Senior Director of Operational Excellence & Insights

Overview

The Senior Director of Operational Excellence & Insights leads the strategy, execution, and evolution of Operational Excellence across the COO organization. This leader oversees Business Insights, Process Engineering, and AI Enablement, enabling operational teams to make better decisions through data, optimize end-to-end processes, apply AI and automation at scale, and deliver scalable improvements that enhance customer and business outcomes.

Supporting Customer Onboarding, Customer Success, Customer Care, and Service and Fulfillment Operations, this role serves as a strategic partner to executive leaders by identifying opportunities to improve efficiency, quality, teammate experience, and customer outcomes through analytics, process redesign, automation, AI-enabled tooling, and operational governance.

The Senior Director establishes the vision, operating model, and prioritization framework for Operational Excellence while building high-performing teams that drive measurable business impact across the enterprise.

What You'll Do

Operational Excellence Strategy

Develop and execute the Operational Excellence strategy aligned to organizational priorities and the COO vision.

Establish a consistent framework for identifying, prioritizing, and delivering operational improvement initiatives across multiple business functions.

Serve as a trusted advisor to executive leadership by identifying opportunities to improve operational performance, customer experience, and business scalability.

Build an Operational Excellence roadmap that balances strategic transformation initiatives with high-impact operational improvements, including AI and automation opportunities.

Process Engineering Leadership

Lead the Process Engineering function responsible for designing, optimizing, and documenting end-to-end operational processes.

Establish standards, methodologies, and governance for process discovery, service blueprinting, journey mapping, process documentation, and implementation.

Drive cross-functional initiatives focused on automation, simplification, standardization, and operational scalability.

Ensure process improvements are supported by measurable business outcomes and sustainable change management.

Business Insights & Analytics

Lead the Business Insights organization responsible for delivering actionable analytics, executive reporting, operational dashboards, forecasting, and strategic decision support.

Foster a culture where data drives operational decision-making across all COO organizations.

Partner with business leaders to define meaningful KPIs, performance metrics, and operational scorecards that measure organizational health and customer outcomes.

Translate complex operational data into executive-level insights and strategic recommendations.

AI Enablement

Lead the AI Enablement function, setting the vision and roadmap for applying AI, machine learning, and generative AI across the COO organization.

Identify, evaluate, and prioritize opportunities to embed AI and intelligent automation into operational workflows, customer interactions, and decision-making processes.

Partner with Technology, Data, and Product teams to pilot, scale, and govern AI-driven tools and agentic workflows, ensuring solutions are reliable, explainable, and aligned to business needs.

Establish governance, risk, and responsible-AI guardrails for tool adoption, including data privacy, model oversight, and human-in-the-loop controls.

Build AI literacy and capability within Process Engineering and Business Insights teams, embedding AI-assisted analysis and automation into everyday operating practices.

Track and report the business impact of AI Enablement initiatives, including efficiency gains, quality improvements, and customer experience outcomes.

Cross-Functional Leadership & Execution

Partner closely with Operations, Product, Technology, Finance, Enablement, and other cross-functional teams to drive enterprise initiatives.

Lead complex, high-visibility initiatives from opportunity identification through implementation and value realization.

Establish governance, project intake, prioritization, and portfolio management practices to maximize organizational impact.

Monitor initiative performance, track realized benefits, and adjust priorities based on evolving business needs.

Organizational Leadership

Build, mentor, and develop high-performing leaders and teams across Process Engineering, Business Insights, and AI Enablement.

Foster a culture of curiosity, accountability, innovation, and continuous improvement.

Create career development pathways, operating standards, and best practices that elevate organizational capability.

Promote collaboration across teams to ensure insights, analytics, AI-driven tooling, and process improvements are integrated into operational decision-making.

What We're Looking For

10+ years of progressive leadership experience in Operational Excellence, Business Operations, Process Improvement, Consulting, Analytics, or related disciplines.

5+ years leading managers and high-performing cross-functional teams.

Demonstrated success leading large-scale operational transformation initiatives across multiple business functions.

Deep experience with process improvement methodologies such as Lean, Six Sigma, Operational Excellence, or Business Process Management.

Strong understanding of operational analytics, KPI development, dashboarding, and data-driven decision making.

Experience evaluating and implementing AI, machine learning, or intelligent automation (e.g., RPA, generative AI) to improve operational efficiency and decision-making.

Experience influencing executive leaders and driving alignment across complex organizations.

Proven ability to prioritize competing initiatives while balancing strategic objectives with operational execution.

Exceptional communication, executive presentation, and stakeholder management skills.

Preferred

Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certification.

Experience leading Operational Excellence functions within SaaS, fintech, payments, customer operations, or technology organizations.

Experience with business intelligence and visualization platforms such as Power BI.

Familiarity with process mapping and collaboration tools such as Lucidchart, Miro, Smartsheet, or similar platforms.

Experience standing up or scaling an AI Enablement, automation, or intelligent operations function, including vendor evaluation and change management for AI adoption.

Familiarity with AI/automation platforms such as UiPath, Power Automate, or generative AI tooling (e.g., Copilot, custom LLM applications).

Success in this Role

Success in this role is measured by the organization’s ability to improve operational performance and efficiencies through scalable process improvements, actionable business insights, responsible AI adoption, and disciplined execution. This leader will help create and define an Operational Excellence function that is viewed as a trusted strategic partner—one that enables operational leaders to make better decisions, solve complex business problems, and continuously improve the customer and teammate experience through the combined power of process discipline, data, and AI.