Sr Director of Strategic Operations, Marketing

Our Mission

At Palo Alto Networks®, we're united by a shared mission-to protect our digital way of life. We thrive at the intersection of innovation and impact, solving real-world problems with cutting-edge technology and bold thinking. Here, everyone has a voice, and every idea counts. If you're ready to do the most meaningful work of your career alongside people who are just as passionate as you are, you're in the right place.

Who We Are

In order to be the cybersecurity partner of choice, we must trailblaze the path and shape the future of our industry. This is something our employees work at each day and is defined by our values: Disruption, Collaboration, Execution, Integrity, and Inclusion. We weave AI into the fabric of everything we do and use it to augment the impact every individual can have. If you are passionate about solving real-world problems and ideating beside the best and the brightest, we invite you to join us!

We believe collaboration thrives in person. That's why most of our teams work from the office full time, with flexibility when it's needed. This model supports real-time problem-solving, stronger relationships, and the kind of precision that drives great outcomes.

Job Summary

Your Career

The Sr. Director of Strategic Operations, Marketing, owns the rhythm of the business and drives all strategic initiatives for the Marketing organization. Reporting into the SVP of Global Digital Marketing, you will head up the team running all strategic programs and spearhead transformations. We are building a team to bridge the gap between high-level marketing vision and end to end execution - bring all strategic initiatives to fruition and assuring all operational teams operate seamlessly to achieve the marketing goals.

In this role, you will not only lead the day to day operations to keep marketing running effectively and efficiently, you own the implementation of complex, cross-functional programs that modernize our marketing stack, optimize lead-to-revenue workflows, and enhance our data-driven decision-making capabilities. You aren't just managing timelines, MBRs and QBRs; you are driving the key initiatives and ensuring success and cohesive execution at scale.

You will manage two core pillars: Strategic Operations (Strategic projects, Executive Communications, People and culture, Spend management and Business Rhythm) and Marketing Operations (Lead Flow, Automation, and Lifecycle Management). Your mission is to ensure that our marketing operations are fluid and AI driven, our strategy is financially sound and outcomes oriented, our processes are world-class, and our lead-to-revenue funnel is a seamless, automated machine.

Your Impact :

Strategic Roadmapping & Program Delivery

• Multi-Year Vision: Partner with Marketing leadership to translate business objectives into a multi-year operational roadmap. Prioritize initiatives and run functional workstreams to achieve global goals.

• End-to-End Orchestration: Lead large-scale strategic programs from inception to launch, owning the requirements, stakeholder management, customer journey planning and cross-functional delivery.

• Change Management : Drive the adoption of new tools, marketing workflows and processes across global marketing teams. Develop communication plans and training strategies to ensure high adoption and ROI on technology investments and new processes.

• Own KPI & Performance Tracking: Define and monitor metrics for program success, such as pipeline influence, lead velocity improvement, and AI adoption. Keep teams accountable to the goals.

Marketing Operations & Automation

• Lead Flow & Lifecycle: Architect and manage the end-to-end lead flow operations. Identify and resolve bottlenecks in the digital marketing lifecycle to improve lead velocity and pipeline influence.

• Marketing Automation: Own the global marketing automation strategy, ensuring high ROI on technology investments through rigorous adoption and repeatable delivery frameworks.

• System Integrity: Monitor system uptime for digital properties and ensure enterprise-grade stability across the MarTech stack.

Financial & Operational Excellence

• Budget & Headcount Governance: Strategically oversee the global budget and headcount planning. Lead cost-saving initiatives by auditing contracts and implementing spending guardrails. Own vendor consolidation and meticulous spend management processes that assures all budget spent has measurable ROI.

• Rhythm of the Business: Run the operational pulse of the team, including MBRs, QBRs, OKR setting, All Hands, and annual planning cycles. Ensure meetings are productive and action-oriented.

• Executive Communications: Draft high-impact presentations and memos for the digital marketing Exec team distilling complex data into clear, compelling narratives for executive consumption.

Qualifications

Team Leadership & Special Projects

• Team Growth: Manage, mentor, and grow the Strategic Operations and Automation teams. Own the end-to-end onboarding experience for new talent across marketing and assure cohesive execution and connectivity between all operational teams.

• Organizational Health: Partner with HR to drive talent development strategies, offsites, and internal communications to keep the global team engaged. Be the culture agent

• High-Stakes Projects: Lead "special ops" initiatives. Be the control tower for marketing's top projects and connect all stakeholders and project deliverables. Develop Launch process for new Marketing initiatives and product releases.

• 15+ Years of Leadership: Deep experience in Digital Marketing, Marketing Operations, Business Strategy, transformation and change management within a global enterprise technology (SaaS) company.

• Executive Presence: Proven track record of supporting C-suite leaders and influencing stakeholders across a multi-billion dollar matrixed organization.

• Data-Driven Architect: Expert-level ability to turn complex data into strategic insights; deep experience with program management, marketing automation and analytics.

• Financial Acumen: Strong experience in budget management, headcount planning, and financial modeling. Ability to perform rigorous ROI analysis on global spend.

• Change Agent: Proven capability to lead large-scale organizational transformations with a strong bias toward iterative and AI driven processes (experimentation, testing, and scaling).

• Strategic Problem Solver: A proactive mindset-identifying issues before they reach the SVP's desk and presenting them alongside potential solutions.

• Integrity: Absolute integrity and the ability to handle sensitive information regarding organizational changes and performance.

• Trust Builder: Ability to build deep relationships across the company and influence senior leaders without having direct authority over them.

• Data Driven: Comfortable navigating BI dashboards (Tableau, Adobe Analytics) to extract insights that drive strategic pivots. Expert-level ability to turn complex data into strategic insights;?Deep GTM Knowledge: Comprehensive understanding of SaaS business models, modern brand and demand generation, Digital Marketing, and the complexities of global enterprise marketing.

Compensation Disclosure

The compensation offered for this position will depend on qualifications, experience, and work location. For candidates who receive an offer at the posted level, the starting base salary (for non-sales roles) or base salary + commission target (for sales/com-missioned roles) is expected to be the annual range listed below. The offered compensation may also include restricted stock units and a bonus. A description of our employee benefits may be found here ( .

$248,000.00 - $342,500.00/yr

Our Commitment

We're trailblazers that dream big, take risks, and challenge cybersecurity's status quo. It's simple: we can't accomplish our mission without diverse teams innovating, together.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for all qualified individuals with a disability. If you require assistance or accommodation due to a disability or special need, please contact us at View email address on click.appcast.io .

Palo Alto Networks is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity in our workplace, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or other legally protected characteristics.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

Is role eligible for Immigration Sponsorship? No. Please note that we will not sponsor applicants for work visas for this position.