The Director, Operations Excellence will serve as the operational conscience of AHEAD’s end-to-end operational processes — bringing cross-functional visibility, structured accountability, and continuous improvement discipline to the systems and workflows that power our client experience. This leader will own a holistic view across AHEAD’s operations, from issue identification and root cause analysis to corrective action tracking and executive reporting, ensuring that our client-facing platforms — including Hatch, Astra, and future AI-enabled tools — are backed by clean, consistent, and reliable operational data.
This is a foundational role with direct executive sponsorship from the COO. The Director will build and lead the Operations Excellence function from the ground up, working cross-functionally to establish the accountability infrastructure that AHEAD needs to scale. The right candidate will thrive at the intersection of process rigor, cross-functional influence, and executive communication — and will bring a track record of driving measurable operational improvement in complex, growing environments.
Duties & Responsibilities
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.
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.
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.
Track corrective actions from identification through closure, maintaining accountability across teams and escalating to senior leadership when resolution is at risk.
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.
Identify automation and process improvement opportunities that reduce manual effort, strengthen upstream data quality, and reduce recurring issue volume over time.
Build and maintain a centralized knowledge base that captures institutional process knowledge and serves as a shared reference for the broader organization.
Champion adoption of new ways of working across the organization, inspiring commitment and driving alignment behind quality and continuous improvement objectives.
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.
Develop and own the operational quality scorecard, establishing baselines and tracking measurable improvement over time.
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.
Provide governance and oversight for operational quality initiatives, ensuring milestones and deliverables generate measurable business impact.
Establish the Operations Excellence function, including its operating model, governance cadence, escalation paths, and engagement model with cross-functional partners.
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.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Operations Management, or related field
- 10+ years of experience in operations, process improvement, quality management, or related cross-functional leadership
- Proven track record of driving accountability and measurable operational improvement across organizational boundaries
- Experience building or leading a quality management function in a scaling technology or services organization
- Experience with B2B client platforms, order management ecosystems, or IT distribution/services operations
- Certification in project management, change management, Lean, or Six Sigma
- Strong facilitation, executive communication, and ability to synthesize operational data into executive-ready insights
- Proven ability to build governance structures and drive adoption of documented processes and standards
- Solid project management capabilities to prioritize and advance multiple improvement efforts
- Familiarity with Salesforce, Jira, ServiceNow, or similar operational tooling
AHEAD Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about AHEAD and has not been reviewed or approved by AHEAD.
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Retirement Support — 401(k) contributions are matched dollar-for-dollar on the first $5,000 each year, with matching made each pay period and immediate 100% vesting. This structure signals above-standard employer support for retirement savings.
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Affordable Benefits — Medical options include low employee premiums for PPO and HDHP plans, and the HDHP adds employer HSA funding plus a dollar-for-dollar HSA match up to stated amounts. Dental and vision plans list very low per-paycheck costs, helping keep overall healthcare spend manageable.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — No-cost telemedicine (including virtual mental health when enrolled), free Calm access for the employee and dependents, and an EAP with counseling are included. Company-paid life and disability plus voluntary protections (legal/ID, pet insurance) and other extras round out a comprehensive set of supports.
AHEAD Insights
What We Do
AHEAD builds platforms for digital business. By weaving together cloud infrastructure, intelligent operations, and modern applications, we help enterprises deliver on the promise of digital transformation.
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