At Goodwill, we enhance the dignity and quality of life for individuals and families by strengthening communities, eliminating barriers to opportunity, and helping people connect to valuable employment and community resources.

Our Programs and Services

We are focused on taking a targeted approach to transform lives and communities through The Power of Work.

Deepening Our Community Impact

We are committed to deepening our community impact in the neighborhoods we serve. We believe in the power of collective community and the difference we can make —together.

With a deep-rooted spirit of volunteerism among our more than 5,000 employees, we give back across greater Milwaukee and Chicago year-round through a variety of initiatives like our Acts of Goodwill and Goodwill Cares voucher program.

This cannot be done alone. Our long-standing partnerships with employers and community allies give us the opportunity to serve as a collective community, providing workforce development solutions and thought leadership where people need it the most.

Contributing to a Sustainable Future

We are proud to offer the community a resource to extend the life of usable goods. And we are passionate about our goal of maximizing the value of every single donation. What that means in practice is that we take a relentlessly systematic approach to keep goods out of landfills through repurposing, recycling, and as a last resort, responsible disposal. When you donate to Goodwill you are helping create jobs, strengthen families and reduce our collective impact on the planet.

Purpose of the Position

The Senior Vice President of Information Technology (SVP IT) will develop and guide the organization's long-term technology vision and strategic planning. This position is responsible for creating and maintaining an enterprise technology roadmap that aligns with and supports overall business strategy, ensuring technology investments drive value and performance. The SVP IT leads the design, implementation, and governance of IT systems, enterprise architecture, security, infrastructure, and application management to meet current and future business needs. By establishing clear technology standards and performance metrics, this role ensures that IT remains a critical enabler of enterprise goals.

As a member of the Executive Team, the SVP IT sets broader organizational vision and collaborates cross-functionally partnering with key stakeholders across the organization to align business strategy and drive accountability, ownership, and performance results. This position continually aligns financial and operational performance to create ongoing economic value and reports to the Executive Team on all aspects of information technology performance. The SVP IT sets long-term strategic vision (10+ years) and oversees planning for Information Services provided to the organization’s users, customers and vendors and is involved in setting organizational strategy and vision.

Key Responsibilities

This highly collaborative leadership role is central to shaping and executing strategic technology initiatives aligned with the organization’s long-term growth plans. The ideal candidate will be an analytical, project-driven innovator who continuously refines initiatives to strengthen customer and stakeholder relationships. As a key contributor to the strategic planning process, including setting annual growth targets and identifying innovation opportunities, this leader will leverage customer and market insights to prioritize new business initiatives across a diverse portfolio.

The SVP IT will work closely with business units to strike a balance between immediate operational needs and long-term strategic investments, while also serving as a thought leader in emerging areas such as artificial intelligence, data-driven decision-making, cyber security, and external technology partnerships. This role will lead the development of functional priorities, drive cross-functional execution, proactively create technology solutions, and ensure IT efforts are aligned with and measurable against mission outcomes, revenue goals, and margin improvements.

Chief among the primary responsibilities, the SVP IT:

 Leads the development of the IT strategic plan and enterprise technology roadmap. Contributes actively to enterprise strategy and business capability strategic planning. Ensures integration with the enterprise’s strategic planning process, and the resulting business strategy and plans.

 Provides strategic direction and oversight for the design, development, operation and support of IT systems and programs that fulfil the needs of the business, including enterprise architecture management, application management, security and risk management, and infrastructure and operations support management.

 Drives the development of enterprise technology standards, governance processes and performance metrics to ensure IT delivers value to the enterprise. Manages risks through the effective design, delivery, and management of IT capabilities for the enterprise. Serves on enterprise planning and other committees.

 Serves as senior technology advisor to senior and executive leadership, educating peers and organization employees to understand the IT philosophy, purpose, and intent. Mentors leaders on how to best harness technological resources, working proactively across business units to conceptualize, develop, and implement technology solutions that respond to business needs.

 Enhances IT’s capabilities by leveraging a multitude of resources, both internally and externally. Directs the development of the IT sourcing strategy and provides executive oversight for strategic vendor and partner relationship management.

 Develops and manages budget to ensure that dollars are allocated and spent effectively and within budget parameters; responsible for maintaining these budgets throughout the year, balancing expenditures, and profitability expectations.

 Establishes data governance policies and procedures to ensure the integrity, security, and privacy of sensitive information, while also harnessing data analytics to drive informed decision-making and optimize business processes.

 Maintains current on new technologies and platforms. Provides direction on what emerging technologies should be assimilated, integrated, and introduced within the enterprise to ensure IT capabilities respond to the needs of the enterprise’s digital business strategy.

 Leading and Developing Talent: Directs organizational design for multiple departments and oversees development and training of staff. Ensures ongoing succession planning and development within and outside of unit. Actively networks and sources for positions throughout the organization.

 Project and Change Management: Establishes project priority and timing, articulates vision for organizational changes. Authorizes use of organizational time, talent, and financial resources to support projects and improvement initiatives. Manages change through effective communication and coaching throughout the organization. Builds and participates in leadership coalition supporting and implementing the change and frequently serves as Project Sponsor for major initiatives.

 Community Engagement: Demonstrated leadership presence in the community through serving on volunteer boards, steering committees or other community committees that align with our intended impact.

 Board of Director meetings: provides updates on financials, operations, and progress towards goals for area/s of responsibility.

 Responsible for completing all other duties/responsibilities as assigned.

Experience and Professional Qualifications

The ideal candidate will bring a strong value-driven mindset and serve as a subject matter expert and thought leader, leveraging technology solutions such as AI, omnichannel integration, and automation of key processes like RFPs to support the company’s ambitious growth goals. With a proven track record of leading IT organizations—particularly within the retail industry—this individual will combine deep business acumen with a commercial focus, prioritizing software, and customer-facing technologies over traditional infrastructure.

They will be instrumental in attracting, developing, and retaining top IT talent, and will have a history of contributing meaningfully to high-performing teams that drive business growth. Expertise across key functional areas—including CRM and loyalty programs, eCommerce, digital marketing, supply chain systems, data analytics, AI/ML, IoT, cloud technologies, and cybersecurity—is essential to delivering scalable, customer-centric solutions that create lasting value.

Primary qualifications include:

 Proven track record of success in developing and executing technology roadmaps that deliver value and support long-term business strategies.

 Proficient understanding of industry compliance standards across all technology domains.

 Stay abreast of emerging technologies, industry best practices, ensuring compliance and driving innovation within the organization.

Leadership Competencies

 Strategic Mindset: Develops and integrates organizational strategies to achieve and sustain competitive advantage. Explores future scenarios and leverages organizations differentiators to develop viable long-term strategy. Adjusts business strategies in response to changing market dynamics and business need.

 Drives Vision and Purpose: Demonstrates and a commitment to the organizations purpose and vision and ensures clarity around mission, vision, and the guiding principles. Articulates with energy and optimism a compelling vision of the positive impact the organization.

 Business Insight: Demonstrates thorough business/industry knowledge and can synthesize business information and respond to changing market dynamics effectively. Proactively monitors external factors and policies that may affect the organization. Uses knowledge to plan work and guide decision making.

 Courage: Fosters a culture that supports people taking well-reasoned risks, regardless of outcome and appropriately advocates for decisions that are for the good of the organization. Confronts actions that are inconsistent with the Guiding Principles and demonstrates the ability to provide leadership through high-stakes situations, crises, or conditions of uncertainty.

Core Cultural Competencies

The SVP of IT must bring a strategic mindset and strong leadership capabilities, aligning IT initiatives with broader business goals while anticipating future trends to position the organization for long-term success. This leader should excel in communication across both technical and non-technical audiences, fostering collaboration and building strong relationships with key stakeholders throughout the organization.

Driving innovation and leading change are essential, as the SVP will be responsible for navigating evolving technologies and guiding the organization through digital transformation. Additionally, sound financial management is critical, including the ability to effectively oversee the IT budget, optimize spending, and clearly demonstrate the value and return on investment of IT initiatives.

 Customer Focus: Fosters a customer service-focused environment with a sense of urgency and importance of meeting the customer’s needs. Establishes organizational partnerships with key customers and ensures resources and support are focused on meeting customer needs.

 Values Differences: Cultivates an environment that makes all people feel valued and that encourages and supports diversity and inclusion. Sponsors and mentors people from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives. Applies understanding of cultural differences to create value and help meet business goals.

 Communicates Effectively: Promotes a free flow of information throughout the organization and demonstrates candor and openness when discussing major organizational initiatives. Creates venues for constructive dialogue and ensures organizational information is cascaded to a wide variety of audiences at all levels.

 Situational Adaptability: Demonstrates flexibility in a changing, competitive environment and initiates change in response to the cues in the external environment. Adapts leadership style in response to a broad range of situations and challenges that ingrains flexibility within the organizations structures, systems, and culture.

 Drives Results: Drives organization to achieve results that have a direct impact on business performance. Pushes the organization to move forward in difficult circumstances and eliminates obstacles that affect organizational performance.

 Ensures Accountability ensures the organization meets commitments and holds leaders accountable for team performance. Sets and monitors goals that align with organizational strategy creating an environment of accountability for meeting agreed upon expectations and performance expectations.

Initial Priorities

An initial priority for this role will be to partner closely with Retail and Marketing leadership to build a strong business case and design the next phase of ERP implementation, with a focus on SKU-level pricing, inventory automation (potentially enabling perpetual inventory), and enhancing both the shopper and donor experience. Simultaneously, the leader will assess the current IT team structure, talent capabilities, and cyber security readiness to ensure the organization is well-positioned for future growth.

This role will also be responsible for developing a comprehensive technology roadmap for the entire business, evaluating existing systems, processes, and external partnerships, and creating a robust data strategy to capture, integrate, and analyze data from diverse sources to generate actionable insights.

Education

 Bachelor’s Degree required and a minimum of 10 years’ experience. Previous and demonstrated experience leading an IT department. Retail industry experience preferred.

******

Korn Ferry shall provide equal employment opportunity to all qualified candidates, and will refer candidates without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, veteran status or any other legally protected basis.