Director - IT Applications and Transformation

Guidehouse; Chennai; On-site; INR 6,000,000 - 9,000,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation

Learning & development programs

People-first culture

In-house physician consultations

Job summary

Guidehouse India seeks an Executive Director to lead the full India IT organization, building scalable application capabilities for Workday, Dynamics, and custom platforms. You will shape talent, delivery methods, and business partnerships across India, collaborating with global teams to translate enterprise priorities into secure, scalable solutions.

You will assume responsibility for enterprise delivery, operations, governance, and vendor management, while driving modernization and automation

Qualifications

• 15+ years of enterprise technology experience with leadership responsibility.
• Experience leading enterprise application delivery and technology transformation.
• Experience scaling offshore or India-based application capabilities.
• Strong knowledge of core business functions and integration with technology.
• Experience with major enterprise platforms (Workday, Dynamics, SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, ServiceNow).

Responsibilities

• Lead the India IT organization including application delivery, engineering, and operations.
• Partner with global leaders to translate priorities into an integrated India plan.
• Build and scale platform capabilities for Workday, Dynamics, and custom apps.
• Drive transformation, standardization, automation and platform-native delivery.
• Oversee governance, risk, budget, and vendor management for India IT.

Skills

Enterprise leadership

Delivery management

Strategic partnership

Governance & risk

Talent development

Education

Bachelor’s degree in IT / CS / Eng / Business

Tools

Workday

Microsoft Dynamics

SAP

Oracle

Salesforce

ServiceNow

Power Platform

Azure

Job description

Director IT Job Family : IT Management (India) Travel Required : Up to 25% Clearance Required : None

The Director, India IT – Applications & Transformation Leader is the senior leader accountable for the full India IT organization and its contribution to Guidehouse’s global technology strategy. The role combines enterprise leadership for India with a primary mandate to build a strong, scalable application capability that supports major platforms such as Workday and Microsoft Dynamics, as well as custom-developed capabilities such as Engagement Hub. This leader will shape talent, delivery methods, technical depth, and business partnership across the India team. The role will work closely with global application portfolio leaders, business-function executives, architecture, cybersecurity, data and AI, and operational teams to translate enterprise priorities into secure, scalable solutions and sustained business outcomes. An India IT Operations Lead will report to this role and will manage day-to-day regional operations, service delivery, infrastructure coordination, and operational execution. The Director remains accountable for the performance, integration, talent strategy, and overall effectiveness of the entire India IT organization.

Key Outcomes

Build India into a strategic center of excellence for enterprise applications, platform configuration, integration, testing, technical delivery, and application support. Create durable delivery capacity for Workday, Microsoft Dynamics, and custom-developed enterprise capabilities, including Engagement Hub and future digital products. Increase India IT’s ability to engage business functions as a consultative transformation partner, not only as a task-oriented delivery resource. Establish clear accountability between application delivery and India operations, with the Operations Lead managing daily run responsibilities and escalating material risks and decisions. Develop a high-performing talent model with strong succession, technical career paths, leadership depth, and the ability to flex capacity across strategic priorities. Improve delivery predictability, solution quality, operational readiness, documentation, and transition from project delivery into ongoing support.

