Senior Business Analyst

The National Restaurant Association and National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation are proud to be part of a thriving and highly respected industry, providing hospitality, opportunity, and quality of life. And much like the industry we represent, we have a dynamic, diverse, and inclusive culture, grounded in trust, hospitality, collaboration, and innovation. These are the core values that inspire our work, and what we are looking for in a Senior Business Analyst, supporting  our Business Services, Planning & Operations team.

We currently reach a global audience of nearly two million individuals a year through our educational offerings and operational support services. We focus on both compliance-driven and career-development engagements.

As a Senior Business Analyst, you will be responsible for consistently equipping development teams with rigorously refined and thoughtfully prioritized backlogs of development activities, ensuring that business requirements and optimal end user experiences are appropriately represented and achieved. In addition, you will engage with stakeholders across the organization – and occasionally customers, demonstrating leadership in informing a positive, productive environment centered around efficiency and efficacy in delivering solutions that create stakeholder value. 

Ideal candidates bring a minimum of five years of experience in a Business Analyst position; prior experience supporting B2B digital products highly desirable. You will thrive in this role if you are a resourceful self-starter, with a solutions and collaborative driven mindset, and bring a strong balance of business and technical acumen. Must have the ability to influence teams, possess highly effective communication skills and excellent attention to detail.

This role operates from our Chicago office, following our hybrid work structure with a required three days onsite, Monday - Wednesday and remote days Thursday and Friday.

We are proud to offer our team members comprehensive benefits, designed to support their financial, professional, and personal well-being. In addition to outstanding healthcare coverage (medical, dental and vision), competitive salaries, generous vacation and leave time, we offer a matching 401(k) plan, a unique collection of corporate discounts and memberships, as well as programs to support career and skills development, including  learning and tuition assistance, and so much more.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain a thorough understanding of the Association’s product portfolio, technology stack, platform vision, and guiding principles.
• Partner with Product and User Experience leaders to develop a clear and comprehensive understanding of objectives.
• Conduct analysis to inform desired user journeys and data flows
• Effectively articulate business objectives to Technology leaders to inform collaborative solutioning, options and recommendations inclusive of time, cost, and tradeoff considerations.
• Initiate spikes to allow for research preceding allocation of resources to development activities.
• Draft proposed user stories and acceptance criteria.
• Lead collaborative refinement sessions to ensure development and QA resource understanding and alignment, and to inform level of effort estimations and prioritization.
• Ensure that backlogs span multiple sprints and are thoughtfully prioritized.
• Monitor sprintly progress, supporting developers and quality assurance personnel, taking decisive and proactive action to unblock efforts as warranted
• Demand and demonstrate commitment to quality, including taking initiative to validate alignment of deliverables to intended outcomes.
• Facilitate product lifecycle stages, such as stakeholder validation, delivery, and contribute to internal enablement activities (potentially including documentation, demonstration, training, more).
• Provide consistent stakeholder visibility, including but not limited to reporting related to timeliness and quality, and demonstration of delivered solutions.
• Proactively identify and escalate risks, and related mitigation recommendations.
• Recognize and celebrate team accomplishments in company forums.
• Identify and contribute to the implementation of operational efficiencies.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience required. Concentration in MIS, computer science, mathematics, business, or related fields preferred.
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience in business analyst roles.
• Experience leading multiple development teams concurrently in a fast-paced agile software development environment.
• Experience with user and data flow analysis and mapping, as well as data querying and analysis.
• Understanding of educational technology – course and assessment delivery, credentialing, and related solutions – as well as integrations and interoperability.
• Technical skills including troubleshooting, and understanding of directory, file structures and systems.
• Experience in Agile development environment required.
• Experience in B2B digital products preferred; consumer-based product experience a plus.
• Restaurant industry experience a plus.
• Effective communication skills verbal, written and presentation.
• Self-motivated, customer focused, and strong ability to build collaborative partnerships.
• Strong interpersonal, influencing and diplomacy skills.
• Highly effective organizational, time-management, prioritization, and documentation skills.
• Computer proficiency across MS Office including strong Excel and PowerPoint skills; ability to learn other computer software programs as needed.
• Highly adaptable, flexible; responsive and accepting of change.
• See big picture, connecting daily activity with long-term goals.
• Ability to travel; estimate less than 10%.

Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities

The National Restaurant Association, National Restaurant Association Solutions, LLC, and The National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation (together, “Company”) is committed to equal employment opportunity, and it is Company's policy to take affirmative action to employ and advance in employment protected veterans and individuals with disabilities.

It is our policy to recruit, hire, train, and promote persons in all job titles, and ensure that all other personnel actions are administered, without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status and disability, or other legally protected status, and we will ensure that all employment decisions are based only on valid job requirements.

This employer is required to notify all applicants of their rights pursuant to federal employment laws.

For further information, please review the Know Your Rights notice from the Department of Labor.