Senior Director, Digital & Technology Operations

Being at the forefront of innovation is exciting, and leading transformation in a large global organization is a role that many people aspire to. If this is you, we have a transformational role in our newly developed platform services organization.  

The Senior Director, Tech Operations & Release Management, is a senior technology leader accountable for how Coca-Cola’s global MarTech, AdTech, Customer, and Commercial platforms are run and for how change is delivered to them. The role brings together two connected disciplines under one leader: technology operations (reliability, monitoring, L2 incident resolution, and AI-augmented operations) and release management and delivery (program and project management, scrum, and governed, predictable releases), across all regions (North America, LATAM, EMEA, APAC). 

This leader ensures the platforms stay reliable and available while change flows through them safely, on a predictable cadence, with strong governance. The Tech Operations side keeps systems healthy and resolves issues quickly; the Release Management and delivery side ensures work is planned, sequenced, and shipped with quality and without surprises. Together, they protect both stability and speed. 

The role requires technical depth, delivery rigor, and steady leadership. The right leader understands the platforms and the operating model, works comfortably across executive conversations, operational reviews, and delivery governance, and stays close to the technology when it helps. It also requires a calm, steady presence to lead a large, globally distributed organization and bring clarity during incidents and high-stakes releases. 

A priority of this role is to apply Generative and agentic AI to operations and delivery, advancing from traditional, ticket- and status-driven ways of working toward AI-augmented monitoring, automated remediation, and smarter, data-driven delivery, responsibly and with measurable business value. 

This leader oversees both the Tech Operations and Release Management teams. The Director, Tech Operations and the Release Management leaders, including Program Managers, Project Managers, and Scrum Masters, along with their Directors and Managers, report to this role. This role reports to the Vice President, Platform & Product Engineering, and partners closely with the Senior Directors across Product Development, Platform, and Architecture. 

What You’ll Do for Us:   

Technology Operations & Reliability 

• Own global technology operations across the MarTech, AdTech, Customer, and Commercial platforms: reliability, availability, monitoring, observability, and L2 incident resolution across a follow-the-sun model. 

• Champion AI-augmented operations: lead the move from traditional ticket processing toward AI agents for monitoring, detection, correlation, automated triage, and self-healing remediation. 

• Advance SRE and reliability practices (SLOs, error budgets, incident response, blameless RCA) that prevent repeat incidents and protect revenue-generating services. 

• Partner with engineering and platform teams on operability and readiness of new releases, ensuring what ships can be run reliably. 

Release Management & Delivery Governance 

• Own release management end-to-end: release planning, scheduling, change control, environment governance, and go/no-go decisions, ensuring predictable, low-risk delivery across teams and regions. 

• Lead the delivery and program-management function (Program Managers, Project Managers, Scrum Masters), establish consistent agile and delivery practices, ceremonies, and a clear definition of ready and done. 

• Drive predictable delivery: define milestones, sequence dependencies, manage cross-team and cross-region risk, and keep work aligned to business priorities and committed dates. 

• Establish lightweight, effective governance routines (intake, prioritization, status, risk, and change) that improve delivery performance rather than add bureaucracy. 

• Connect release and operations tightly so deployments are coordinated, observable, and reversible, minimizing change-related incidents. 

Leadership & Organizational Excellence 

• Lead and develop a large, globally distributed organization spanning operations and delivery, with clear accountability for reliability, predictable delivery, and business outcomes. 

• Lead through the Directors and Managers across Tech Operations and Release Management, building a strong leadership bench and clear succession beneath them. 

• Recruit, develop, and retain top operations, SRE, program/project management, and scrum talent, including a mix of in-house and strategic vendor teams. 

• Foster a culture of accountability, craftsmanship, calm execution under pressure, and continuous improvement. 

 Engagement & Stakeholder Management 

• Serve as a trusted advisor to senior business and technology leaders, translating operational and delivery performance into clear business implications. 

• Communicate reliability, release, and delivery status, risks, and tradeoffs to executive stakeholders with clarity and credibility, especially during incidents and major releases. 

• Partner with Engineering, Product, Security, and regional stakeholders to align on operational readiness, release sequencing, and ownership of risks and dependencies. 

Generative & Agentic AI Enablement 

• Apply GenAI and agentic AI across operations and delivery: monitoring agents, automated remediation, intelligent change-risk analysis, and AI-assisted planning, reporting and status. 

• Upskill the team toward AIOps and AI-augmented delivery, reshaping roles from traditional ticket and status work toward higher-value oversight and automation. 

Metrics & Operational Excellence 

• Define and report metrics across both disciplines: operations (uptime/SLOs, MTTD, MTTR, automation rate, ticket deflection) and delivery (release frequency and success rate, on-time delivery, change-failure rate, cycle time). 

• Use metrics to drive continuous improvement, demonstrate the value of AI-augmented operations and delivery, and inform investment decisions. 

• Identify systemic bottlenecks in reliability, delivery, cost and developer/operator experience, and lead improvements that compound over time. 

Required Experience & Qualifications 

Leadership & Operating Experience 

• 15+ years of progressive technology experience across operations and/or delivery, including senior leadership of large, globally distributed teams. 

• Proven experience leading both technology operations (production/L2/SRE) and release management or a delivery/PMO function (program/project managers, scrum masters). 

• 8+ years building and scaling high-performing teams, including leading other leaders (managers and directors). 

• Experience leading through transformation and modernization, ideally including AI-augmented operations or delivery. 

Technical & Delivery Depth 

• Strong understanding of cloud platforms (GCP, AWS, or Azure), distributed systems, observability tooling, and incident management, with credibility to work directly with engineering teams. 

• Deep command of release management, change control, CI/CD, and environment governance for large-scale, high-availability platforms. 

• Strong agile and delivery expertise (Scrum/Kanban/SAFe as applicable), with a track record of predictable, high-quality delivery across multiple teams. 

• Familiarity with AIOps and agentic AI for operations and delivery, including monitoring agents, automated remediation, and AI-assisted planning and reporting, with appropriate guardrails.

Communication & Leadership Presence 

• Exceptional ability to communicate operational and delivery performance clearly to senior leaders and business stakeholders, including under pressure. 

• Strong business acumen connecting reliability and delivery to measurable business outcomes. 

• A calm, steady leadership style that brings clarity during incidents and high-stakes releases and earns trust across a large, distributed, multi-vendor organization

Education 

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, computer science, or a related field required; advanced degree preferred. Relevant certifications (e.g., ITIL, SAFe, PMP, CSM) are a plus. An equivalent combination of relevant education, training, and demonstrated professional experience will also be considered. 

What We’ll Do for You 

• Exposure to World-Class Leaders: Availability to global technology leaders will expand your network and expose you to emerging technologies and techniques.   

• Global Connections: Allows you to develop, enhance and maintain global connections that allow us to move faster and learn from others.   

• Agile Work Environment: We embrace agile, with management that believes in removing barriers, so you are empowered to experiment, iterate, and innovate