Director, Operations Excellence

AHEAD builds platforms for digital business. By weaving together advances in cloud infrastructure, automation and analytics, and software delivery, we help enterprises deliver on the promise of digital transformation. At AHEAD, we prioritize creating a culture of belonging, where all perspectives and voices are represented, valued, respected, and heard. We create spaces to empower everyone to speak up, make change, and drive the culture at AHEAD. We are an equal opportunity employer, and do not discriminate based on an individual's race, national origin, color, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, marital status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law, whether actual or perceived. We embrace all candidates that will contribute to the diversification and enrichment of ideas and perspectives at AHEAD. Duties & Responsibilities Quality Oversight & Issue Management: Own the centralized view of operational quality issues across the quote-to-cash process, ensuring issues are tracked, routed to the right owners, and driven to resolution with clear accountability and timelines. Quality Oversight & Issue Management: Lead rapid triage and cross-functional coordination on the most critical and time-sensitive issues, serving as the primary escalation point for operational quality failures that span multiple teams. Quality Oversight & Issue Management: Identify systemic patterns across the issue queue, distinguishing one-time exceptions from structural process gaps, and facilitating root cause analysis with relevant data-producing teams. Quality Oversight & Issue Management: Track corrective actions from identification through closure, maintaining accountability across teams and escalating to senior leadership when resolution is at risk. Process Standards & Continuous Improvement: Partner with cross-functional teams to define, document, and maintain standard operating procedures for key workflows in the quote-to-cash process, ensuring process context is captured, accessible, and continuously improved. Process Standards & Continuous Improvement: Identify automation and process improvement opportunities that reduce manual effort, strengthen upstream data quality, and reduce recurring issue volume over time. Process Standards & Continuous Improvement: Build and maintain a centralized knowledge base that captures institutional process knowledge and serves as a shared reference for the broader organization. Process Standards & Continuous Improvement: Champion adoption of new ways of working across the organization, inspiring commitment and driving alignment behind quality and continuous improvement objectives. Reporting & Executive Communication: Maintain a regular cadence of reporting to senior leadership on open issues, trends, SLA performance, and corrective action progress — synthesizing complex operational data into clear, executive-ready insights. Reporting & Executive Communication: Develop and own the operational quality scorecard, establishing baselines and tracking measurable improvement over time. Reporting & Executive Communication: Serve as a trusted advisor and cross-functional partner to Operations, Client Applications, Enterprise Technology, and Foundry leadership on issues that affect data quality and client outcomes. Reporting & Executive Communication: Provide governance and oversight for operational quality initiatives, ensuring milestones and deliverables generate measurable business impact. Function Building: Establish the Operations Excellence function, including its operating model, governance cadence, escalation paths, and engagement model with cross-functional partners. Function Building: Help build organizational quality capabilities by embedding best practices and fostering a culture of operational excellence across the teams that produce and consume our operational data. First 90 Days Conduct a structured assessment of current-state operational quality gaps across the quote-to-cash process, producing a prioritized issue registry with root cause analysis and recommended corrective actions. Establish a repeatable operating rhythm: cross-functional accountability meetings, issue tracking cadence, and executive reporting format. Define the escalation framework — including clear criteria for when issues are escalated, to whom, and what decisions are required at each level. Publish a baseline operational quality scorecard covering SLA performance, issue volume and aging, and top systemic themes. Define business requirements for central ticketing solution. Update operational workflows to reflect implemented solution and desired escalation paths. Education & Experience Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Operations Management, or related field. 10+ years of experience in operations, process improvement, quality management, or a related cross-functional leadership role within a complex organization. Demonstrated track record of driving accountability and measurable improvement across organizational boundaries through influence, data, and executive partnership. Experience building or leading a quality management function in a scaling technology or services organization is strongly preferred. Experience with B2B client platforms, order management ecosystems, or IT distribution/services operations is a plus. Certification in project management, change management, Lean, or Six Sigma is a plus. Knowledge, Skills & Abilities Natural systems thinker with the ability to identify patterns behind recurring problems and translate them into clear, actionable improvement plans. Strong facilitation and follow‑through — comfortable leading structured problem-solving conversations with senior and executive stakeholders across functions. Proven ability to build governance structures and drive adoption of documented processes and standards in environments where authority is shared. Solid project management capabilities to prioritize, coordinate, and advance multiple improvement efforts simultaneously. Clear, direct communicator who can translate operational complexity into concise executive updates, dashboards, and reports. Collaborative mindset with an ability to build trust and drive alignment across teams with competing priorities. Deep curiosity about how end-to-end operational ecosystems connect — from CRM and client platforms to order management, logistics, and financial systems. Enthusiastic advocate for continuous improvement, with an unwavering commitment to operational excellence and data integrity. Familiarity with Salesforce, Jira, ServiceNow, or similar operational tooling preferred. $190,000 - $230,000 a year The compensation range indicated in this posting reflects the On-Target Earnings (“OTE”) for this role, which includes a base salary and any applicable target bonus amount. This OTE range may vary based on the candidate’s relevant experience, qualifications, and geographic location. Why AHEAD Through our daily work and internal groups like Moving Women AHEAD and RISE AHEAD, we value and benefit from diversity of people, ideas, experience, and everything in between. We fuel growth by stacking our office with top‑notch technologies in a multi‑million‑dollar lab, by encouraging cross‑department training and development, sponsoring certifications and credentials for continued learning. USA Employment Benefits include: Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance 401(k) Paid company holidays Paid time off Paid parental and caregiver leave Plus more! See benefits for additional details. Use of AI We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, assessing responses, or to capture recordings and create transcriptions or summaries during interviews. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please refer to the Candidate Privacy Notice or contact us at View email address on click.appcast.io. You may opt‑out of the review or analysis of your application and resume by AI tools by using the General Application. Please include the role you wish to apply for in the Additional Information field. You may also choose to opt‑out of recording and transcription at any time, including after joining an interview. Candidates will not be penalized for choosing to opt‑out. #J-18808-Ljbffr