Director of Information Security, Center of Excellence

Responsibilities:

• Directly manage CISOs and Security Analysts, including goal setting, coaching, performance management, professional development and workload allocation.
• Lead security service delivery across multiple client institutions, balancing competing priorities, contractual scope, risk and available capacity.
• Maintain a regular operating cadence to review client priorities, security findings, open actions, resource needs and escalations.
• Partner with institutional leaders and local technology teams to develop security priorities and practical improvement plans aligned with each institution’s environment and objectives.
• Oversee delivery of CISO services, including security-program development, policies, procedures, risk assessments and executive guidance.
• Oversee vulnerability-management activities, ensuring findings are assessed, prioritized, assigned and tracked through remediation and validation with the appropriate technical teams.
• Coordinate security incident response across institutions, internal delivery teams and external providers, maintaining clear ownership, escalation, communication and resolution practices.
• Oversee security assessments and penetration-testing engagements, including scope coordination, vendor follow-through, findings review and remediation tracking.
• Coordinate security-tool implementation and operational follow-up, including monitoring coverage, log-ingestion dependencies and integration with client environments.
• Work with service-management leaders to establish consistent security-ticket handling, prioritization, escalation, resolution and closure practices.
• Support new-client discovery and onboarding by identifying existing controls, security risks, access requirements, service obligations and delivery dependencies.
• Translate contracted security obligations into delivery plans; identify and escalate scope, capacity or funding gaps before making additional commitments.
• Establish service and risk reporting that gives leadership visibility into remediation progress, unresolved exposure, incident follow-through and client commitments.
• Partner with Customer Success to communicate security priorities, service performance and outcomes to institutional stakeholders.
• Develop reusable standards, playbooks and operating practices while accommodating institution-specific requirements and approved exceptions.
• Maintain accessible client documentation, action histories and operating procedures, with cross-training, backups and continuity coverage.
• Evaluate opportunities to improve security tools, workflows and automation through appropriate validation and change-management practices.
• Develop staffing, capacity and investment recommendations for leadership review.
• Provide sales and business-development support, including prospective-client discovery, security-service presentations, proposal and RFP development, scope definition, and estimation of delivery effort and resource needs. Partner with Sales, Customer Success and delivery leaders to ensure proposed security services are achievable and align with client needs and available capacity.
• Lead the strategy and evolution of the information security service line. Assess market trends, client needs, competitive offerings and emerging managed security practices. Evaluate how our services align with those needs and develop strategies for service differentiation, measurable client value and sustainable growth. Translate recommendations into service improvements, new offerings, delivery capabilities and investment priorities.
• Travel approximately 25% to support client engagements, team collaboration and business needs.

Qualifications & Requirements:

• Demonstrated experience leading information security operations or security-service delivery in a managed services provider, consulting organization or comparable environment supporting multiple clients.
• Experience directly managing security professionals, including performance management, staff development, prioritization and capacity planning.
• Ability to manage a portfolio of client institutions with differing environments, risk profiles, service expectations and contractual obligations.
• Working knowledge of security-program management, vulnerability management, incident response, security monitoring, identity and access controls, and assessment practices.
• Experience translating technical findings into actionable risk, remediation and investment recommendations.
• Ability to communicate effectively with institutional executives, client stakeholders, technical teams and external service providers.
• Strong operational discipline in documentation, action tracking, escalation and verification of completed work.
• Ability to coordinate delivery across distributed teams and multiple technical service lines.
• Experience evaluating managed security market opportunities and translating them into competitive service offerings, client value and sustainable growth strategies.
• Relevant education, professional training or an equivalent combination of experience.
• Ability to work effectively in a remote environment and travel approximately 25%.

Preferred:

Experience supporting higher education institutions across a managed services client portfolio.
Experience leading CISOs, virtual CISOs and security analysts.
Familiarity with recognized security frameworks and higher education security requirements.
Relevant certifications, such as CISSP, CISM or comparable credentials.
Experience integrating teams and standardizing service delivery across a combined organization.
Experience with security-service measurement, resource forecasting and continuous improvement.

Our employees enjoy: