Summary

This position provides leadership for IT operations, infrastructure, end-user computing, service management, enterprise applications, and related technology functions that support PERA’s business operations.

Description

DIRECTOR OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

JOB SUMMARY

The Director of Information Technology is a senior technology leader responsible for leading the delivery, operation, and continuous improvement of Colorado PERA’s core technology services. This position provides leadership for IT operations, infrastructure, end-user computing, service management, enterprise applications, and related technology functions that support PERA’s business operations.

The Director works as part of the technology leadership team to implement PERA’s technology strategy, mature IT operations, and strengthen the partnership between technology and the business. This role is accountable for ensuring that IT services are reliable, secure, well-managed, cost-effective, and aligned with business needs. The Director works closely with application development leaders to ensure infrastructure, platforms, operational practices, and technology services accelerate the delivery of business capabilities. The Director leads through managers and staff who are responsible for day-to-day operations, staff management, budget management, and execution within their areas.

The Director partners with leaders and teams across the organization to ensure that technology services effectively support organizational objectives. The Director is responsible for operating technology services as business capabilities with clear ownership, measurable outcomes, and visibility into service costs and resource commitments. This position plays a key role in advancing PERA's service-based technology operating model and strengthening the partnership between technology and the business.

IDEAL CANDIDATE

The ideal candidate is an experienced technology leader with a proven ability to deliver reliable, secure and high-performing technology services while also continually improving the organization’s technology capabilities, resilience, and customer experience. The ideal candidate is an experienced technology leader who develops people, improves operations, and partners effectively across the organization. They understand how to run reliable technology and are comfortable leading organizational change and helping teams adopt new ways of working that improve accountability, service delivery, and business outcomes. They are effective at translating technology strategy into operational priorities, measurable goals, and actionable plans that teams can successfully execute. They bring strong operational discipline and use data, metrics, and process improvement to help teams deliver reliable and effective services.

The ideal candidate understands how technology investments, service costs, and operational commitments support decision making and long-term planning and works effectively with the CTO, CISO, enterprise architecture, Finance, business, and other leaders to align priorities, manage risk, and deliver technology services that support PERA's mission.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Employees are held accountable for all duties of the job. Individuals must be able to perform these duties with or without reasonable accommodation.

Leadership

Build capable teams, establish accountability, and provide leadership, direction, and oversight to IT managers and teams responsible for technology operations, infrastructure, end-user computing, service management, and related functions.
Establish clear expectations for managers who are responsible for day-to-day staff supervision, hiring, performance management, budget management, operational execution, and achievement of service level expectations within their areas.
Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, continuous improvement, service excellence, and partnership with business stakeholders.
Ensure managers have the direction, tools, and support needed to lead their teams effectively.
Develop leadership capability within the IT organization and support succession planning, cross-training, and professional development.
Ensure performance expectations, development goals, and corrective actions are managed consistently and appropriately through the management structure.
Support a high-performing team environment focused on service delivery and achieving business outcomes.

Strategy

Provide operational input and participate as part of the technology leadership team in the development of the overall technology strategic plan.
Translate technology strategy into actionable plans, roadmaps, priorities, and measurable goals for IT teams and ensure their successful execution.
Help managers connect daily work to broader technology and business goals.
Participate in organizational and technology planning to ensure IT services support PERA’s business needs.
Provide input on technology priorities, operational risks, staffing needs, service improvements, and modernization opportunities.
Work with technology leadership to align investments, resources, and execution plans across technology teams.
Support resource planning, workforce planning, and prioritization across IT teams.
Advise the Chief Technology Officer and business leaders on operational priorities, impacts, service risks, technology constraints, and opportunities for improvement.

