Director, IT Operations

Job Description This is a remote position. Director of IT Operations About the Role The Director of IT Operations is responsible for the day-to-day delivery, reliability, and security of the company's IT environment. This leader owns the people, processes, and technology behind change management, the service desk, end-user support, infrastructure operations, and operational security. Reporting to the CIO/VP of Technology, the Director of IT Operations sets the standard for operational discipline, audit readiness, and service quality across the organization. This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who has built operational programs from the ground up, who can sit equally well in a Change Advisory Board, an executive readout, or a Sev 1 bridge call, and who measures success in uptime, audit findings, ticket SLAs, and team development. Key Responsibilities Change Management & Governance Own the enterprise change management program, including policies, workflows, and approval gates for all production changes. Chair the Change Advisory Board (CAB), facilitating risk review, implementation readiness, rollback planning, and final approval of change requests. ∙ Ensure 100% compliance on deployment plans, test evidence, rollback procedures, and post-change validation for every production change. ∙ Maintain complete audit trails and documentation in the ticketing system (e.g., Jira, ServiceNow) to support internal and external audits. Help Desk & End-User Support Lead the IT service desk and end-user support function, setting SLA targets for response, resolution, and customer satisfaction. Oversee employee onboarding/offboarding, device provisioning, access management, and lifecycle support for laptops, peripherals, and software. ∙ Drive continuous improvement in ticket quality, first-contact resolution, knowledge base coverage, and self-service capability. Develop tiered support structure (Tier 1 through Tier 3) with clear escalation paths and ownership. Incident & Problem Management Own the full incident lifecycle: detection, triage, escalation, communication, resolution, and post-incident review. Coordinate cross-functional response on Sev 1 and Sev 2 incidents, including executive communication and bridge facilitation. Drive root cause analysis (RCA), corrective action tracking, and closure for all high-severity events. Establish and maintain monthly, quarterly, and annual availability, outage, and trend reporting for senior leadership. Infrastructure Operations & Monitoring Oversee 24x7 monitoring, alerting, and operations functions across production and corporate environments. Own the operational monitoring and observability stack (e.g., Splunk, Datadog, PagerDuty, Site24x7), ensuring detection coverage, alert quality, and on-call effectiveness. Partner with engineering and infrastructure teams to ensure operational readiness of new services before release. Security & Compliance Partner with Security, Risk, and Compliance teams to maintain SOC, PCI, and other applicable audit readiness across IT operations. Enforce access controls, change controls, and operational security standards across systems and endpoints. Serve as the operational point of contact for auditors, evidence gathering, and control attestation. Vendor & Asset Management Manage relationships with hardware, software, and managed service vendors (e.g., Dell, CDW, MSPs). Oversee IT asset lifecycle, procurement forecasting, license management, and cost accountability. Team Leadership & Development Build, lead, coach, and develop a multi-functional IT operations team across change, service desk, support, and operations. Set performance standards, mentor staff, and create career growth paths from Tier 1 through senior roles. Foster a culture of accountability, documentation, and continuous improvement. Requirements Required Qualifications 10+ years of progressive IT experience, with at least 5 years in IT operations leadership or management. Demonstrated ownership of a formal change management program, including CAB chairmanship and audit accountability. Strong track record managing 24x7 operations, incident response, and SLA driven service delivery. Experience supporting SOC, PCI, or comparable audit frameworks with measurable compliance outcomes. Hands-on familiarity with modern monitoring, ticketing, and collaboration tooling (e.g., Splunk, Datadog, PagerDuty, Site24x7, Jira, Confluence). ∙ ITIL-aligned understanding of Incident, Change, and Problem Management. ∙ Proven ability to build process structure from the ground up and translate operational data into executive-level reporting. Excellent written and verbal communication; equally effective with engineers, auditors, and senior leadership. Preferred Qualifications ITIL v3/v4 Foundation (or higher) certification. Experience in regulated industries (financial services, healthcare, fintech, payments). Experience leading or supporting M&A integration, ERP transitions, or major platform migrations. Background that spans hands-on technical work and senior leadership (e.g., progression from help desk through operations management). What Success Looks Like Zero audit findings related to change management and operational controls. Sustained reduction in Sev 1 and Sev 2 incidents year over year. Service desk consistently meeting or exceeding SLA and CSAT targets. Clear, trusted operational reporting that leadership relies on to make decisions. ​ A high-performing, well-developed IT operations team with low attrition and visible internal growth.