Company: 123NET
Role: Vice President, Business Transformation
Reports to: Chief Technology & Information Officer
Organization: Enterprise Systems & Program Delivery
Location: Southfield, Michigan
Company Overview
Founded in 1995, 123NET is one of Michigan’s leading fiber infrastructure and connectivity providers, delivering fiber internet, data center, colocation, voice, and network solutions to businesses, carriers, municipalities, and residential customers across the state. Headquartered in Southfield, the company operates one of the largest privately owned fiber networks in Michigan.
As a portfolio company of Grain Management, 123NET is well positioned to capitalize on growing demand for high-speed connectivity while retaining the agility and customer focus of a founder-built organization. The company is recognized for its entrepreneurial culture and technical excellence, and expects leaders to make decisions, work cross-functionally, and own outcomes.
Our Mission – Building network to make Michigan communities and businesses the best connected on the planet.
The Opportunity
Reporting to the Chief Technology & Information Officer, the Vice President of Business Transformation will lead Enterprise Systems & Program Delivery and own the transformation agenda for the company. This includes the sequencing, governance, execution, and measurement of the systems and process changes required for 123NET to operate at its next level of scale.
Much of how 123NET runs today is carried by bespoke systems built internally over many years. They work, and they reflect a deep understanding of the business. However, they were built for a smaller company, they depend heavily on the individuals who wrote them, and they cannot scale with the growth ahead. The central task is migrating that footprint to modern, well-supported third-party platforms (these include CRM, OSS/BSS, and adjacent operating systems) while getting more value from the ERP investment already in place.
The mandate has three parts, and the successful candidate will be strong in all three: organize the work, so that a scattered set of initiatives becomes a sequenced and funded plan; manage the work, with the cadence and discipline to hold dates and surface problems early; and do the work, personally producing a meaningful share of it. This function exists to sequence and unblock delivery, not to administer it. The organization is lean and senior by design, and the role carries real executive runway for a leader who earns it.
Roles and Responsibilities
- Partner with the CTIO and executive leadership team to translate business strategy into a sequenced, costed transformation roadmap, and own that roadmap as the plan of record.
- Run the operating cadence for the transformation portfolio: intake, prioritization, stage gates, execution reviews, dependency and risk management, and reporting to the executive team and board.
- Lead the enterprise systems agenda: requirements definition, vendor evaluation and selection, business case development, implementation oversight, and integration governance.
- Own migration planning and cutover execution as internally built platforms are replaced with commercial solutions, in partnership with engineering, operations, and finance.
- Build and maintain the transformation KPI framework and dashboard of record (cost, schedule, benefit realization, and adoption) reconciled to governed metric definitions.
- Lead change management and adoption planning, treating adoption as a condition of delivery rather than a phase that follows it, and coach leaders through significant process and system change.
- Partner with Data Engineering on critical-data mapping, OSS/BSS modernization, and third-party application selection so that platform and data decisions are made together.
- Lead the knowledge-transfer and documentation programs that reduce single-person dependencies across legacy internal systems, data flows, and core operating processes.
- Establish project management standards and reporting discipline proportionate to the size of the company, and develop the team required to sustain them.
Ideal Experience
The ideal candidate is a seasoned transformation, enterprise systems, or program leader with experience in telecommunications, broadband, technology infrastructure, or another asset-intensive, recurring-revenue business. The ideal candidate is also equally comfortable setting the program architecture and doing the work inside it.
Transformation & Program Leadership
- Multiple years leading complex, cross-functional transformation, enterprise systems, or integration programs, including several in senior leadership.
- Demonstrated design and operation of program governance: stage gating, prioritization, dependency and risk management, and benefit realization tracking.
- Experience sequencing a multi-year portfolio under real constraints of capital, talent, and operating capacity. Familiarity with EOS or a comparable company operating system is a plus.
Enterprise Systems Ownership
- End-to-end ownership of at least one major system-of-record lifecycle (ERP, CRM, billing, or equivalent) from requirements and vendor selection through migration, cutover, and sustained adoption.
- Experience replacing custom-built internal applications with commercial platforms, including the data migration and organizational change that come with it.
- Exposure to OSS/BSS, provisioning, or service-delivery platforms in a telecommunications or infrastructure environment is strongly preferred.
Business & Financial Acumen
- Business case development, capital planning, and budget ownership, with the ability to build and defend a number in front of a CFO.
- KPI and dashboard design, with a track record of measures that changed operating behavior.
Leadership & Execution
- A demonstrated willingness to operate as an individual contributor alongside a primary leadership mandate. The organization is lean by design, and the successful candidate will carry significant execution personally while working with other teams and peers to execute.
- Leads with humility and low ego, gives a direct read rather than a consensus summary, builds trust quickly across all levels, and influences without relying on authority.
- Moves comfortably between executive strategy discussion and day-to-day operational execution, and develops people deliberately.
Additional Capabilities of Interest
This role sits one level below the Chief Technology & Information Officer by design, and 123NET places real weight on capabilities beyond the transformation mandate itself. No candidate is expected to bring all of the following, but breadth here materially expands the scope the role can carry over time.
Technology Depth
- Working fluency in network and infrastructure: core IP architecture, carrier-grade network operations, peering and internet exchange, and data center and colocation operations.
- Security and compliance leadership exposure; AI governance and automation readiness; and the engineering side of product development for products the company sells, not solely systems it operates.
Data & Analytics Depth
- Modern data platform experience (Snowflake or equivalent) including pipeline architecture, data quality, lineage, and source-to-metric mapping.
- Business intelligence and analytics leadership, including Power BI and semantic layer design, with the governance required to keep one number meaning one thing.
Executive Readiness
- Prior P&L or significant budget ownership, organizational design experience, and a record of building teams from a blank sheet and developing successors.
- M&A integration or carve-out leadership, board-level communication, and vendor negotiation at contract-signature scale.
Location
123NET is headquartered in Southfield, Michigan. Candidates based in or near the market are viewed favorably, but the company is open to a remote arrangement for the right leader, with regular travel to Southfield for planning, key milestones, and time with the team.
Benefits:
- 401(k) matching
- Dental insurance
- Health insurance
- Vision insurance
Work Location: Hybrid remote in Southfield, MI 48075
