The Role
About Us
Sophos is a global leader and innovator of advanced security solutions for defeating cyberattacks. The company acquired Secureworks in February 2025, bringing together two pioneers that have redefined the cybersecurity industry with their innovative, native AI-optimized services, technologies and products. Sophos is now the largest pure-play Managed Detection and Response (MDR) provider, supporting more than 28,000 organizations. In addition to MDR and other services, Sophos’ complete portfolio includes industry-leading endpoint, network, email, and cloud security that interoperate and adapt to defend through the Sophos Central platform. Secureworks provides the innovative, market-leading Taegis XDR/MDR, identity threat detection and response (ITDR), next-gen SIEM capabilities, managed risk, and a comprehensive set of advisory services. Sophos sells all these solutions through reseller partners, Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) worldwide, defending more than 600,000 organizations worldwide from phishing, ransomware, data theft, other every day and state-sponsored cybercrimes. The solutions are powered by historical and real-time threat intelligence from Sophos X-Ops and the newly added Counter Threat Unit (CTU). Sophos is headquartered in Oxford, U.K. More information is available at www.sophos.com.
Role Summary
The Advisory Services Director, Japan, is a senior leadership role reporting to the Global Head of Advisory Services. This leader is responsible for driving service delivery excellence across the Japan region and partnering closely with both local practice leadership and global stakeholders. The role oversees the successful delivery of Advisory Services—including Incident Response, Incident Readiness (proactive services), Penetration Testing, and related consulting engagements.
As a senior services delivery leader, this role is accountable for achieving key operational and financial metrics such as customer satisfaction, lead times, billable utilization, achieving IR SLAs, revenue, and margin. The Director will also collaborate with Sales, Marketing, and other cross-functional teams to grow the practice and expand our market presence in Japan.
The position requires a strong local leadership presence and the ability to engage teams through meetings, strategy workshops, all-hands sessions, and customer-facing engagements. The ideal candidate has deep experience developing, managing, and scaling high-performing security consulting teams.
What You Will Do
- Strategic Leadership & Practice Management
- Develop and execute a multi-year service, delivery, and financial strategy to support company objectives and strengthen our position as a leader in offensive security and incident response.
- Lead a high-performing team of managers and technical consultants delivering Advisory Services (penetration testing, application security testing, adversarial exercises, incident response, tabletop exercises, etc.).
- Manage P&L responsibilities, including forecasting, backlog oversight, utilization, scheduling, and revenue/margin performance.
- Represent the Japan Advisory Services portfolio, identifying and championing new services, capabilities, and market opportunities.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Partner with Sales, Channel, and global business development leaders as a trusted expert for complex consulting needs.
- Build and deepen relationships across key organizational functions including Marketing, X-Ops, Labs, Counter Threat Unit, Product Management, and others.
- Participate in go-to-market development in partnership with Product Management, ensuring strong service positioning and effective launches.
- Delivery Excellence & Innovation
- Identify and execute improvements across people, process, and technology to enhance efficiency, delivery quality, and customer outcomes.
- Drive alignment on delivery best practices, business priorities, and operational standards across regional and global teams.
- Maintain a culture of continuous innovation and challenge the status quo to ensure services remain cutting-edge.
- People Leadership & Talent Development
- Mentor and guide local practice leaders, team leads, and consultants on delivery excellence, consulting skills, and career development.
- Foster a strong team culture focused on accountability, professional growth, and customer-centricity.
- Support team participation in training, certifications, conferences, and other learning opportunities.
- Customer Success & Escalation Management
- Own customer satisfaction outcomes for the region and ensure delivery consistently meets or exceeds expectations.
- Act as a senior escalation point for complex customer issues, helping remove blockers and ensuring successful outcomes.
What You Will Bring
- Fluency in both English and Japanese.
- Proven people leadership experience, ideally within a consulting or technical services organization.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including experience presenting to executive stakeholders.
- Strong desire to work directly with customers, including during high-pressure security incidents.
- Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional teams toward common objectives.
- Experience working with global, remote, and multi‑cultural teams.
- Strong organizational skills with the ability to prioritize, delegate, and meet deadlines in fast-paced environments.
- High level of professionalism, initiative, and sound judgment.
- Strong conflict management and stakeholder negotiation skills.
- Experience mentoring and leading technical teams in a matrixed consulting environment.
- Track record of managing high-performing teams and nurturing strong team culture.
- Desirable
- 10+ years of experience in information security and services delivery.
- Bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity or related field, or equivalent experience.
- Experience leading or operating a consulting organization; MBA is a plus.
- Professional certifications such as CISM, CISSP, GCFA, OSCP, or similar are also a plus.
- Experience working with cyber insurers and law firms.
- Experience supporting Sales in scoping engagements, building proposals, and participating in QBRs.
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Ready to Join Us?
At Sophos, we believe in the power of diverse perspectives to fuel innovation. Research shows that candidates sometimes hesitate to apply if they don't check every box in a job description. We challenge that notion. Your unique experiences and skills might be exactly what we need to enhance our team. Don't let a checklist hold you back – we encourage you to apply.
What's Great About Sophos?
· Sophos operates a remote-first working model, making remote work the primary option for most employees. However, some roles may necessitate a hybrid approach. While we are a remote first organization, applicants must have legal authorization to work in the jurisdiction where the position is posted, without requiring employer sponsorship.
· Our people – we innovate and create, all of which are accompanied by a great sense of fun and team spirit
· Employee-led diversity and inclusion networks that build community and provide education and advocacy
· Annual charity and fundraising initiatives and volunteer days for employees to support local communities
· Global employee sustainability initiatives to reduce our environmental footprint
· Global fitness and trivia competitions to keep our bodies and minds sharp
· Global wellbeing days for employees to relax and recharge
· Monthly wellbeing webinars and training to support employee health and wellbeing
Our Commitment To You
We’re proud of the diverse and inclusive environment we have at Sophos, and we’re committed to ensuring equality of opportunity. We believe that diversity, combined with excellence, builds a better Sophos, so we encourage applicants who can contribute to the diversity of our team. All applicants will be treated in a fair and equal manner and in accordance with the law regardless of gender, sex, gender reassignment, marital status, race, religion or belief, color, age, military veteran status, disability, pregnancy, maternity or sexual orientation. We want to give you every opportunity to show us your best self, so if there are any adjustments we could make to the recruitment and selection process to support you, please let us know.
Data Protection
If you choose to explore an opportunity, and subsequently share your CV or other personal details with Sophos, these details will be held by Sophos for 12 months in accordance with our Privacy Policy and used by our recruitment team to contact you regarding this or other relevant opportunities at Sophos. If you would like Sophos to delete or update your details at any time, please follow the steps set out in the Privacy Policy describing your individual rights. For more information on Sophos’ data protection practices, please consult our Privacy Policy Cybersecurity as a Service Delivered | Sophos
Sophos Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Sophos and has not been reviewed or approved by Sophos.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time away is positioned as broad, with company-wide wellness days plus dedicated learning days and paid volunteer time.
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Parental & Family Support — Family-related leave appears more comprehensive than baseline offerings, including paid parental leave, caregiver leave, and extended bereavement leave.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Wellbeing support is emphasized through always-available assistance resources and a Calm subscription, suggesting a lifestyle-oriented benefits approach.
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The Company
What We Do
Cybersecurity Evolved. As a worldwide leader in next-generation cybersecurity, Sophos protects nearly 400,000 organizations of all sizes in more than 150 countries from today’s most advanced cyberthreats. Powered by SophosLabs – a global threat intelligence and data science team – Sophos’ cloud-native and AI-enhanced solutions secure endpoints (laptops, servers and mobile devices) and networks against evolving cybercriminal tactics and techniques, including automated and active-adversary breaches, ransomware, malware, exploits, data exfiltration, phishing, and more.
