Chief Digital Officer

City of Indianapolis and Marion County; Indiana (PA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

The City of Indianapolis Marion County seeks a Chief Digital Officer to lead the enterprise digital strategy, align IT with business needs, and champion modernization across public services.

As an executive, you will oversee digital experience, enterprise applications, governance, and workforce development, ensuring secure, accessible, and measurable improvements for residents and agencies.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, information systems, or related field, or equivalent experience.
• 8+ years IT experience with architecture design and deployment, and 3+ years leadership in enterprise solutions.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills to present complex concepts to non-technical audiences.

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute the City-County Digital Strategy aligned to IT and cybersecurity.
• Lead enterprise applications portfolio and architecture governance.
• Ensure privacy, security, and governance compliance.
• Oversee enterprise digital experience and service quality.
• Manage staff and vendor relationships; hybrid work.
• Guide workforce readiness and training programs.

Skills

Communication skills

Leadership

Education

Bachelor’s degree in computer science or information systems

Master’s degree

Job description

The Chief Digital Officer (CDO) is responsible for setting and executing the City-County’s enterprise digital strategy and ensuring that technology systems, digital experience, workforce capability, and enterprise applications work in harmony to deliver modern, equitable, accessible, and secure services to residents, businesses, visitors, and internal users.

This executive leadership role ensures tight integration between constituent digital experience, enterprise application capabilities, and enterprise architecture, guaranteeing that strategic priorities translate into measurable improvements in service delivery, technical efficiency, and public satisfaction.

Serving as the primary champion for technology, this role establishes and upholds digital standards, guiding portfolio investment decisions, and drives modernization through defined decision rights and a mature policy lifecycle.

Agency Summary

The purpose and mission of the Information Services Agency provides information technology services to the city and county. It helps each of the city and county agencies and departments achieve their mission through technology solutions. Information Services Agency aligns its objectives with the business of city and county partners to provide accessible and reliable services to local citizens, businesses, and visitors. The agency is able to do this by cultivating a productive, collaborative, and compliant work environment in order for our workforce to meet the needs of the constituents of Indianapolis and Marion County.

Equal Employment Opportunity

The City of Indianapolis Marion County is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran, or disability status. We value diversity in perspectives and experiences among colleagues and the residents of this city of whom we serve.

Digital Strategy & Innovation

• Develop, refine, and execute the City-County Digital Strategy aligned to IT and Cybersecurity Strategies.
• Continuously assess market trends, emerging technologies, and modernization opportunities.
• Build public digital experience plans and roadmap for multi-year modernization.
• Champion innovation, enterprise-wide digital transformation, and change adoption
• Identify and remove barriers to keep the technical needs and direction of the City-County on track.

Enterprise Architecture & Technical Governance

• Guide development of enterprise architecture governance structures.
• Direct technical standards, processes, and procedures used across ISA.
• Ensure compliance with privacy, security, and governance requirements.

Enterprise Applications Portfolio Leadership

• Provide executive direction and oversight of enterprise applications strategy, operations, and lifecycle management.
• Ensure appropriate architecture and integration across enterprise systems
• Govern prioritization, resource allocation, and vendor/MSP performance.
• Oversee delivery of application projects, compliance, service levels, and modernization outcomes.
• Lead decision-making processes and work closely with ISA staff in determining, developing, and managing the City-County technology portfolio.
• Serve as technical advisor to IT and business leaders, guiding solution design.

Enterprise Digital Experience & Service Quality

• Direct City-County digital experience strategy and ensure constituent-facing improvements align to modernization goals.
• Oversee service quality measurement, cross-agency experience insights, and customer satisfaction benchmarks.
• Guide change management support for agency adoption of new systems, digital tools, workflows, and service processes.
• Foster culture continuous improvement in processes, systems, and tools to better service the enterprise.

Digital Workforce Readiness & Capability Development

• Provide executive direction for enterprise technology training programs, including ERP, productivity tools, and custom applications.
• Integrate workforce readiness into digital strategy execution and application deployment plans.
• Ensure enterprise-wide training content quality, program scalability, and platform management.
• Champion digital literacy, adoption, and continuous technical learning across agencies.
• Collaborate with HR and agency leadership to establish standards and coordinated learning models.

People and Contract Management

• Collaborates with the Office of the CIO, Operations, Cybersecurity Services (including the SOC), Administration & Finance, and agency executive teams
• Coordinates with managed service providers and vendors to deliver portfolio outcomes.
• Provides executive leadership and guidance to the direct reports (Application Services Manager, Enterprise Experience Manager, Technology Training Manager), and their associated teams to drive coordinated digital transformation efforts across agencies.
• Builds strong relationships across a diverse stakeholder landscape, including department and agency leadership, key vendors and service partners, and members of the IT Board.
• Ensures performance management, coaching, mentoring, and professional development across all direct and indirect reports.
• Oversee the contract strategy, vendor management frameworks, and MSP performance dashboards at a strategic level.
• Partnership with OFM on technology procurement and contracts to ensure compliance

Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Systems, or a related field or equivalent work experience. Minimum of eight (8) years of IT work experience, including architecture design and deployment, change management, and/or systems lifecycle management, with three (3) years of leadership experience in managing enterprise technology solutions. Must possess excellent communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to describe and present complex technical concepts in a non-technical fashion. A passion and ability to build and grow an organization to achieve the company’s goals of providing an exceptional customer experience. Experience dealing with various levels of internal/external management including operations and executive management. Exceptional customer service skills and abilities, professional and tactful negotiator. Superior organizational, time and project management skills in managing conflicting priorities. Focused, goal oriented and can work independently with minimal direction. Management and leadership of customer service, project management and technical teams.

Preferred Job Requirements and Qualifications

Master’s degree. Senior level certifications such as ITIL, Prosci Certification, and/or PMP certification is preferred. Demonstrated leadership in public-sector digital accessibility and data governance.

Essential functions are regularly performed in an office setting without exposure to adverse environmental conditions. Primary work location is the City-County Building, with potential for This position is eligible for partial hybrid work. After-hours incident support and escalation is expected.

Physical Conditions

1. Sitting at a desk the majority of the day
2. Some lifting, carrying, pushing and/or pulling of objects and materials of light weight (5-10) pounds
3. Tasks may involve extended periods of time at keyboard or workstation
4. Tasks require the ability to perceive and hear sounds and see visual cues or signals
5. Tasks require the ability to communicate orally