Manager – Enterprise Architecture

Do you want to build a career that is truly worthwhile? Working at the World Bank Group provides a unique opportunity for you to help our clients solve their greatest development challenges. The World Bank Group is one of the largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries; a unique global partnership of five institutions dedicated to ending extreme poverty, increasing shared prosperity and promoting sustainable development. With 189 member countries and more than 120 offices worldwide, we work with public and private sector partners, investing in groundbreaking projects and using data, research, and technology to develop solutions to the most urgent global challenges. For more information, visit www.worldbank.org

Business Unit Overview

The mission of the Information and Technology Solutions (ITS) Vice Presidential Unit (VPU) is to leverage information and technology as a force multiplier to accelerate, deepen, and sustain development impact. Their vision is to harness information and technology for a world free of poverty on a livable planet. For more information on ITS, check this video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=VTFGffa1Y7w 

Department Context

The World Bank Group Technology Office (ITSTO) defines and executes the technology strategy for the World Bank Group, ensuring that technological investments and standards deliver secure, resilient, and efficient platforms to support global operations. Through strategic planning, enterprise architecture, platform engineering, and core infrastructure management, ITSTO aligns technology initiatives with the Bank Group’s mission and business objectives.

ITSTO drives technology-enabled innovation, modernizes infrastructure, and enhances organizational agility. By fostering collaboration across all World Bank Group entities—including IBRD, IDA, IFC, MIGA, and ICSID—ITSTO leverages technology as a catalyst for accelerating development impact and advancing digital transformation. Its leadership ensures that technology serves as a strategic enabler for achieving the Bank Group’s development goals, empowering the institution to address emerging challenges and opportunities with greater efficiency and effectiveness.

Unit Context

The Enterprise Architecture (EA) team serves as a strategic cornerstone in shaping and sustaining the World Bank Group’s technology landscape. By providing a holistic view of the organization’s current and future technological needs, the EA team ensures that all technological investments and solutions support the broader mission and values of the institution.

A core responsibility of the team is the development and governance of architecture standards, reference models, and technology roadmaps. These foundational elements establish clear guidelines and frameworks that inform the design, selection, and implementation of technology solutions across the World Bank Group. The EA team helps ensure that technology initiatives are consistent, efficient, and capable of supporting the organization’s evolving needs.

The EA team works closely with both business and IT stakeholders to foster a shared understanding of strategic priorities and to drive digital transformation efforts. By promoting best practices in architecture, the EA team helps ensure that solutions are secure, scalable, interoperable, and resilient. This collaborative engagement enables the organization to respond effectively to emerging opportunities and challenges in the digital landscape.

The EA team also plays a critical role in balancing innovation with governance and operational delivery. By maintaining a disciplined approach to technology adoption and integration, the team ensures that innovative solutions add value while adhering to established standards and risk management practices. This balance enables the World Bank Group to remain agile and innovative, while also safeguarding the integrity and sustainability of its technological environment.

Beyond its core mandate of application rationalization and technology debt reduction, the Enterprise Architecture (EA) team serves as a critical function in managing and maintaining the WBG application portfolio. The team ensures that all applications are systematically inventoried, thoroughly documented, and consistently aligned with evolving business needs, including oversight of application registration and decommissioning processes. Additionally, the EA team is responsible for maintaining the business process catalog and for developing and updating user journey maps and atlases, which are vital for mapping business capabilities and optimizing user experience across the organization. The EA team also establishes and enforces development and UX standards, ensuring that all solutions conform to best practices and institutional requirements. Furthermore, it establishes and sustains the architectural runway for business epics, providing strategic guidance to ensure major initiatives are supported by robust, scalable, and compliant technology architectures.

The Enterprise Architecture team ensures a purposeful, forward-looking, and valuable technology ecosystem. Through strategic alignment, robust governance, and a commitment to continuous improvement, the team empowers the World Bank Group to leverage technology as a catalyst for achieving its development goals and fulfilling its mission on a global scale.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Manager, Enterprise Architecture, is responsible for leading the development, execution, and continuous improvement of the World Bank Group’s enterprise architecture strategy. This leadership role sets the vision and direction for enterprise architecture, ensuring that technology investments and solutions are strategically aligned with organizational goals and the institution’s mission. The manager provides guidance and mentorship to a team of architects, fostering a collaborative and innovative environment that drives digital transformation and operational excellence.

