VP, Agentic Managed Detection & Response (MDR) | Remote, USA

This position will be fully remote and can be hired anywhere in the continental U.S. 

The Vice President, Agentic Managed Detection & Response (MDR) is a premier executive leader responsible for driving the overarching strategy, financial growth, and operational excellence of Optiv’s flagship security operations practice. This role is critical in scaling a high-performing, multi-million-dollar, revenue-generating organization while ensuring world-class client satisfaction and industry-leading security outcomes.

As a core member of the executive leadership team, the VP will define and execute the vision for next-generation Detection & Response. This requires an executive who blends deep commercial acumen with profound technical expertise—specifically leveraging modern data engineering, SIEM platform modernization, agentic AI architectures, and strategic technology partner ecosystems to optimize service delivery, maximize profitability, and accelerate market expansion.

How you’ll make an impact

Strategic Leadership & Business Growth

• Define & Execute Vision: Shape the strategic roadmap for the MDR and Advanced Fusion Center (AFC) practices, aligning modern security offerings with Optiv’s broader enterprise business objectives.

• Partner Alliance & GTM Strategy: Partner with premier cybersecurity technology vendors, hyperscalers, and alliance partners to co-develop joint go-to-market (GTM) strategies, capitalize on channel-led revenue, and capture market share.

• P&L & Financial Accountability: Own complete P&L responsibility for the practice, driving margin optimization, operational efficiency, and sustainable revenue growth.

• Market Differentiation: Drive continuous service innovation to position Optiv as a market leader, converting cutting-edge technical capabilities and partner integrations into clear commercial advantages.

• Internal Cross-Functional Alignment: Partner closely with senior executive peers, internal product management, and sales leadership to build unified cross-functional growth strategies.

Operational Excellence & Next-Gen Service Delivery

• Co-Innovation & Partner Engineering: Collaborate deeply with key technology partners to influence their product roadmaps, ensuring seamless API integrations, robust data pipelines, and shared engineering initiatives that enhance Optiv’s proprietary MDR capabilities.

• Agentic SOC Architecture: Champion the transition from legacy workflows to autonomous, AI-driven operations—specifically leveraging advanced orchestration, LLM platforms, and agentic capabilities to achieve drastic reductions in Mean Time to Detect/Respond (MTTR).

• Data Engineering & SIEM Modernization: Oversee the strategy for large-scale data ingestion, pipeline engineering, and optimization across diverse, partner-backed enterprise SIEM platforms to maximize threat visibility and reduce backend operational costs.

• Global Security Operations: Ensure flawless, 24/7/365 end-to-end delivery of managed security services across global enterprise client environments, maintaining strict adherence to SLAs and compliance frameworks.

Executive Stakeholder Management & Client Engagement

• Executive Sponsorship: Serve as the high-impact executive sponsor for key strategic accounts and elite partner relationships, cultivating long-term trust, ensuring retention, and identifying opportunities for account expansion.

• Thought Leadership: Lead executive briefings, CISO roundtables, and partner-facing advisory boards to evangelize Optiv’s operational philosophy and vision for the future of managed security.

• Crisis & Incident Escalation: Act as the ultimate technical and operational escalation point for critical, high-severity security incidents, providing steady executive leadership during high-stakes client crises.

Talent Leadership & Succession Planning

• Globally Distributed Teams: Cultivate a customer-obsessed, high-performing culture across a globally distributed team of security engineers, data architects, and analysts.

• Succession & Pipeline Development: Proactively lead workforce planning, mentorship, and succession strategies to identify, groom, and transition future leadership talent within the practice.

• Inclusive Excellence: Spearhead initiatives aimed at attracting, developing, and retaining top-tier, diverse cybersecurity and engineering talent in a highly competitive market.

What we’re looking for

• Experience: 15+ years of progressive leadership experience in enterprise cybersecurity operations, Managed Security Services (MSS/MDR), or premier security consulting.

• Education: Bachelor’s degree required; Master’s degree (MBA, MS in Cybersecurity, Computer Science, or Data Engineering) preferred.

• Certifications: Active Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) or Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) designation required.

• Partner Ecosystem Expertise: Proven track record of successfully navigating, influencing, and scaling strategic partnerships with major cybersecurity technology vendors (e.g., EDR, SIEM, XDR) and cloud providers to drive mutual business value.

• Financial Acumen: Proven track record of managing multi-million-dollar P&Ls, optimizing operational margins, and scaling enterprise service practices.

• Technical Sophistication: Deep, authoritative knowledge of modern SOC tools, SIEM architectures, data pipelining, and the practical implementation of AI/LLM frameworks within security orchestration.

• Global Scale: Demonstrated success managing large, multi-tiered, globally distributed technical operations and engineering teams.

• C-Suite Influence: Exceptional communication skills with a proven ability to negotiate, influence, and build strategic partnerships at the C-suite, partner executive, and Board level.

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What you can expect from Optiv

• A company committed to our inclusive value through our Employee Resource Groups

• Work/life balance

• Professional training resources

• Creative problem-solving and the ability to tackle unique, complex projects

• Volunteer Opportunities. “Optiv Chips In” encourages employees to volunteer and engage with their teams and communities.

• The ability and technology necessary to productively work remotely/from home (where applicable)

EEO Statement

Optiv is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants for employment will be considered without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, pregnancy, age 40 and over, marital status, genetic information, national origin, status as an individual with a disability, military or veteran status, or any other basis protected by federal, state, or local law.

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