Head of Enterprise Architecture

He whakamārama mō te tūranga mahi | About the role 

We’re looking for a highly experienced Head of Enterprise Architecture to join our Digital leadership team. 

In this role, you’ll be responsible for defining, governing and evolving Watercare’s enterprise architecture to ensure our strategy, business change and technology investments are aligned, sustainable and value‑focused. You’ll provide clear direction on target state architecture, standards and decision frameworks, enabling delivery teams to move at pace while avoiding fragmentation, technical debt and unmanaged risk. 

You’ll act as a trusted advisor to senior leaders and governance forums, ensuring architecture decisions support long‑term outcomes, not just short‑term delivery. This role is critical in shaping how Watercare delivers technology‑enabled outcomes for Auckland. 

Ngā kawenga matua | Key Responsibilities 

In this role you will: 

• Lead enterprise architecture governance through design authority and architecture review forums 

• Ensure architecture decisions are documented, consistent and aligned to agreed standards and target states 

• Define and embed delivery governance standards, including stage gates, reporting and decision frameworks 

• Provide architecture leadership across business, application, data and technology domains 

• Translate strategy into clear architecture roadmaps and transition states 

• Support investment decisions by assessing architectural fit, dependencies, trade‑offs and risk 

• Identify opportunities to simplify environments and reduce technical debt 

• Partner closely with PMO, platform and delivery teams to ensure architecture is practical and implementable 

• Provide guidance, patterns and guardrails to delivery teams without slowing progress 

• Act as a senior advisor to executives on architecture risks, constraints and opportunities 

• Communicate complex architectural concepts in clear, business‑focused language 

• Build strong relationships across Digital, business and executive stakeholders 

• Lead and grow a high‑performing enterprise architecture practice 

• Establish consistent architecture methods, templates and standards 

• Uplift architecture capability and maturity across the organisation 

Ngā pūkenga e rapu nei mātou | About you 

You are a strategic and influential leader with deep enterprise architecture experience and a strong ability to balance long‑term direction with practical delivery. You’re comfortable operating at an executive level while staying close to delivery, and you bring a pragmatic, outcomes‑focused approach to decision making. 

You’ll ideally bring: 

• Significant experience in enterprise architecture leadership roles 

• Strong understanding of business, application, data and technology architecture domains 

• Experience establishing and running architecture governance in complex environments 

• Proven ability to influence senior stakeholders, executives and governance forums 

• Strong leadership capability, with experience building and leading high‑performing teams 

• A strategic mindset with the ability to translate strategy into actionable roadmaps 

• Excellent communication skills, able to simplify complex concepts for business audiences 

• A pragmatic, delivery‑focused approach while maintaining architectural integrity 

Desirable (but not essential): 

• Experience with frameworks such as TOGAF 

• Exposure to large‑scale digital or transformation programmes 

• Experience in regulated or asset‑intensive environments 

• Experience operating in large, complex organisations