Director, Platform Modernization Business Lead (PL)
Your Opportunity
Your opportunity
Help shape the future of Retirement Plan Services. As the Director, RPS Modernization Business Lead, you will be the business leader for our recordkeeping platform modernization, you will be the voice of RPS across Digital, Platform, Technology, Operations, Product, Service, and vendor partners, ensuring client and participant needs and business outcomes drive platform design, implementation, testing, and conversion. You will have real autonomy and influence to drive decisions in a multi-year transformation that will define the future of RPS.
Key Responsibilities:
- Shape the future state. Serve as the RPS business voice in platform evaluation, sandbox testing, business requirements, process mapping, and operating-model design. Simplify and standardize rather than carrying legacy inefficiencies forward.
- Champion clients and lead migration strategy. Analyze plan-level client needs to determine which features and customizations are critical and which should be retired. Partner with Relationship Management, Service, and Operations to sequence migrations, surface client impacts early, and protect retention.
- Deliver business-case value. Track, drive, and report on the revenue, platform, operational, financial, and competitive outcomes in the modernization business case, and lead corrective action where value falls short.
- Engage senior leaders. Represent RPS in governance, steering committee, and executive forums with clear recommendations, decision materials, and risk assessments.
- Drive strategic communications. Partner with appropriate teams to deliver clear, consistent modernization messaging to leaders, employees, field partners, and clients.
- Build strong vendor partnerships. Communicate RPS priorities, evaluate proposed solutions and trade-offs, and hold partners accountable for business requirements and agreed outcomes.
- Own the platform for the long term. Define the business support, roles, and processes needed after modernization, then take ongoing ownership of the platform's business capabilities, enhancement roadmap, and value realization.
- Lead through ambiguity and change. Create structure as scope, priorities, and risks evolve, and drive accountability across matrixed teams without direct reporting authority.
What you have
Required Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree and 7–10 years of experience, including significant experience in the retirement plan services industry (required).
- Strong understanding of retirement plan recordkeeping and the needs of plan sponsors, participants, consultants, relationship managers, service teams, and operational partners.
- Proven record leading the business side of a complex platform implementation or transformation within retirement plan services, from requirements, process mapping, and operating-model design through testing, conversion, and post-implementation optimization.
- Ability to translate business strategy and client needs into capabilities, roadmaps, decision documents, and measurable business outcomes, and to separate essential requirements from legacy practices.
- Experience developing and managing business cases, including success measures, value-realization tracking, and accountability for financial, operational, and competitive results.
- Exceptional cross-functional leadership, with the ability to influence and align senior leaders across Business, Operations, Technology, Digital, Product, Service, Relationship Management, Legal, Compliance, Risk, Finance, and external vendors.
- Sound business judgment in weighing trade-offs across client experience, retention, operational feasibility, technology complexity, financial impact, regulatory considerations, risk, and cost to serve.
- Strong vendor partnership skills, including representing business priorities, evaluating proposed solutions, and holding partners accountable for outcomes.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, including executive-ready recommendations and the ability to build trusted relationships, resolve competing priorities, and facilitate decisions in executive governance forums.
- Ability to operate with autonomy, ownership, and accountability in a complex, multi-year transformation where priorities and dependencies evolve.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience conducting plan-level or client-level analysis to inform platform requirements, conversion strategies, and service models.
- Familiarity with Agile delivery, including backlog prioritization, user stories, acceptance criteria, testing governance, and release planning.
- Advanced degree or relevant certification (product management, project management, business transformation, or a retirement-industry designation).
What’s in it for you
At Schwab, you’re empowered to shape your future. We champion your growth through meaningful work, continuous learning, and a culture of trust and collaboration—so you can build the skills to make a lasting impact. Our Hybrid Work and Flexibility approach balances our ongoing commitment to workplace flexibility, serving our clients, and our strong belief in the value of being together in person on a regular basis.
We offer a competitive benefits package that takes care of the whole you – both today and in the future:
- 401(k) with company match and Employee stock purchase plan
- Paid time for vacation, volunteering, and 28-day sabbatical after every 5 years of service for eligible positions
- Paid parental leave and family building benefits
- Tuition reimbursement
- Health, dental, and vision insurance
What you are good at
What you have
Required Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree and 7–10 years of experience, including significant experience in the retirement plan services industry (required).
- Strong understanding of retirement plan recordkeeping and the needs of plan sponsors, participants, consultants, relationship managers, service teams, and operational partners.
- Proven record leading the business side of a complex platform implementation or transformation within retirement plan services, from requirements, process mapping, and operating-model design through testing, conversion, and post-implementation optimization.
- Ability to translate business strategy and client needs into capabilities, roadmaps, decision documents, and measurable business outcomes, and to separate essential requirements from legacy practices.
- Experience developing and managing business cases, including success measures, value-realization tracking, and accountability for financial, operational, and competitive results.
- Exceptional cross-functional leadership, with the ability to influence and align senior leaders across Business, Operations, Technology, Digital, Product, Service, Relationship Management, Legal, Compliance, Risk, Finance, and external vendors.
- Sound business judgment in weighing trade-offs across client experience, retention, operational feasibility, technology complexity, financial impact, regulatory considerations, risk, and cost to serve.
- Strong vendor partnership skills, including representing business priorities, evaluating proposed solutions, and holding partners accountable for outcomes.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, including executive-ready recommendations and the ability to build trusted relationships, resolve competing priorities, and facilitate decisions in executive governance forums.
- Ability to operate with autonomy, ownership, and accountability in a complex, multi-year transformation where priorities and dependencies evolve.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience conducting plan-level or client-level analysis to inform platform requirements, conversion strategies, and service models.
- Familiarity with Agile delivery, including backlog prioritization, user stories, acceptance criteria, testing governance, and release planning.
- Advanced degree or relevant certification (product management, project management, business transformation, or a retirement-industry designation).
Why Schwab?
At Schwab, “Own Your Tomorrow” embodies everything we do! We are committed to helping our employees unleash their potential and achieve their dreams. Our employees get to play a central role in disrupting a multi-trillion-dollar industry, creating a better, more modern way to build and manage wealth. We’re a modern financial services firm that stands apart from the industry, where you can go as far as your ambition takes you.
Hear from employees: What’s it like to work at Schwab!
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