Chief Information Officer

About Agricorp

Agricorp is an agency of the government of Ontario, dedicated to delivering financial and risk management programs to support Ontario's agriculture sector. We help protect the livelihood of over 47,000 Ontario farmers against daily business risks, managing public funds with integrity and providing quality customer experience. Established in 1997, Agricorp has underwritten $7 billion in risk each year and made $7.5 billion in payments to farmers in our first 25 years.

Chief Information Officer

Agricorp is seeking a Chief Information Officer to join our senior leadership team and lead our Information Technology Services division, contributing to the delivery of essential financial and risk management programs for Ontario’s agriculture sector.

Reporting to the Chief Executive Officer, the Chief Information Officer, leveraging their senior technical expertise, provides strategic oversight and functional leadership to a team of IT professionals. This role encompasses all technology and information management solutions, systems, and related processes, ensuring Agricorp possesses the technological capabilities to support all business functions effectively.

The Role

In this role, you will:

• Account for the acquisition, transition, development, and maintenance of Agricorp’s information technology infrastructure, including enterprise architecture, applications, and security.
• Ensure alignment with the strategic plan and support of operational requirements.
• Provide leadership for digital delivery capabilities that focus on user-centered customer experience and optimizing digital service offerings.
• Offer organizational leadership for adopting AI use cases for efficient and effective delivery.
• Analyze requirements and issues, prioritize information and technology solutions, highlighting alternatives, and providing senior-level advice and recommendations to the senior management and the board of directors.
• Provide strategic leadership to teams of professionals in Information Technology Services departments, including enabling services, development and testing services, architecture services, and network and infrastructure support, who are required to procure, design, build, test, deploy, and maintain Agricorp and vendor system solutions.
• Protect company information and system assets, mitigating risk through security and control structures and procedures.
• Ensure system compliance with government service agreements, legislation, government directives, internal and external reporting requirements, corporate filings with regulatory agencies, and adherence to Agricorp policies.
• Work closely with government stakeholders, Agricorp division leadership, and employees to contribute solutions that provide a positive customer experience.
• Act as a key liaison with vendors and service consultants involved in all information system selections or acquisitions.
• Provide change management leadership and support where technology and process re-design occurs.
• Optimize and effectively transition from legacy to new best practice solutions, which is a significant business factor.
• Work closely with the senior management team to prioritize and plan cross-functional projects.
• Manage the Information Technology Services divisional budgeting and forecasting processes.
• Provide coaching and development support to peers and managers to assist in their successful performance of their duties.

Qualifications

• University education in a technical or business discipline, such as computer science, mathematics, business administration, or equivalent experience.
• Minimum 15 years’ information technology management or technology management experience, including large and multi‑faceted technology environments and complex processing systems, networks, and production environments.
• Experience in financial services or insurance processing organizations, public sector organizations, or familiarity with highly regulated industries, government, or government agency.
• Experience providing advice and counsel to senior leaders including board of directors.
• Experience leading a team of professional technical experts.

Key Competencies

• Client Focus: Provides service excellence to internal and external clients.
• Achieving Quality Results: Focuses efforts on managing oneself to achieve high-quality results consistent with the organization’s standards and measures, while managing risk.
• Strategic Thinking: Understands and processes complex information and exercises sound judgment; proposes actions that further the objectives, priorities, and vision of the organization.
• Critical Judgment, Decision Making, and Problem Solving: Uses critical judgment to make decisions and solve problems involving various levels of complexity, ambiguity, and risk.
• Leading Teams: Leads and supports the performance of a team towards achieving excellent results.
• Planning and Organizing: Develops, implements, evaluates, and adjusts plans to reach goals, while ensuring the optimal use of resources.
• Stewardship of Resources: Ensures the effective, efficient, and sustainable use of resources and assets (financial, human, physical, and information resources).
• Change Advocacy: Advocates, leads, and enables the process of change while helping others deal with the transition.

Key skills/competency

• Strategic Leadership
• IT Management
• Enterprise Architecture
• Cybersecurity
• Digital Transformation
• AI Adoption
• Risk Management
• Vendor Management
• Government Compliance
• Change Management