Business Partnership

Maintain strong relationships and partnerships with business leaders and Product Management to understand needs, clarify expectations, and improve the delivery of technology services and business capabilities.
Establish and champion adoption of a service based operating model focused on business outcomes, capabilities, customer experience, and clear service ownership.
Ensure IT services are clearly defined, documented, measured, and aligned with business needs.
Ensure IT teams focus on service outcomes, business value, and proactive planning rather than only responding to individual technology requests.
Promote collaboration across technology teams to reduce silos and improve end-to-end service delivery.
Ensure service ownership, support responsibilities, escalation paths, and performance expectations are clear.
Use service catalogs, metrics, and reporting to help the business understand IT services and performance.
Ensure proactive communication regarding planned work, service impacts, changes, and issue resolution.
Represent IT in meetings, committees, and working groups.
Work collaboratively with technology leaders, including Application Development, Information Security, Product Management, Project Management, vendors, and business stakeholders to align priorities, services, strategy, and resources.

Operations

Accountable for the performance, availability, reliability, scalability, and operational effectiveness of core technology services.
Ensure technology services are managed as business capabilities with clear ownership, measurable outcomes, defined service expectations, and visibility into operational costs and resource commitments.
Maintain visibility into service performance, operational risks, technology lifecycle status, and service health, and take action to address emerging issues.
Ensure appropriate operational practices, controls, monitoring, maintenance, lifecycle management, capacity planning, and change management processes are maintained.
Use metrics and performance data to drive continuous improvement in service quality, operational effectiveness, business outcomes, and user experience.
Partner with Information Security leadership to ensure security requirements, practices, and risk mitigation strategies are effectively integrated into technology services and operations.
Ensure managers maintain multi-year technology lifecycle, replacement, and modernization plans and identify areas of technical debt, operational risk, and aging technology.

Governance, Risk and Compliance

Participate in technology governance, business governance and other enterprise decision-making teams as appropriate.
Ensure IT functions follow established governance, architecture, security, compliance, risk management, and operational control practices and align with approved standards, roadmaps, and enterprise direction.
Partner with the CISO on security priorities, operational security practices, risk mitigation and compliance activities.
Ensure technology decisions align with standards, roadmaps and enterprise architecture and direction.
Support the development, review, testing and continuous improvement of business continuity and disaster recovery plans for IT services.
Ensure risks, control gaps and operational issues are documented, communicated and addressed through appropriate channels.
Partner with Internal Audit, Risk, and Compliance to support audits or compliance reviews of IT business processes, risks, and controls, and to help develop collaborative solutions that are implemented in a timely manner.

Financial and Vendor Management

Hold managers accountable for budget planning, forecasting, commitments, and ongoing management of costs within their areas of responsibility.
Promote visibility into service costs, resource commitments, and technology investments.
Support technology planning, budgeting, and cost management activities and provide operational input into investment decisions, service planning, and lifecycle management.
Review and approve technology purchases, contracts, and vendor commitments within delegated authority.
Ensure vendor relationships are managed effectively and aligned with service expectations, contract requirements, and business needs.
Ensure managers proactively manage vendor performance, contract obligations, renewal timelines, and operational dependencies.

Technology Modernization

Lead evaluation of emerging technologies and operational improvements that may benefit PERA.
Balance return on investment, implementation cost, risk, security, and total cost of ownership when evaluating technology options.
Promote continuous improvement in IT processes, service delivery, documentation, automation, and reporting.
Encourage teams to apply lessons learned from incidents, projects, and operational reviews to improve future performance.
Lead modernization efforts that improve reliability, scalability, security, and business alignment.
Advance the evaluation and adoption of cloud, automation, AI, and other emerging technologies where they provide measurable business value, improve service delivery, reduce risk, or increase organizational effectiveness.
Perform other duties as assigned.

QUALIFICATIONS

Bachelor’s degree in computer information systems, computer science, business administration, technology management, or a related field.
Ten years of progressive technology experience, including leadership experience; or equivalent combination of education and experience.
Significant and progressive experience leading managers, supervisors, or team leads in a complex technology environment.
Experience overseeing multiple IT disciplines, including IT service management practices and service delivery, infrastructure, end-user computing, enterprise applications, technology operations, incident management, change management, service lifecycle management, and continuous improvement.
Experience with technology budgeting, cost tracking, vendor management, and resource planning.
Strong understanding of technology risk, information security, business continuity, disaster recovery, and compliance practices.
Strong understanding of technology risk, information security, business continuity, disaster recovery, and compliance practices.
Knowledge of infrastructure, cloud services, networking, telecommunications, endpoint management, enterprise platforms, service desk operations, data center operations, and related technologies.
Strong communication, facilitation, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
Ability to manage competing priorities and lead through ambiguity.
Ability to travel as necessary for business purposes.

