Senior Director, IT Operations

Summary

Join KIPP Foundation as a Senior Director of IT Operations to lead and develop a team of IT professionals, overseeing daily operations of technology infrastructure and end-user support. You will partner with technology leadership to develop long-term strategies, aligning technology operations with the Foundation's mission and values. Responsibilities include managing data center and cloud environments, vendor coordination, and incident response, ensuring system resilience and security. The role requires collaboration with regional IT Directors and cross-functional teams, acting as the escalation point for critical incidents. You will also oversee IT operations, track performance metrics, and manage vendor contracts. This position offers a competitive salary and a comprehensive benefits package.

Requirements

• Mission and Student Focus: Demonstrates passion and commitment to KIPP’s mission and possesses the desire and ability to uphold KIPP’s core values (Focus on Excellent Results, Collective Impact, and Courageous Action)
• Achievement & Outcomes Orientation: Demonstrated record of setting ambitious goals and achieving them with consistency. Invests in developing teammates’ skills and mindsets to address gaps in achieving team growth; determines what quantitative and qualitative data are most relevant to their goals and supports the team in creating and monitoring systems for collecting, reviewing, and acting upon data to drive outcomes; able to monitor progress, communicating status to the right stakeholders and adjusting plans and use of time to ensure systems are yielding desired outcomes
• Effective Work Management : Sets a clear vision for new or complex bodies of work. Develops and implements agile project plans, navigating difficult situations or conflicts while maintaining effective relationships with all stakeholders; creates and ensures systems are in place for knowledge management
• Strategic Decision Making and Problem Solving: Efficiently defines the right metrics to evaluate work and ensures critical team actions, decisions, and recommendations are driven by data; effectively works with team to resolve issues around data to ensure sound data-informed decisions. Effectively identifies and addresses root causes to the most important problem
• People Management & Development: Effective at differentiating approaches to develop and coach teammates; skilled in setting managing both performance and development goals; provides timely and actionable feedback to drive teammate development and performance; strategically distributes work based on skill and capacity between self and teammates to ensure the work outcomes of the collective team; able to build a culture of accountability and productive discourse to help teammates achieve at the highest level
• Continuous Learning: Engages in the work of personal development at working, knowing that personal development is ongoing and vital to their personal and professional success; hold themselves accountable to evolving, growing, learning and unlearning in ways that improve results for students, adults, and the larger community
• Self-Awareness: Practices self-awareness at work, understanding that it is foundational to leading self, leading people, and leading results; uses reflection, self-understanding, and feedback to grow, and persist through challenges, and as a result, are cognizant of the impact of their behavior on others, and intentional about the decision to adjust or not adjust their behaviors. Displays an owner’s mindset by taking ownership of successes and failure
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related field required; advanced degree or certifications preferred
• At least 10 years of progressive experience in IT, including 5+ years in an operational leadership role managing infrastructure, support teams, or systems engineering functions
• Proven track record overseeing multi-platform, 24/7 infrastructure environments—including data center, cloud, and network operations
• Experience leading Tier 2/3 support teams and managing through escalation, recovery, and resolution
• Deep hands-on knowledge of Microsoft infrastructure (Windows Server, AD/Entra ID, M365, SQL Server), virtualization (VMware, Hyper-V), and cloud environments (Azure)
• Comfortable managing networks (LAN/WAN, routing/switching), enterprise storage, and backup systems
• Experience with computer networking and firewalls including understanding of VLANs, subnets, firewall rules and ACLs
• Experience implementing and maintaining high-availability systems, monitoring platforms (e.g., PRTG, Azure Monitor), and job automation for proactive service management
• Experience using tools such as Zendesk, Jira, or ServiceNow to track SLAs and drive operational accountability
• Knowledge of endpoint management platforms, security tools and experience supporting security, identity, and compliance initiatives (e.g., patching, access control, data loss prevention, endpoint protection)
• Experience planning and executing mid-to-large scale infrastructure upgrades, cloud migrations, and systems modernization efforts
• Skilled at balancing technical priorities, timelines, team management, and IT system monitoring
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to translate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders and build trust across cross-functional teams

