and Responsibilities

• Partner with business leaders to create robust solution roadmaps that are integrated with architecture and operations
• Ensure that all application development initiatives are well managed and delivered to meet expectations on functionality, timeliness, and cost.
• Develop, implement and monitor software development policies and controls to ensure data accuracy, security, and legal and regulatory compliance.
• Partner with internal customers to develop training and deployment plans aimed at maximizing both user adoption and realization of business benefits.
• Prepare project status reports and keep management, client and other stakeholders informed of project status and related issues.
• Manage application vendor relationships and negotiate contracts to procure resources and technology solutions to meet the company’s strategic objectives.
• Assure lowest possible cost of ownership of applications through vendor negotiations and benchmarking.
• Implement and champion a robust professional development program, and continuously upskill team members to keep them current.
• Evaluate team members performance, provide candid feedback and high impact coaching that enables (and motivates) them to achieve departmental as well as enterprise goals.

Job Required Knowledge & Skills

• A minimum of 10 years in purchased package implementation, software development, project management, process development and resource management.
• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or related field
• Experience implementing & supporting ERP & CRM, (preferably Dynamics365)
• Experience implementing & supporting SaaS and cloud solutions
• A high energy, roll-up-the-sleeves attitude with a positive approach to dealing with challenges and the changing priorities driven by a growing business.
• Deep knowledge of system architecture, technical design, and system and software development technology
• Has successfully led development and delivery of multiple complex business technology solutions into production that have achieved or surpassed business goals.

Preferred Job Required Knowledge & Skills

• Prior management experience required; must have experience in successfully developing talent.
• Experience in managing multi million dollar operational and project budgets
• Ability to collaborate across functions and levels.
• Ability to step into projects already in progress, or in need of rescue, and effectively assume a leadership role.
• Must have a strong sense of urgency and ability to quickly prioritize workload.

Reports To

• Chief Information Officer

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