Associate/Manager IT Business Partner

Ocean Spray is hiring for a(n) Associate/Manager IT Business Partner! We’re a team of farmers, thinkers, creators, and doers. Whatever your title, whatever your role — it always comes back to this: we’re a farmer-owned co-op where everyone rolls up their sleeves to get the job done. Three maverick farmers started it all — and we’ve been making our own way ever since. The Associate Manager, IT Business Partner acts as a key liaison between IT and the business ensuring that IT programs and initiatives align with strategic business goals and objectives. This role involves understanding business needs, identifying opportunities for technology to drive IT enabled improvements, and facilitating the implementation of global, standard IT applications and solutions. This person will work closely with stakeholders to prioritize projects, manage resources, and ensure successful delivery of IT services. In this role, the IT Business Partner will also be responsible for certain domain specific applications that are not considered Enterprise apps. Key responsibilities include developing strong relationships with business leaders, providing strategic IT guidance, and ensuring that all IT services and investments are successful in achieving the desired outcomes and domain specific applications are supported and developed as needed. A Day in the Life... Support the Director, IT Business Partner as a day-to-day liaison between IT and business Stakeholders Gather, document, and validate business and functional requirements; translate needs into clear user stories, process flows, acceptance criteria, and solution inputs. Manage intake for assigned requests, assess business impact and urgency, and prepare recommendations for prioritization based on strategic alignment, capacity, risk, and expected value. Coordinate assigned projects or workstreams with Solution Design & Delivery, Data Analytics, Enterprise Applications, technical leads, vendors, and business subject-matter experts. Contribute analysis and stakeholder input to the Finance technology roadmap and annual IT investment planning process; track milestones, dependencies, risks, and benefits for assigned initiatives. Support development of business cases by documenting the problem, expected outcomes, costs, assumptions, risks, and measurable benefits. Assist with support and continuous improvement of assigned Finance applications, including issue coordination, enhancement requests, release readiness, documentation, and user communication. Monitor vendor service for assigned applications, including issue follow-up, service-level performance, licensing information, and contract inputs; escalate commercial or performance concerns to the Manager. Partner with IT technical leads to ensure support processes, knowledge articles, and operating documentation are created and maintained for new systems and capabilities. Identify process, data, control, and compliance considerations and raise risks or gaps to the appropriate business or IT owner. Support testing, change readiness, training coordination, implementation, and post-launch stabilization for assigned solutions. Facilitate working sessions and status updates with project teams and business stakeholders; prepare materials for leadership reviews led by the Manager. Conduct delivery retrospectives for assigned work and document lessons learned and recommend improvements. Research relevant technology, AI, analytics, and Finance-system trends and summarize practical opportunities within approved governance and architecture standards. Build credibility through responsive follow-through, clear communication, sound judgment, and consistent delivery of assigned commitments. Required What We Are Looking For: Experience supporting cross-functional technology projects, business analysis, product delivery, application support, or a similar business-facing IT function. Ability to gather, organize, and document business requirements and connect them to technology solutions. Working knowledge of project delivery practices and familiarity with agile methodologies and tools. Ability to analyze issues, identify risks and dependencies, and develop practical recommendations with guidance. Clear written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to facilitate working sessions and explain technical topics to business partners. Ability to build productive relationships and influence peers and stakeholders through preparation, collaboration, and follow-through. Experience coordinating work across internal teams and third-party vendors. Working knowledge of data governance, analytics, application support, and documentation practices. Ability to manage multiple priorities, maintain accurate status information, and escalate decisions or barriers appropriately. Curiosity and learning agility related to Finance processes, technology products, services, Gen AI, and Agentic AI within established governance processes. Preferred Experience sup