Director OF Continuous Improvement

Job Summary The Director, Service and Release Management is a senior leader responsible for the operational execution, delivery governance, and release integrity of live and in-flight services across the Global Services portfolio. This role leads a multi‑disciplinary team of Operational Service Delivery Managers (SDMOs), Project Managers, and Release Managers, providing unified direction across the functions responsible for running services, delivering programs, and controlling the flow of change through lower and production environments. This function sits at the heart of Customer Success and Global Services. The Director and their team are the primary operational liaison to customers and customer‑facing teams, working hand‑in‑hand with Service Delivery Managers (SDMs), Associate General Managers, and regional Customer Success Heads to ensure that service performance translates into sustained customer confidence. SDMOs operate as direct partners to SDMs and Associate GMs, and this Director ensures that relationship operates with clarity, consistency, and mutual accountability. Beyond day‑to‑day leadership, this Director owns the maturity agenda for their functions, building repeatable, scalable processes that raise the quality of how Global Services plans, delivers, and operates, and defining how those functions integrate across the broader organization. Key Responsibilities Team Leadership & Organizational Development Lead, develop, and hold accountable a team of SDMOs, Project Managers, and Release Managers across the Global Services portfolio. Build a high-performing team culture grounded in operational discipline, customer accountability, and continuous improvement. Define career development paths and capability‑building plans for each function; actively grow internal talent. Set consistent performance expectations, escalation standards, and ways of working across the team. Ensure appropriate span of control and program coverage; identify and address resourcing gaps. Customer & Regional Partner Engagement Serve as the senior operational leader bridging delivery execution with customer and customer‑facing teams across all regions. Work closely with the regional Heads of Customer Success (NAM, EMEA, APAC), who report to the Senior Director of Customer Success, to ensure operational performance aligns with regional customer commitments, priorities, and expectations. Ensure SDMOs maintain strong, day‑to‑day working relationships with their assigned SDMs and Associate GMs, operating as a unified customer‑facing team and partnering on escalation resolution, service performance narratives, and customer communications. Represent the Service and Release Management function in customer operational forums, executive briefings, and QBR preparation when senior operational leadership is required. Ensure that delivery and release activity, including the impact of changes across lower and production environments, is communicated proactively to customer‑facing teams so they can set expectations and maintain customer trust. Function Maturity & Process Excellence Own the maturity roadmap for Service Delivery, Project Management, and Release Management, defining where the functions need to be and driving a structured path to get there. Establish and enforce standard processes, playbooks, and operating procedures across all three functions, ensuring consistency of execution regardless of program, region, or team member. Drive a step‑change in how the team understands the business and the customer: ensure SDMOs, Project Managers, and Release Managers are fluent in the commercial context of their programs, understand the value delivered to each customer, and can connect their operational decisions to customer and business outcomes. Embed customer health metrics into the team’s standard ways of working. Every SDMO, Project Manager, and Release Manager should be actively aware of their customers’ health indicators, using that awareness to prioritize, elevate, and communicate with greater precision. Identify systemic execution gaps, including repeated delivery issues, process failures, or governance breakdowns, and lead root cause resolution at a structural level. Champion the adoption of tools, templates, and governance mechanisms that improve delivery predictability, reduce operational risk, and scale across the portfolio. Escalation & Service Alignment Serve as the senior escalation point for operational and delivery issues that span multiple programs, teams, or functions. Lead high‑severity escalations with clarity and authority, coordinating resolution across SDMOs, Tech Ops, engineering, and vendor partners while keeping SDMs and customer‑facing teams continuously informed. Ensure that escalation paths are well‑defined, consistently followed, and continuously improved based on lessons learned. Partner with regional Customer Success Heads and SDMs to align service performance with customer expectations and contractual commitments, surfacing risks early enough to act. Forward Release & Change Management Own the forward release and change calendar for Global Services, maintaining a rolling 3‑6‑month view of planned changes, upgrades, and releases across all programs and environments. Ensure the release calendar encompasses activity across lower environments (development, test, staging) through to production, so that environment dependencies, testing schedules, and readiness milestones are visible and managed end‑to‑end. Coordinate change intake across programs and functions, ensuring changes are assessed, prioritized, and scheduled with full