Enterprise Architect at Co-operative Bank of Kenya

Key Responsibilities

• Strategy & Governance
  • Lead the development and continuous refinement of the enterprise architecture strategy aligned to long-term business priorities.
  • Establish and maintain architecture principles, standards, reference models, and guardrails.
  • Evaluate emerging technologies and vendors; provide evidence-based recommendations for innovation and investment.
• Architecture Oversight & Standards (Non-Hands-On)
  • Chair/lead the Architecture Review Board (ARB) and ensure rigorous design reviews, risk assessments, and exception management.
  • Provide governance and guidance to solution teams; ensure traceability from business capabilities to solutions, with clear non-functional requirements (security, performance, resilience, availability, compliance).
  • Approve solution architectures for conformance with enterprise standards; ensure coherent, secure, scalable designs across on-prem, hybrid, and cloud.
• Business & Application Architecture
  • Map and rationalise business capabilities, value streams, processes, and the application portfolio to eliminate redundancy and improve total cost of ownership.
  • Drive portfolio optimisation and ensure solutions remain aligned to strategic priorities and target operating models.
• Data & Integration Architecture
  • Define and govern enterprise data architecture and integration patterns (API-led, ESB, microservices, event-driven, SOA).
  • Collaborate on data governance—quality, lineage, metadata, privacy, and security—across platforms and domains.
  • Oversee integration platforms and enterprise data repositories to enable secure, reliable, and real-time information flow.
• Leadership & Stakeholder Engagement
  • Influence, challenge, and guide senior leadership through clear, outcome-oriented communication—translating complex technical concepts for non-technical executives.
  • Mentor solution architects, engineers, and cross-functional teams; cultivate a culture of architectural excellence and knowledge sharing.

Key EA Deliverables

• Current-State and Target-State Architecture Models
• Architecture Roadmaps (multi-year evolution of the technology landscape)
• Reference Architectures for core domains and recurring patterns
• Standards & Design Patterns and associated guardrails
• Capability Mapping aligned to business strategy and value streams
• Cloud & Hybrid Architecture frameworks (landing zones, governance, security)
• Data & Information Architecture Governance (quality, lineage, stewardship)

Qualifications, Skills & Attributes

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
• 5+ years’ experience in Enterprise Architecture, Solution Architecture, or Technology Strategy with a track record delivering large-scale enterprise solutions.
• Breadth across business, application, data, and technology architecture domains; familiarity with integration and enterprise middleware.

Preferred / Modern Enterprise Architecture Competencies

• Certification: TOGAF or equivalent EA certification (highly desirable).
• Cloud Architecture Certifications: Azure, AWS, GCP, or Huawei Cloud.
• Enterprise Integration: APIs, ESB, microservices, SOA, event-driven architectures.
• Data Architecture & Governance: data modelling, metadata, lineage, quality.
• Cybersecurity Architecture: security-by-design principles and controls.
• DevOps / CI/CD Alignment: modern delivery practices and automation.
• Business Architecture: familiarity with BIZBOK and strategy-to-execution alignment (an advantage).
• Executive Stakeholder Engagement: ability to communicate with, influence, and challenge senior leaders to drive sound architectural decisions.
• Governance Experience: leading ARB/architecture governance forums and driving standards adoption.