Preferred Leadership and Strategic Experience

Experience leading cross-functional teams, IT organizational transformation or operating model change initiatives.
Experience implementing or maturing IT service management, governance, and operational excellence practices.
Demonstrated experience leading complex technology operations and service delivery organizations.
Experience developing technology roadmaps and translating strategic objectives into operational execution plans.
Experience partnering with executive leadership to align technology services with business priorities.
Experience leading technology modernization initiatives, including cloud adoption, automation, platform rationalization, or AI-enabled capabilities.
Experience developing managers in a multi-layer organization.
Professional certifications or training related to IT service management, organizational change management, or technology leadership. Examples include ITIL, COBIT, Prosci Change Management, Technology Business Management (TBM), and similar credentials.

WORKING CONDITIONS

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Standard office environment with frequent telephone communication, computer operation, and other office productivity machinery, such as a copy and printer machine.
Occasional moving and positioning supplies in excess of 20 pounds
All employees are expected to present themselves in a professional manner in alignment with the financial services industry
Ability to sit for prolonged periods of time
Ability to operate standard PC equipment
Ability to handle stress associated with frequent deadline and tight schedules

HYBRID WORK OPTION

Opportunity to work from home up to two days per week. Eligibility dependent upon factors detailed in PERA's Work from Home Policy.

Qualifications

Interested Candidates:
Complete the employment application online at https://www.copera.org/careers. Please have copies of your resume and cover letter available to upload.

Job Description Disclaimer

This job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties, or responsibilities that are required of an employee. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change or be assigned with or without notice.

Unfortunately, at this time, PERA cannot consider candidates that require sponsorship (now or in the future), or are located outside of the US.

All Colorado PERA employees are subject to PERA’s Ethics Policy and some employees are subject to the Personal Trading Policy. These policies include restrictions on outside business activities and employment and have certain requirements on personal trading. You may request copies of these policies from PERA’s talent acquisition team and any questions can be answered by PERA’s Investment Administration team.

Why Work at PERA

Colorado PERA offers more than a traditional pension career. We are a mission-driven organization with a growing focus on technology and modernization. Employees have the opportunity to do meaningful work with a real impact on over 700,000 members. From enhancing digital tools and member experiences to supporting major enterprise initiatives, employees are part of meaningful, future-focused work that blends public service with innovation. We take pride in our inclusive culture, career development opportunities, and our consistent recognition as a Top Workplace based on employee feedback. PERA is a place to connect, contribute, and be part of something bigger.

A Culture That Cares

At PERA, leveraging employee strengths and supporting strong engagement are the foundations of our culture. Employees are encouraged to grow through development opportunities and internal career movement, while also being part of an organization where people feel respected, informed, and included. Collaboration is encouraged across teams, allowing employees to learn from one another and contribute in ways that maximize their unique skills. We strive to foster an environment where employees can do their best work and feel supported by the people around them

An Employer that Invests in You

PERA invests in our employees in ways that matter; from comprehensive benefits and generous paid time-off to thoughtful everyday amenities that enhance the office experience. Employees are encouraged to continue learning through training, mentoring, and development at every stage of their careers. We champion a workplace where people feel valued, inspired, and equipped to grow.

Join Us
If you’re energized by meaningful work, motivated by an organization that evolves with a changing world and looking for an employer that invests in you, then consider joining PERA’s team. Learn more about careers at PERA at copera.org/careers.

Position Title: Director of Information Technology
Division: Information Technology
Reports to: Chief Technology Officer
Job Status: Full Time / Exempt
Salary: $220,000.00 to $260,000.00 Annual, Commensurate with experience
Posting Dates: 08/28/2026 to 09/13/2026