awareness of operational, customer, and environment impact. Ensure customer‑facing teams and SDMs have advance visibility of planned changes and release activity, enabling them to prepare customers, manage expectations, and plan support coverage accordingly. Partner with Global Tech Ops Change Management to ensure CS‑originated changes comply with change governance standards and appropriate approval paths. Release & Launch Governance Define and enforce release governance standards for Global Services, covering readiness criteria, approval gates, go/no‑go decision frameworks, and post‑launch validation across all environments. Ensure that all releases and go‑live events have complete readiness artifacts: cutover plans, rollback plans, communications plans, support model confirmation, and rehearsal evidence, including sign‑off from customer‑facing teams and SDMs confirming customers are prepared. Chair or sponsor release readiness reviews and launch governance forums; drive clear, evidence‑based go/no‑go decisions. Ensure post‑release stabilization is actively managed across lower and production environments, and that any launch‑related issues are escalated, tracked, and resolved with timely communication to customer‑facing teams. Capacity & Impact Planning Own capacity and impact planning for the Service and Release Management function, ensuring the team has the headroom to manage programs, releases, and escalations without compromising quality or customer commitments. Lead operational impact assessments for significant changes, major releases, and large‑scale delivery activity, ensuring downstream teams, customer‑facing partners, and customers are prepared and risks are mitigated. Coordinate with Project Managers and SDMOs to identify periods of peak delivery activity and plan proactively to manage resource contention across environments. Provide leadership with a clear, forward‑looking view of delivery capacity, risk concentration, and operational exposure across the portfolio. Cross-Functional Partnership & Governance Build and maintain strong working relationships with Global Tech Ops, Customer Success Operations, Technical Account Management, Business Analysis, and Financial Services. Work with cross‑functional partners to establish a shared understanding of customer health across the portfolio, ensuring that customer health metrics, satisfaction signals, and commercial risk indicators flow into operational planning and prioritization decisions. Represent the Service and Release Management function in senior leadership forums, portfolio reviews, and governance committees. Partner with the CS Operations Senior Manager to ensure that operational processes, playbooks, and reporting standards are adopted and embedded within the team. Qualifications & Experience Bachelor's degree in IT, Engineering, Operations, Business, or a related discipline (or equivalent experience) 10+ years' experience in service delivery, program management, or technology operations roles within complex, enterprise environments 5+ years in a senior leadership role managing multi‑disciplinary operational or delivery teams Demonstrated success leading delivery and operations functions through a maturity uplift, establishing process, governance, and execution standards where they previously lacked consistency Deep working knowledge of ITIL practices, particularly Incident, Problem, Change, and Release Management, and how they integrate in a live service environment Proven ability to lead release governance, delivery planning, and operational readiness across lower and production environments in high‑availability, mission‑critical settings Experience coordinating delivery across engineering, infrastructure, operations, and third‑party vendors in a matrixed organization Strong track record of working directly with customers and customer‑facing teams, with the executive presence to represent operational complexity credibly at senior levels and manage high‑stakes escalations with clarity and composure Preferred Experience Experience in transit, payments, public‑sector technology, or regulated, high‑availability managed services Exposure to compliance frameworks such as PCI DSS, ISO 27001, or similar, and their implications for release and change governance Familiarity with cloud‑based infrastructure delivery (e.g., AWS, Azure) and its operational implications Experience operating within global service organizations with teams and customers across NAM, EMEA, and APAC Background working alongside or within a Centre of Excellence (CoE) model for service delivery standards Personal Attributes Customer‑obsessed: understands that operational excellence only counts if it translates into customer confidence, and holds the team to that standard. Strategic and disciplined: sets the direction, builds the systems to get there, and holds the line on execution without losing sight of either. Mature under pressure: leads with clarity and authority during escalations, incidents, and high‑stakes delivery events. Influencer without authority: drives alignment and accountability across peer functions through credibility, relationships, and clear reasoning. Develops people: invests genuinely in the growth of their team and builds a culture of accountability and continuous improvement. Cubic Pay Range $140,000.00 - $200,000.00* + benefits. The Cubic pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law. We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace and welcome applications from people of all backgrounds. We do not discriminate based on any protected characteristic under applicable law. #J-18808-Ljbffr