About Northern Trust

As a global leader in innovative wealth management, asset servicing, asset management and banking services, Northern Trust (Nasdaq: NTRS) is proud to guide the world’s most successful individuals, families, corporations and institutions.

Since 1889, we have aligned our efforts with our three guiding Principles That Endure: Service, Expertise, and Integrity. Together, they reflect the three cornerstones of business conduct which we strive to instill in our employees, whom we call partners, and to provide to our clients and the communities we serve worldwide.

With more than 135 years of financial experience and over 24,000 partners, we serve the world’s most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.

Role Overview

Northern Trust is seeking an experienced Change and Release Management leader to own and continue evolving the enterprise Change and Release Management function, enabling safe, predictable, and efficient delivery of production changes across a complex, highly regulated technology environment.

The role is accountable for ensuring that change governance enables business outcomes while balancing delivery velocity, production stability, risk, control, and regulatory expectations at enterprise scale.

Key Responsibilities

Governance, CAB & Risk Decisioning

• Lead the end-to-end Change and Release Management process and ensure alignment with IT controls, regulatory standards, enterprise risk frameworks, and defined governance requirements.
• Chair and actively participate in Change Advisory Board (CAB) forums, enabling collaborative, well-informed, and risk-based decisions.
• Partner with Business Units, Technology, Engineering, Infrastructure, Operations, Risk & Control, Audit, and other Lines of Defense to ensure outcome-focused decision-making and sustained control compliance.
• Promote a risk-aware, decision-driven change culture, including strong exception evaluation, challenge, escalation, and mitigation practices.
• Oversee internal and external change audits, ensuring timely evidence delivery, transparent issue management, remediation tracking, and senior leadership visibility.
• Integrate cybersecurity considerations, control dependencies, implementation readiness, and operational resilience into change approval decisions.

Operational Excellence

• Design and operate lean, scalable, and resilient Change and Release Management processes suitable for high-volume production environments.
• Define, implement, monitor, and enforce service-level expectations across the full change lifecycle.
• Produce executive-ready monthly reporting covering change throughput, risk trends, exceptions, control performance, systemic issues, production stability, and improvement opportunities.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives that strengthen process maturity, deployment quality, governance effectiveness, and production stability.
• Identify recurring failure patterns and control gaps, and coordinate corrective actions with accountable stakeholders.

Technology, Delivery & Tooling Enablement

• Partner with the Change Management Product Owner and technology stakeholders to modernize tooling and automate workflows, including requirements definition, testing, implementation, and enterprise adoption.
• Leverage enterprise platforms such as ServiceNow, Azure DevOps, Clarity, and other PPM or ITSM tools to improve workflow transparency, control evidence, and management reporting.
• Apply a strong understanding of application delivery models, software development lifecycles, release practices, testing readiness, and deployment dependencies when assessing change risk and implementation confidence.
• Support effective integration between Change Management, Release Management, incident, problem, configuration, testing, and delivery practices.

Leadership & Stakeholder Partnership

• Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing Change and Release Management team, with clear accountability, capability development, and succession focus.
• Act as a trusted partner to Engineering, Application Development, Infrastructure, Operations, Business, Risk, and Control stakeholders.
• Communicate clearly and credibly with senior management, providing concise insights, informed recommendations, and timely escalation of material risks.
• Influence cross-functional teams to adopt consistent enterprise standards and deliver sustainable process improvements.

Experience & Qualifications

Required

• Minimum 12 years of experience in the IT industry, including leadership accountability in large, complex environments.
• Minimum 2 years of experience leading Change and/or Release Management functions.
• Prior experience in software development or engineering, providing a strong understanding of application lifecycles, deployment risk, and delivery constraints.
• Minimum 4 years of experience working within development-led or engineering-led organizations.
• Demonstrated experience with testing disciplines such as system, integration, or user acceptance testing; a minimum of 2 years is strongly preferred.
• Proven expertise in ITSM controls, IT general controls, audit frameworks, regulatory compliance, and evidence-based control execution.
• Hands-on experience with ServiceNow and exposure to Azure DevOps, Clarity, or comparable PPM and ITSM platforms.
• Demonstrated experience in financial services or another highly regulated industry.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent relevant professional experience.

Preferred

• Understanding of Custody, Trade, and Payments Operations within financial services.
• Experience with Service Management Operations platforms and internally developed or proprietary application platforms.
• Experience leading tooling modernization, workflow automation, management reporting, or enterprise process transformation initiatives.
• ITIL Foundation or higher certification.
• SAFe Agilist, Agile Leadership, PMP, or equivalent project and delivery certification.

Success Profile

• Balances governance discipline with pragmatic delivery enablement.
• Demonstrates sound risk judgment and the confidence to challenge, escalate, and make evidence-based decisions.
• Translates operational data into clear executive insights and measurable improvement actions.
• Builds credible partnerships across Technology, Business, Operations, Risk, Control, and Audit stakeholders.
• Operates effectively in a complex, high-volume, highly regulated enterprise environment.

Working with Us

As a Northern Trust partner, you will be part of a flexible and collaborative work culture, which has a strong history of financial strength and stability. Movement within the organization is encouraged, senior leaders are accessible, and you can take pride in working for a company committed to an inclusive workplace and assisting the communities we serve.

Philanthropy is deeply rooted in Northern Trust’s history and is an essential element of our culture. Employees around the world give their time and talent to work for the greater good of their communities.

Reasonable Accommodation

Northern Trust is committed to working with and providing adjustments to individuals with health conditions and disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please email our HR Service Center at [email protected], or alternatively you can discuss your individual requirements with the recruiter you are working with.

About Our Pune Office

The Northern Trust Pune office, established in 2016, is now home to over 3,000 employees. The office handles various functions, including Operations for Asset Servicing and Wealth Management, as well as delivering critical technology solutions that support business operations across the globe.

Our Pune team takes our commitment to service to heart. In 2024, they volunteered more than 10,000+ hours into the communities where they live and work. Learn more.