Senior Information Technology Officer

The Senior Information Technology Officer (Agri-Data Platform Lead) is responsible for the delivery and management of the agri-data platforms, digital solutions, services and digital public goods that support the Organization in accomplishing the technical programme at the global and country levels. The incumbent will act as a technical lead and project manager for the initiatives related, but not limited to, data integration, data federation, data engineering, data modelling and data visualization applications, working closely with IT management and FAO business units to ensure consistency of project execution with the Organization’s strategic vision and enterprise data, as well as IT architecture and ensuring that it meets the Organization’s priorities.

Leading strategies and provision of advice as well as IT projects and activities, to ensure that the Organization’s requirements for Information Systems (IS) and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) are effectively met.

Key Functions:

• Leads specialized activities carried out by CSI.
• Prepares work plans and monitors progress to ensure delivery of operations and/or projects outputs as per Organizational needs and agreed priorities.
• Manages the assigned financial and human resources.
• Develops, monitors and reports on key performance indicators of the assigned functions.
• Advises senior management on IT matters including the implications of various functional and technological alternatives and on IS/ICT strategies, governance and standards including their impact on the Organization’s ability to deliver its programmes.
• Leads the planning, coordination and setting of policies for the development and implementation of an Organization-wide IS/ICT strategy and for the development of supporting standards, procedures and practices according to the agreed work plans.
• Leads special projects and supervises staff, including external service providers and consultants.
• Represents the Organization and the Division in formal meetings, negotiations and/or mediation/problem resolution meetings to reach agreement on various IT issues and/or to resolve difficult or contentious problems.
• Promotes initiatives under the Organization’s work on Corporate Environmental Responsibility to reduce emissions, increase efficiency and integrate sustainability into the Organization’s daily operations.

Specific Functions:

• Promotes collaborations internally and externally in the field of agro-informatics solutions development and operations.
• Acts as a technical leader in agro-informatics platform development and operation.
• Acts as a project manager in relevant agro-informatics application projects.
• Manages platform and application development teams and contractors, who work remotely from locations worldwide, collaborating with the teams of other FAO data platforms and systems to further integrate and consolidate the Organization’s data infrastructure.
• Implements mechanisms to monitor, manage and provide progress on system development activities, ensuring the data solution fits with FAO business requirements, data protection and privacy policies and the end-to-end technical operations processes including systems, interfaces and platforms.
• Leads various technical teams in expanding analytics capabilities for non-corporate data across multiple FAO domains, ensuring agro-informatics platforms comply with the organizational data policy and standards.
• Contributes to data governance and data policy.
• Contributes to the organizational digital asset and digital public goods governance and policy.
• Contributes to the organizational data and IT Application Development Strategy.
• Contributes to agro-informatics IT security.
• Performs other duties as required.

Candidates Will Be Assessed Against The Following:

Minimum Requirements:

• Advanced university degree in information technology, computer science, information systems, software engineering, mathematics/statistics, or related field.
• Ten years of relevant experience in implementing, supporting and managing large-scale data platforms or systems, preferably heterogenous big data platforms at a global scale.
• Working knowledge (proficient – level C) of English and limited knowledge (intermediate – level B) of another official FAO language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish).

Technical/Functional Skills:

• Work experience in more than one location or area of work, particularly in field positions, is essential.
• Extent and relevance of experience in the field of corporate environmental responsibility is an asset.
• Extent and relevance of experience in providing services to clients.
• Extent and relevance of experience in leading diverse teams in international and multicultural settings.
• Extent and relevance of experience in managing business intelligence/analytics solutions, preferably in a public sector or international organization.
• Extent and relevance of experience in managing IT application projects in a multilingual context.
• Demonstrated experience in vendor negotiations and management.
• Demonstrated experience in drafting reports and documents in the required languages.

Source: https://jobs.fao.org/careersection/fao_external/jobdetail.ftl?job=2401887