This Director role will focus on Lean Delivery Optimization and reports to the Head of Payments Technology Center of Excellence You will be responsible for leading initiatives that drive measurable business value, operational resilience, and organizational excellence. This role is critical to the Payments Technology Center of Excellence effort to support the entire technology leadership team to: • Modernize the environment• Scale the Operation to comfortably meet revenue growth• Collaborative innovation• Drive growth with a stable platform and efficient integration expansion • Deliver against our product roadmap• Modernization of our payments platform The Director, Lean Delivery Optimization will be responsible for leading cross-functional initiatives that drive measurable business value, operational resilience, and organizational excellence. This position collaborates with the entire Center of Excellence to emphasize the integration of Lean/Agile practices, process improvement, and value stream mapping with key objectives that drive the integration of value stream mapping, PDLC/SDLC governance, and Most Important Things (MITs), Key Performance Indications (KPIs), and success measures into DevOps practices, governance, and continuous improvement. Key areas of focus include: + Align architectural decisions with product roadmaps, customer expectations, and long-term business goals. + Use a customer-centric and Profit and Loss-driven approach to ensure architectural standards support innovation and cost-effectiveness. + Define and monitor KPIs aligned with Lean, Agile, and continuous improvement principles to measure platform and team success. + Foster a mindset of ownership, empowering teams to align operational decisions with organizational Profit and Loss (P&L) goals. + Mitigate operational risk through robust governance frameworks and streamlined processes. + Encourage a culture of continuous improvement to ensure ongoing innovation and competitiveness. + Act as a key driver of transformation, ensuring alignment between operational processes, technology, and strategic business outcomes. What You’ll Do + Encourage teams to adopt a platform/product-owner mentality, making decisions as if they own the P&L. + Initiate KPIs and success measures that reflect both product and platform performance. + Develop and implement a comprehensive technology governance framework, including policies for security, compliance, QA, and IT risk management. + Collaborate with product managers and stakeholders to ensure operational priorities are aligned with customer needs and technology strategy. + Oversee special projects related to organizational and process improvements, including the evolution of the Agile lifecycle, career planning, and operational efficiency initiatives. + Empower teams to think beyond processes and own their outcomes, driving decision-making that supports innovation, customer impact, and revenue growth. + Monitor and manage KPIs to ensure those target measures can and will be met and continue to measure what’s most important for the organization success measures that reflect both product and platform performance. + Foster a culture of ownership within and across teams, ensuring that process improvements are fit-for-purpose, sustainable, and align with the broader P&L organizational goals. + Build organizational knowledge and collaboration around enterprise architecture principles, fostering shared accountability and continuous learning. + Promote customer-centricity by tying operational goals to end-user satisfaction and business outcomes. + Build a people-first culture that aligns with global CoE values, emphasizing career growth and motivation. + Align PDLC/SDLC practices with business and operational goals. + Identify people change management opportunities and facilitate engagement and learning sessions for adoption. + Embed people change management into transformation initiatives. + Drive architecture and process-oriented design to enhance scalability and efficiency. + Develop talent pipelines to ensure a strong, high-performing workforce that supports global delivery goals. + This is a people leader role + Travel is required, based on programmatic priorities. What You’ll Bring to Zelis + Cross-Functional Collaboration: Proven ability to align and inspire diverse teams, ensuring alignment with strategic organizational goals. + End-to-End Process Understanding: Expertise in analyzing complex systems and workflows to identify inefficiencies and craft effective solutions. + Customer Success Focus: A “quality-first” approach and test-driven mindset to prioritize outcomes that enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty. + Process Optimization Expertise: Strong ability to pinpoint weaknesses and implement sustainable improvements with measurable results. + Continuous Improvement Leadership: Passionate about elevating organizational performance to remain competitive and innovative. + Solution-Oriented Mindset: Skilled in identifying challenges, finding creative solutions, and driving their effective implementation. + Governance: Proven experience in technology governance, compliance, and risk management particularly within a payments or high-volume transaction environment. + Lean Transformation: Strong knowledge of Lean values and principles and organization transformation initiatives + Technology Transformation: Experience in technology transformation programs is advantageous + Strategic Thinking: Ability to develop and execute a long-term vision for the payments platform while driving operational excellence. + Leadership and Communication: Exceptional leadership and communication skills, with the ability to inspire teams and influence stakeholders. + Problem-Solving and Decision-Making: Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to make data-driven decisions under pressure. + Education/Experience: Typically holds a bachelor's or master’s degree or equivalent 10+ years of experience in technology leadership and process transformation. + Licenses/Certifications (preferred): Lean, Product Owner, Agile, ITIL, Process Mapping, Design Thinking, Business/Enterprise/Process-oriented Architecture Zelis is modernizing the healthcare financial experience by providing a connected platform that bridges the gaps and aligns interests across payers, providers, and healthcare consumers. This platform serves more than 750 payers, including the top 5 national health plans, BCBS insurers, regional health plans, TPAs and self-insured employers, and millions of healthcare providers and consumers. Zelis sees across the system to identify, optimize, and solve problems holistically with technology built by healthcare experts – driving real, measurable results for clients. Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging At Zelis, we champion diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in all aspects of our operations. We embrace the power of diversity and create an environment where people can bring their authentic and best selves to work. We know that a sense of belonging is key not only to your success at Zelis, but also to your ability to bring your best each day. Equal Employment Opportunity Zelis is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. We encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply, even if you do not believe you 100% fit the qualifications of the position, including women, LGBTQIA people, people of color, and people with disabilities. Accessibility Support We are dedicated to ensuring our application process is accessible to all candidates. If you are a qualified individual with a disability or a disabled veteran and require a reasonable accommodation with any part of the application and/or interview process, please email TalentAcquisition@zelis.com. SCAM ALERT: There is an active nationwide employment scam which is now using Zelis to garner personal information or financial scams. This site is secure, and any applications made here are with our legitimate partner. If you’re contacted by a Zelis Recruiter, please ensure whomever is contacting you truly represents Zelis Healthcare. We will never asked for the exchange of any money or credit card details during the recruitment process. Please be aware of any suspicious email activity from people who could be pretending to be recruiters or senior professionals at Zelis. Zelis is modernizing the healthcare financial experience by providing a connected platform that bridges the gaps and aligns interests across payers, providers, and healthcare consumers. This platform serves more than 750 payers, including the top 5 national health plans, BCBS insurers, regional health plans, TPAs and self-insured employers, and millions of healthcare providers and consumers. Zelis sees across the system to identify, optimize, and solve problems holistically with technology built by healthcare experts – driving real, measurable results for clients.