IT Data Engagement Lead Manager

Time to get to work! LRS Consulting Services is seeking an experienced IT Data Engagement Lead Manager for our client in Central Illinois. This is 6-month contract to hire opportunity for the right person. If you’re that person and if you have the IT Data Engagement Lead Management expertise that we need, submit your resume now!

LRS Consulting Services has been delivering IT excellence for over four decades. Our reputation for quality, flexibility, and strong relationships with our clients keeps them turning to us to meet their IT consulting needs. Our contacts, combined with your technical expertise, equals career possibilities for you. So, let’s get to work!

Key Responsibilities Include:

• This leader will play a pivotal role in ensuring stability, efficiency, visibility, and continuous improvement of enterprise data capabilities, balancing evolving business priorities with a commitment to technical excellence and innovation. The ideal candidate will possess practical analytical expertise, deep understanding of business needs, and exceptional decision-making skills to evaluate and prioritize requests that maximize business value.
• This role requires someone who is highly organized, equally effective communicator for both business and technical partners, and driven to make a meaningful and measurable impact across the enterprise. This Engagement Lead must be able to navigate competing demands, align technology work with strategic goals, and create a structured approach to data support, incremental enhancements and strategic advancements.
• Evaluate and prioritize incoming requests based on business impact, urgency, and technical feasibility. Set clear expectations with stakeholders, ensuring alignment with organizational goals. Communicate trade-offs transparently, advocating for business value over reactive task execution.
• Facilitate progression of effort from roadmap to project intake and project initiation, including prioritization, cost-benefit analysis, and other pre-project tasks. Develop a structured framework for prioritization that ensures mission-critical support needs are met while also advancing right-sized enhancements that drive continuous improvement.
• Ensure operational metrics, roadmaps, goals/outcomes, project status, and other critical reports outs for the data department are updated appropriately. Identify and help remove operational roadblocks that limit team effectiveness, including process inefficiencies, unclear responsibilities, or misaligned priorities. Facilitate necessary resource capacity/demand activities include planning, onboarding, tracking, and support for both employee and contractual staff across all enterprise data teams.
• Ensure cross-team collaboration, fostering a shared understanding of priorities, dependencies, and technical solutions. Create and uphold accountability structures to ensure work is completed efficiently and of high quality. Drive a culture of ownership, problem-solving, and continuous learning. Coach team leads on best practices for planning, reporting, and cross-functional collaboration. Promote the use of generative AI tools to boost team creativity, efficiency, and skill development.
• Serve as the bridge between technology teams and business stakeholders, ensuring both sides understand priorities, constraints, and impacts. Maintain a strong grasp of enterprise data systems, workflows, and potential challenges, ensuring informed decision-making.
• Set firm but fair expectations with business stakeholders, ensuring they understand how and why prioritization decisions are made. Provide regular updates on progress, challenges, and key outcomes related to support and enhancements. Communicate realistic timelines, risks, and trade-offs when managing requests.

Must have 6 years of experience with the following:

• Experience leading/shaping IT data and continuous improvement teams in a large enterprise environment.
• Experience within Insurance, Financial Services, or related business domain.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure), ITIL frameworks, and Agile methodologies in IT leadership, with a focus on managing IT projects, technical support, and/or system enhancements. Proven track record of making strategic prioritization decisions that drive business value. Experience implementing generative AI technologies in development workflows. Experience in negotiating and influencing senior leaders on data priorities and trade-offs.
• Familiarity with at least one area of Data Management, including but not limited to, data intensive applications, data development lifecycles, data analytics, business intelligence, data governance, and/or data-driven decision making. Ability to translate business needs into technical priorities and vice versa. Ability to view the enterprise data ecosystem holistically and identify systemic issues that affect multiple teams or business areas.
• Familiarity with modern planning and ticketing systems (e.g., ServiceNow, Enterprise One, Monday, Jira, Azure DevOps) and IT project/portfolio management best practices. Familiarity with change management frameworks to support adoption of new processes, tools, or prioritization frameworks across data teams. Proficiency in leveraging generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, or similar to enhance IT workflows.
• Strong leadership skills, with the ability to motivate, support, and guide teams in a fast-paced environment. Experience with IT portfolio planning, tracking, and senior level report outs. Ability to set clear expectations and communicate priorities firmly yet diplomatically to stakeholders. Strong facilitation and conflict resolution skills, with the ability to mediate between diverse stakeholders and align differing viewpoints.
• Experience leading/shaping IT data and continuous improvement teams in a large enterprise environment. Experience within Insurance, Financial Services, or related business domain. Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure), ITIL frameworks, and Agile methodologies.
• Candidate must be able to effectively communicate in English (written & verbal)
• Candidate must have permanent authorization to work in the USA for any employer
• Corp to corp candidates will not be considered

The base range for this contract position is $40 - $75 per hour, depending on experience. Our pay ranges are determined by role, level, and location. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hires of this position across all US locations. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

LRS is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants for employment will receive consideration without unlawful discrimination based on race, color, religion, creed, national origin, sex, age, disability, marital status, gender identity, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, genetic information, citizenship status or protected veteran status.