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Job Title: Lead Sparta Architect

Location: 100VE

JOB PURPOSE

Unilever is the global company behind powerhouse brands such as Dove, Persil and PG Tips. The Unilever corporate strategy (The Compass) sets out an ambitious growth and sustainability objective for Unilever.

Technology in Unilever is at the forefront of genuine globalisation. Technology touches every part of our organisation enabling our business to move faster and with more confidence than ever before. As the pace of business gets faster, and as consumer behaviours evolve more rapidly, technology is the way we create competitive advantage for Unilever. Technology helps Unilever to grow.

The Enterprise Architecture (EA) team partners Unilever Operations (UniOps) teams to Select technologies and Architects them to fit within the enterprise environment; provides the Enterprise Architecture Standards for IT to work to; works with Unilever’s IT Vendor partners to understand and drive their future Technology Roadmaps; and maintains the overall Unilever Reference Architecture of all technologies 'as-is' and 'to-be' to support Unilever’s required business capabilities.

This architect will be entirely dedicated to working across the Sparta programme. The role will work across functional teams and engage lead EAs to develop the reference architecture across the
Sparta initiatives. They lead, prioritize, and develop the overall enterprise architecture approach for this remit, and communicate architectural direction.

An effective Enterprise Architect will be responsible for taking a practical approach to supporting the business. This starts and ends with a focus on delivering signature-ready, actionable recommendations to business leaders, so they can adjust policies and projects to achieve target business outcomes.

The enterprise architect is responsible for helping business leaders enable their future-state business capabilities that, in turn, drive the organization's targeted business outcomes through the choice of programs, projects and initiatives the organization chooses to invest in. lead enterprise architects must be capable of practically applying existing, new and emerging technologies to new and evolving business and operating models. Conversely, they must be able to understand, monetize and operationalize new technologies.

Enterprise architects guide and coordinate all aspects of the EA program, including: (1) business architecture, which is focused on guiding people, process and organizational change; (2) information architecture, which is focused on the consistent sharing of information across the enterprise; (3) solutions architecture, which is focused on developing a direction for managing the portfolio of to-be solutions; (4) technical architecture, which is focused on evolving the technical infrastructure; and (5) security architecture, which is focused on managing IT risk through the exchange of information between people, systems and things inside and outside the organization.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Lead and Influence

• Lead the evolution of the enterprise architecture function within Sparta.
• Highlight and investigate areas of architecture opportunity within Sparta.
• Work across platforms and solution architecture teams to drive architecture outcomes for Sparta
• Engage with Market architects and UIM teams to ensure they are connected to Sparta initiatives
• Cut through issues to determine where genuine differences exist to pull out complexity

Determine and Help Orchestrate the Delivery of Business Outcomes

• Guide and advise stakeholders about areas of complexity and opportunities to consolidate.
• Identify solutions to opportunities using principles such as consolidation, Tier 2, templated deployment etc.
• Develop diagnostic and actionable deliverables that help business guide investment decisions in support of executing Sparta.
• Lead analysis of the IT environment to detect opportunities and recommend solutions for improvement.
• Provide perspective on the readiness to deliver .
• Develop and own an architecture activities plan for Sparta
• Oversee Sparta initiatives and align across architecture teams.

ALL ABOUT YOU

Skills

• Understanding of Enterprise platforms and their architecture.
• Understanding of Unilever platforms and teams at a holistic level
• Familiarity with information management practices, system development life cycle management, IT services management, infrastructure and operations, and EA and ITIL frameworks
• Knowledge of business ecosystems, SaaS, infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), SOA, APIs, open data, microservices, event-driven IT and predictive analytics
• Exposure and understanding of existing, new and emerging technologies, and processing environments.
• Exceptional soft and interpersonal skills, including teamwork, facilitation and negotiation.
• Strong leadership skills
• Excellent analytical and technical skills
• Excellent written, verbal, communication and presentation skills.
• Ability to story tell and simplify complexity for non-technical audiences.
• Excellent planning and organizational skills
• Knowledge of all components of holistic enterprise architecture

Competencies

• Organizationally savvy, and understanding of the political climate of the enterprise and how to navigate obstacles and politics.
• Ability to balance the long-term ("big picture") and short-term implications of individual decisions.
• Ability to translate business needs into EA requirements.
• Ability to estimate the financial impact of EA alternatives.
• Ability to apply multiple solutions to business problems.
• Ability to rapidly comprehend the functions and capabilities of new technologies.
• Ready to think, behave and act in an innovative consulting manner to drive the organization's digital business strategies.
• Understand and speak the language of the business.
• Influential in the organization and a team player
• Effective at driving short-term actions that are consistent with long-term goals.

Characteristics

• Trusted and respected as a thought leader who can influence and persuade business and IT leaders.
• Comfortable, experienced and accomplished at working with business executives, and able to push back in a professional and diplomatic way.
• Highly collaborative and supportive of business and of its ideals and strategies
• Vendor- and technology-neutral — more interested in business outcomes than in personal, or those business and IT leaders with vested personal preferences.
• Unflappable in the face of opposition to architectural ideals
• Practical in approach to decision making and problem solving that is principle-based and data driven.

NOTES

About Unilever

Unilever is one of the world’s leading suppliers of Food, Home and Personal Care products with sales in over 190 countries and reaching 2 billion consumers a day. Unilever has more than 400 brands found in homes around the world, including Dove, Tresemme, Lynx, Lifebuoy, Shea Moisture, Persil, Domestos, Ben & Jerry’s, Magnum, Marmite, The Vegetarian Butcher, Graze and Pot Noodle.

Faced with the challenge of climate change and the need for human development, we want to move towards a world where everyone can live well and within the natural limits of the planet. That’s why our purpose is ‘to make sustainable living commonplace’

Location

In September 2020, Unilever announced the intention to build a new sustainable campus site in Kingston, London to house the employees who currently work in 100 Victoria Embankment in Blackfriars, Lever House in Kingston and Graze in Richmond. We are creating our own Unilever sustainable, agile work environment, purposefully bringing us together in our own Unilever ecosystem. The campus is due to be completed in early 2025 and will consist of two interconnected buildings, as well as landscaped surrounding areas.

What We Offer

Not only do we offer a competitive salary and pension scheme, we also offer an annual bonus, subsidised gym membership, a discounted staff shop and shares. You’ll have the opportunity to work directly with our renowned and exciting brands in a flexible and hybrid working environment.

Whilst the role is advertised on a full-time basis, we would be happy to discuss possible flexible working options and what this may look like for you. We are a key advocate of wellbeing and offer a variety of support for our people including hubs, programmes and development opportunities. We strive to achieve a family-friendly and inclusive workplace and to, above all, create possibilities for all.

Diversity at Unilever is about inclusion, embracing differences, creating possibilities, and growing together for better business performance. We want to push boundaries, and have the flexibility needed to keep adapting in an ever-changing, more dynamic world. This means giving full and fair consideration to all applicants, regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity.

As part of your hiring journey, we are happy to support requests for reasonable adjustments, to improve your recruitment experience.

To find out more, including more information about our Employee Resource Groups, please click here.

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