The ideal candidate is a servant leader with strong interpersonal skills, able to energize and influence others, foster collaboration, build consensus, and proactively address challenges to achieve key deliverables.

Key Responsibilities include:

- Develop, communicate, and implement a comprehensive enterprise architecture strategy and annual roadmap that supports the World Bank Group’s business objectives and digital transformation priorities.

- Remove roadblocks to innovation by creating accelerators and glide paths that speed time to market and leverage institutional guidelines.

- Set the vision for enterprise architecture, ensuring alignment with organizational goals, and proactively identify opportunities to leverage technology for business value.

- Serve as a trusted advisor to senior leadership, providing insights on technology trends, risks, and opportunities.

- Lead the creation, maintenance, and enforcement of architecture standards, reference models, principles, and best practices for technology solutions across the organization.

- Establish and oversee architecture governance processes, including the Architecture Review Board and Enterprise Design Authority, to ensure compliance with risk management, regulatory, and policy requirements.

- Develop and automate governance checkpoints, design guardrails, and policy-as-code templates to streamline compliance and improve value metrics.

- Provide architectural oversight and guidance for major technology initiatives, ensuring solutions are secure, scalable, interoperable, and aligned with enterprise standards.

- Evaluate and approve technology proposals, assessments, and proofs of concept for emerging technologies to inform future state design.

- Manage and maintain the WBG application portfolio, ensuring systematic inventory, thorough documentation, and alignment with business needs.

- Oversee application registration and decommissioning processes.

- Maintain the business process catalog to support organizational transparency and efficiency.

- Develop and update user journey maps and atlases to map business capabilities and optimize user experience.

- Establish and enforce development and UX standards, ensuring solutions adhere to best practices and institutional requirements.

- Champion the implementation of the architecture runway at portfolio, solution, and ART levels, leveraging SAFe and other adaptive, principle-driven approaches.

- Foster strong relationships with internal and external partners, building consensus, and facilitating knowledge sharing through communities of practice.

- Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing, diverse team of architects, promoting a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

- Manage team performance, resource allocation, and professional development, ensuring the team has the skills and capabilities to support enterprise-wide transformation.

- Effectively communicate complex architectural concepts, strategies, and recommendations to technical and non-technical audiences, including senior management and business stakeholders.

- Foster a culture of continuous improvement, encouraging the exploration and adoption of innovative technologies and practices.

- Monitor industry trends, emerging technologies, and best practices, integrating relevant advancements into the enterprise architecture strategy.

- Measure and report on the effectiveness of architecture initiatives, using metrics and feedback to drive ongoing enhancements.

- Build, mentor, and empower a diverse, high-performing team to deliver program objectives, ensuring clarity of roles, skills development, and alignment with strategic priorities.

Within the first year, this leader will deliver the following:

- Develop and implement a comprehensive enterprise architecture roadmap - Design and launch a detailed roadmap that aligns enterprise architecture initiatives with the World Bank Group’s strategic objectives and digital transformation priorities. This roadmap guides technology investment, modernization, and future planning. The leader defines baselines and success metrics, monitors progress regularly, and requests feedback from stakeholders to maintain the roadmap's alignment with current objectives.

- Establish closed feedback loops with targeted stakeholders.

- Publish a playbook for defining architectural runway aligned with PI Planning and successfully deliver architectural runway with automated guard rails for two Program Increments (PIs) in the first year.

- Create a Center of Excellence (CoE) for Solution Architecture, holding at least six meetings during the first year.

- Publish architecture operational metrics and establish baseline measurements.

- Rationalize applications within two strategic portfolios to achieve a 25% reduction in technology debt and successfully launch an AI-powered platform for technology debt reduction.

- Deliver automated architecture assurance outcomes and establish an Enterprise Design Authority to strengthen governance.