Executive Director Infrastructure Services

General Summary

The Executive Director of Infrastructure Services is a senior IT leader reporting to the head of IT Operations and responsible for enterprise leadership of teams and managers delivering core infrastructure services that support research, academic, healthcare consulting, administrative, and financial operations. This role sets the strategic direction, governance, and performance expectations for infrastructure services across the institution, ensuring they are reliable, secure, scalable, and aligned with institutional priorities.

Operating at an enterprise level, the Executive Director establishes standards for service delivery, availability, security, compliance, and operational maturity across on-premises and cloud environments. Success in this role is reflected in strong service outcomes, organizational consistency, leadership development, and continuous operational improvement.

The role places strong emphasis on people leadership, service excellence, risk and lifecycle management, and the practical adoption of emerging technologies. The Executive Director also partners across engineering and operations functions beyond their direct span of control to drive alignment, shared operating models, and cohesive delivery across the broader technology organization.

Responsibilities

Define and execute a multi-year infrastructure strategy aligned with institutional priorities, risk tolerance, and long-term sustainability.
• Establish and maintain accountability for infrastructure service availability, performance, resilience, and customer experience across the institution.
• Build and sustain a high-performing infrastructure leadership team through coaching, workforce planning, and intentional skill development.
• Partner closely with IT executive leadership to translate institutional strategy into executable infrastructure priorities, absorbing cross-domain operational oversight and escalation.
• Establish and enforce enterprise service standards, SLAs, KPIs, and operating models, driving continuous service optimization and maturity.
• Provide governance oversight for incident management, escalation, problem management, and continuous improvement practices.
• Develop and sustain clear leadership pathways, succession plans, and advancement opportunities for infrastructure leaders, ensuring the organization continues to scale talent alongside technology.
• Act as a trusted business partner, collaborating across IT and institutional leadership to align infrastructure services with research, academic, consulting, and administrative needs.
• Ensure infrastructure services operate in compliance with security best practices, regulatory requirements, audits, and institutional policies.
• Provide leadership oversight for business continuity and disaster recovery strategy, testing, and readiness.
• Evaluate emerging and evolving technologies, ensuring adoption decisions consider security, compliance, operational readiness, and long-term value.
• Demonstrated ability to lead through influence, partnership, and shared accountability in matrixed organizations.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• 10+ years of progressive leadership experience in enterprise infrastructure or platform services.
• Proven experience managing managers and senior technical leaders responsible for mission-critical capabilities.
• Demonstrated success establishing strategy, standards, governance, and operational discipline at enterprise scale.
• Experience with compliance, risk management, lifecycle planning, and service delivery in complex or regulated environments.
• Strong financial, vendor, and resource management experience.
• Excellent communication, influence, and stakeholder-management skills.
• Budget and financial management expertise

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in higher education, research-intensive institutions, healthcare, or similarly complex organizations.
• Demonstrated success improving service maturity, reliability, and organizational capability.
• Experience evaluating and adopting automation and AI/GenAI capabilities to enhance infrastructure operations.

Technology & Platform Services

Accountability for the health, lifecycle, integration, and maturity of the following infrastructure services delivered across domain leaders and teams.

• Operating system platforms: Windows and Linux (server and virtual endpoint)
• Virtualization platforms: Server virtualization and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
• Cloud Operations: Microsoft Azure, hybrid cloud environments, productivity platforms etc.
• Backup and Continuity platforms and services: including lifecycle and capacity planning
• Enterprise storage platforms and operational management
• Networking services - Network routing, topology, connectivity, and performance
• Firewall management - infrastructure security operations in partnership with cybersecurity teams
• Telecommunications services: Cloud and on-premise based telephony and collaboration platforms
• Datacenter and colocation services - Datacenter management and operations