Responsibilities

• Lead, coach, and develop a diverse team of IT professionals, fostering a culture of trust, accountability, and high performance
• Promote continuous learning and career growth by implementing professional development plans, mentoring opportunities, and performance feedback loops
• Manage and direct data center and vendor personnel to provide multi-level support and timely resolution of operational issues
• Partner with technology leadership to develop the Foundation’s long-term technology strategy, contributing operational insight to planning, prioritization, and roadmap development
• Develop and communicate technology goals with leadership and translate into clear, actionable initiatives with defined milestones, ownership, and measurable outcomes
• Align technology operations with the Foundation’s mission and values by integrating scalable, secure, and equitable practices across all systems and services
• Serve as a change agent by championing the adoption of modern technologies, systems, and processes. Lead the rollout of new tools and operational models that improve efficiency, reduce legacy risk, and align with long-term strategic goals
• Set and communicate high-level technical direction, define requirements, and develop implementation plans in alignment with broader strategic initiatives
• Lead change management efforts that ensure successful rollout and adoption of new systems and processes, balancing innovation with user readiness and service continuity
• Collaborate with regional IT Directors to understand network technology needs and communicate KF Network technical requirements; this includes
• Meeting with regions tactically around support issues, account creation, access to existing systems
• Leading monthly Tech community calls with regions to understand region pain points, and determine what support Foundation can provide or develop that would bring added value to the network
• Brainstorming and developing new initiatives in the technology space to find economies of scale, lower costs, lower barrier to entry, increase quality and visibility for regional IT staff and regional leaders
• Serve as a collaborative partner to teams across the Foundation, providing accessible guidance on technology decisions, use cases, and best practices
• Facilitate knowledge sharing and technical onboarding to build organization-wide understanding of IT capabilities, limitations, and support pathways
• Work with internal Foundation departments such as Finance, Talent, and others to understand and support evolving business technology needs
• Act as the final escalation point for critical incidents, leading coordinated troubleshooting efforts to rapidly restore services and minimize impact
• Analyze root causes of recurring issues, working with internal and vendor teams to implement sustainable fixes and improve system resilience
• Oversee day-to-day IT operations, ensuring high availability, performance, and reliability of infrastructure, networks, and services supporting Foundation staff
• Oversee management and patching activity for a fleet of 100’s of laptops and workstations (PC & Mac)
• Track tickets and other reporting metrics to measure service health, identify gaps, and drive continuous improvement across IT operations
• Provide clear, timely reporting on performance metrics, outages, and recommended operational improvements
• Analyze and improve operational processes, identifying deficiencies and implementing best-practice solutions to increase efficiency and response time
• Maintain broad knowledge of all major applications, platforms, and services used across the organization to support effective operational oversight
• Oversee conference room hardware, IT Operations and associated infrastructure for two physical office locations
• Lead and oversee all aspects of data center and cloud operations, including environmental controls, equipment maintenance and cost monitoring
• Apply industry best practices to enhance the resilience, performance, and maintainability of on-premises and cloud environments
• Oversee all data center, infrastructure and software contracts, including negotiation of terms, service levels, and pricing with external vendors
• Manage vendors and consultants working within the data center and cloud infrastructure environments to ensure adherence to standards and project timelines
• Conduct evaluations of new technologies prior to contract signing
• Maintain strong working relationships with technology vendors to ensure alignment, quality, and timely delivery of services

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with modern enterprise platforms, including Microsoft Azure, VMware, and Cisco UCS infrastructure
• Experience working in agile, solution-oriented teams within mission-driven organizations
• Professional certifications such as Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator/Architect, Cisco CCNP/CCIE, VMware VCP, or ITIL
• Background managing hybrid infrastructure environments that span both physical data centers and public cloud providers
• Familiarity with Salesforce or other enterprise applications is also beneficial
• Experience supporting education, nonprofits, or distributed organizations with diverse stakeholders

Benefits

• 25 holidays for + 18 days additional flexible PTO days (flexible PTO increases to 23 days for years 3 and 4 and to 28 days for years 5+)
• 100% paid parental leave
• 100% coverage of the premium for employee and 75% for employee + family’s medical/dental/vision plans
• Wellness benefits such as fitness reimbursements, discounted tickets to theme parks/attractions, backup care support for children and adults/elders, and our employee assistance program
• Finance Security benefits include such as a 401K retirement plan with 4% match, employer-sponsored legal plans, life/disability insurance, and flexible spending accounts