Key Responsibilities

1. India IT Enterprise Leadership Serve as the senior leader accountable for the full India IT organization, spanning application delivery, engineering, platform support, operations, and shared technology services. Translate global IT strategy, portfolio roadmaps, and business priorities into an integrated India capability, workforce, and execution plan. Act as the principal technology partner for India-based leaders while maintaining strong alignment with Guidehouse global CIO leadership and enterprise portfolio owners. Create a unified culture across application and operations teams with clear decision rights, performance expectations, service ownership, and escalation paths. Represent India IT in enterprise governance, investment, capacity, risk, and transformation discussions.
2. Enterprise Applications & Product Capability Build and lead application capabilities supporting Workday, Microsoft Dynamics, and custom-developed enterprise products such as Engagement Hub. Partner with global portfolio leaders and business-function leadership to understand functional strategy, shape roadmaps, assess requirements, and convert priorities into executable delivery plans. Establish platform and product ownership discipline across design, configuration, development, integration, testing, deployment, enhancement, and support. Develop reusable technical and delivery capabilities across application engineering, integration, quality assurance, DevSecOps, data, automation, and production readiness. Ensure India teams develop deep platform expertise and business-domain understanding rather than operating solely as general-purpose delivery capacity. Create mechanisms to share talent and specialized expertise across portfolio teams without diluting business-domain accountability.
3. Business Transformation & Functional Partnership Bring direct experience supporting transformation in large, complex organizations, including the modernization of core business functions such as human capital, finance, sales, marketing, legal, resource management, or enterprise operations. Challenge fragmented or purely technical requirements and help leaders define future-state processes, capability roadmaps, operating-model implications, and measurable outcomes. Promote simplification, standardization, automation, and adoption of platform-native capabilities before introducing unnecessary customization.
4. Delivery Excellence & Modern Engineering Establish consistent delivery practices for agile execution, product management, DevSecOps, release readiness, quality engineering, documentation, and application lifecycle management. Improve predictability across strategic programs through disciplined scope, dependency, capacity, risk, issue, and milestone management. Partner with Enterprise Architecture, Cybersecurity, Data and Agentic Foundations, and Strong Operations to ensure solutions comply with architecture, data, security, integration, and production standards. Advance the responsible use of AI-enabled and agentic development methods to increase team capacity, quality, speed, and reuse while preserving human accountability and control. Create a clear project-to-operations transition model, including acceptance criteria, knowledge transfer, support ownership, service levels, monitoring and continuous improvement.
5. Operations Leadership & Delegated Run Accountability Lead and develop the India IT Operations Lead, who will be accountable for daily regional operations, support coordination, operational performance, business continuity, and service improvement. Set objectives, decision rights, service expectations, metrics, and escalation thresholds for India IT operations while avoiding duplication with global Strong Operations ownership. Retain executive accountability for India service performance, workforce integration, major incidents, operational risk, and the effectiveness of the application-to-operations handoff. Ensure regional operations comply with enterprise standards, security requirements, audit obligations, and global service-management processes.
6. People, Organization & Capability Development Build, lead, and develop multidisciplinary teams across application platforms, custom development, integration, testing, data, operations, and technical leadership. Define the India application talent strategy, including priority skills, hiring profiles, sourcing approach, internal mobility, succession, leadership development. Establish communities of practice and technical career paths that deepen expertise in Workday, Microsoft Dynamics, modern development, integration, quality engineering, and application support. Coach leaders to operate with greater business acumen, consultative capability, accountability, urgency, and enterprise perspective. Partner with Talent Acquisition and Human Capital teams to attract, develop, engage, and retain high-caliber technology talent.
7. Governance, Risk, Financial & Vendor Management Own the India IT workforce and delivery plan, budget inputs, resource allocation, vendor utilization, and cost optimization in alignment with global IT priorities. Provide transparent reporting on delivery, application health, operational performance, capacity, talent, risks, financials, and improvement plans. Ensure compliance with corporate policy, cybersecurity standards, privacy requirements, audit obligations, change control, and regulatory commitments. Oversee strategic delivery partners and vendors, holding them accountable for quality, outcomes, knowledge transfer, contractual performance, and value. Identify and mitigate concentration, continuity, talent, delivery, security, and operational risks across the India technology organization.

What You Will Need

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, Business, or a related discipline.
• 15+ years of progressive enterprise technology experience, including significant leadership responsibility in a global or large-scale organization.
• Proven experience leading enterprise application delivery, platform teams, or technology transformation across multiple business functions.
• Demonstrated experience building or materially scaling offshore or India-based application capabilities, including talent, delivery methods, governance, and leadership depth.
• Strong knowledge of core business functions and the ability to connect process, data, controls, and technology into an integrated transformation agenda.
• Experience supporting major enterprise platforms such as Workday, Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, ServiceNow, or comparable products; direct Workday and/or Dynamics experience is strongly preferred.
• Experience delivering or supporting custom-developed enterprise applications using modern engineering, integration, testing, DevSecOps, and lifecycle-management practices.
• Proven success partnering with senior business and technology executives, influencing across organizational boundaries, and leading through ambiguity.
• Demonstrated ability to manage geographically distributed teams, complex delivery portfolios, budgets, vendors, risk, and organizational change.

What Would Be Nice To Have

• Master’s degree in technology, engineering, business administration, or a related field.
• Direct leadership experience with Workday HCM or Financials, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Power Platform, Azure, or enterprise integration platforms.
• Experience modernizing back-office or front-office functions in a large professional-services, consulting, financial-services, healthcare, government-services, or similarly complex enterprise environment.
• Experience establishing product-oriented operating models, centers of excellence, full-lifecycle platform management, and measurable service or transformation outcomes.
• Familiarity with AI-enabled software delivery, agentic development, data platforms, enterprise architecture, cybersecurity, and cloud operating models.

About Guidehouse India

At Guidehouse India, we’re redefining what’s possible by creating opportunities that change lives. Guidehouse is a global professional services firm that delivers advisory, technology, and managed services to clients across both the commercial and public sectors. Our teams turn bold ideas into solutions that transform industries, strengthen communities, and drive meaningful impact worldwide.

Across our Chennai, Trivandrum, and Gurugram locations, you’ll find opportunities where your passion and curiosity help shape what comes next. With cutting edge benefits, innovative learning and development programs, and a people first culture, we empower our people to lead with purpose. We continue to expand our teams and capabilities across India, investing in state‑of‑the‑art offices and high impact work. Here, you’ll collaborate with experts from around the world, build deep expertise, explore new domains, and accelerate your professional growth while making a real impact.

What We Offer

At Guidehouse India, we are committed to supporting the well-being of our people and their families at every stage of life. We offer competitive compensation and a comprehensive benefits package designed to help you thrive both inside and outside the workplace. Our benefits include resources such as in house physician consultations, nutritious food options at the workplace, and confidential counseling through our Employee Assistance Program, along with other wellness focused offerings that support your overall well being.

Our comprehensive learning and development programs ensure you’re continuously upskilled and ready to tackle what’s next, so you can shape your own career path while contributing to meaningful, purpose driven work.

Experience Level

Executive Level