Senior Director Corporate Applications Development

About IRIS IRIS Software Group is one of the UK's largest privately held software companies, trusted by 100,000+ businesses, schools and accountancy firms to keep their operations running. Our software pays 1 in 6 UK employees, supports over 12,000 schools, and is relied on by 91 of the top 100 UK accountancy firms.

We're a Great Place to Work certified employer, recognised for our commitment to well-being, inclusion and development - and we're growing fast.

Job Title: Senior Director of Corporate Applications

Location: UK

Department: Corporate Applications / Information Technology

Reports To: VP, Global IT

Employment Type: Full-time

About IRIS Software:

IRIS Software Group is one of the largest privately held software companies in the UK. We've supplied innovative administrative solutions to businesses, charities, and the public sector for over 40 years. We are close to 3000 employees in the IRIS family today with operations in the UK, Ireland, Romania, North America and India.

We have very significant growth plans over the next 12-18 months to build upon our already impressive footprint. We have a clear M&A strategy and will acquire high performing, innovative cloud first tech businesses.

We exist to simplify the lives of businesses, schools and organizations, by providing software solutions and services that substantially enhance operational compliance, efficiency and accuracy, empowering the users of our technology to look forward with certainty and confidence.

We are in the midst of a significant investment to consolidate and transform our corporate application landscape, and we're looking for a strategic, hands-on Senior Director of Corporate Applications to lead that transformation - modernizing the systems that run our business and enabling IRIS to scale efficiently through continued growth and acquisition.

The Role & Purpose As Senior Director of Corporate Applications and a key member of the wider IT leadership team, you will:

• Own the strategy, roadmap, and operational health of our corporate/internal application estate, including CRM, ERP, billing, finance, and other business-critical SaaS platforms.
• Lead the consolidation and transformation of our corporate applications as part of a major, active investment program, reducing redundancy and simplifying how the business works.
• Partner with business stakeholders across Finance, Billing, Sales, Customer Success, and Operations to translate business needs into prioritized, well-governed system and process changes.
• Contribute directly to IRIS's M&A strategy by leading application and platform integration, consolidation, and (where relevant) divestment work for acquired and divested businesses.

You're passionate about the needs of the business and the people who rely on our internal systems every day. You'll inspire your team to put stakeholders at the center of what they do, working closely with business leaders to ensure aligned priorities and shared goals.

You'll make sure our corporate applications strategy is deliverable, and play a pivotal role in ensuring the function has a reputation for reliability, responsiveness, and disciplined execution.

In short, we're looking for a technology and business systems leader with proven experience driving business system transformation. You'll manage cross-functional teams, build strong partnerships with business stakeholders, own platforms through into steady-state operation, and drive standardization that keeps us within the configuration boundaries of our hosted SaaS platforms rather than costly customization. One who is equally comfortable in Commercial, Operational, and Technology settings, can communicate clearly with non-technical stakeholders, set priorities amid competing demands, and drive constant process improvement.

Key Responsibilities Stakeholder Management & Business Transformation

• Build trusted relationships with business leaders and stakeholders across the organization - using structured discovery and probing questions to fully understand their priorities - and translate those needs into a clear, prioritized applications roadmap and well-designed solutions.
• Lead business process transformation initiatives, challenging "as-is" ways of working and driving adoption of standardized, efficient processes across corporate systems.

Platform Consolidation & M&A

• Lead the technical and functional consolidation of corporate applications following mergers, acquisitions, and divestments, ensuring minimal disruption to the business.
• Own due diligence input and post-close integration planning for corporate systems (CRM, ERP, billing, finance) as part of the wider M&A process.
• Drive the current large-scale investment program to consolidate our corporate applications footprint, reducing tool sprawl and duplicate functionality.
• Develop and execute modernization, consolidation, and platform convergence plans across legacy and current-generation systems.

Billing & Revenue Systems

• Own the strategy and roadmap for billing and revenue systems, ensuring accurate, scalable invoicing and collections as the business grows and acquires new entities.
• Lead consolidation of billing platforms and processes following acquisitions, ensuring a consistent, auditable billing experience across the business.
• Partner with Finance and Revenue Operations to streamline quote-to-cash processes, reducing manual workarounds and billing errors.
• Ensure billing systems integrate cleanly with CRM and ERP platforms to maintain a single source of truth for customer and revenue data.

Application Reliability & Performance

• Use Datadog (or equivalent) monitoring to proactively detect issues, identify emerging trends, and deflect incidents before they impact the business.
• Own application performance tuning and capacity planning across the corporate applications estate, ensuring systems remain fast, stable, and reliable at scale.
• Establish clear incident management, escalation, and post-incident review processes for corporate systems.
• Track, analyze, and act on platform performance and reliability metrics, reporting on system health to business and technology leadership.
• Serve as the final escalation point for the most complex application issues, drawing on deep platform expertise to drive rapid, expert-level resolution when standard support channels are exhausted.

Solutions, Architecture & Documentation

• Own architecture standards and governance for the corporate applications landscape, ensuring platform designs, integrations, and data flows are scalable, secure, and consistent.
• Ensure comprehensive technical and process documentation is created and maintained across corporate systems, supporting audits, onboarding, and knowledge continuity.
• Collect and analyze business and platform data - beyond system performance metrics - turning it into actionable insight that informs prioritization and investment decisions.

Configuration Discipline & Platform Governance

• Champion a configuration-first approach on hosted SaaS platforms, resisting unnecessary customization in favor of supported, upgrade-safe configuration.
• Establish and continuously refine governance frameworks, policies, and processes for how corporate applications are changed, used, and supported - evaluating updates for long-term maintainability, upgrade impact, and total cost of ownership, and ensuring a compliant, consistent stakeholder experience.
• Maintain a clear view of the corporate applications landscape to maximize the capabilities of platforms already in use.

Team Management

• Lead, mentor, and grow a team of business systems analysts, application administrators, and corporate systems engineers.
• Foster a collaborative, accountable, and service-oriented team culture.
• Manage relationships with SaaS vendors and implementation partners, holding them accountable to delivery commitments and service levels.
• Establish skill development plans to build and maintain platform expertise across the team (e.g. Salesforce, Oracle NetSuite, and other corporate systems).

Project & Vendor Management

• Collaborate with Finance, Billing, Sales, and Customer Success teams to ensure timely, quality delivery of system enhancements and integrations.
• Manage timelines, priorities, and resource allocation across multiple concurrent transformation projects.
• Manage licensing, contracts, and renewals for corporate SaaS platforms in partnership with Procurement and Finance.

Security & Compliance

• Ensure corporate applications meet required service levels and the standards expected of modern Cloud/SaaS services.
• Take a lead in establishing secure processes and access controls for corporate systems, managing risk in collaboration with Security and business leaders.
• Take responsibility for data protection across corporate applications, ensuring compliance with GDPR and other relevant regulations.
• Lead risk assessments and maintain secure environments for sensitive financial, billing, and customer data.

Qualifications

• Previous Director or Senior Director level leadership of a corporate applications, business systems, or internal IT function at a similarly sized (or larger) organization.
• Proven experience (15+ years) in corporate/business applications, with at least 10 years in a senior leadership role.
. click apply for full job details