Sr Director, Cyber Defense

Company Description
McDonald’s is proud to be one of the most recognized brands in the world, with restaurants in over 100 countries that serve 70 million customers daily. As the global leader in the food service industry, our legacy of innovation and hard work continues to drive us.
From drive thru updates to delivery to mobile order and pay, we are innovating quickly and growing. Joining McDonald's means thinking big and preparing for a career that can have influence around the world.

The Senior Director of Global Cyber Defense reports to the Vice President, Global Security Services and serves as the enterprise leader responsible for detecting, responding to, and mitigating threats to the McDonald’s system. This role oversees the Global Security Operations Center (GSOC), Incident Response, Threat Intelligence, Insider Threat, Offensive Security (Penetration Testing), and Detection Engineering functions, ensuring a unified and adaptive defense capability across the global enterprise.

Acting as both an executive leader and operational strategist, the Senior Director will build and mature the global Cyber Defense organization as a managed service provider (MSP) to the markets in which McDonald’s operates in, licensees, and affiliates, providing core detection and response services across entities of varying maturity and operational control.

This is among the most critical leadership roles within Global Cyber Security, directly responsible for protecting the McDonald’s brand, leading enterprise crisis response, and maintaining confidence among senior leadership, markets, and franchisees worldwide.

Strategic Leadership

• Define and execute the global Cyber Defense strategy, ensuring alignment with enterprise risk management, brand protection, and the Accelerating the Arches vision.
• Partner closely with the CISO, Global Technology leadership, and regional CIOs to deliver unified detection, response, and threat-hunting capabilities across corporate, market, and restaurant environments.
• Establish measurable performance outcomes and global service metrics that ensure consistent quality, responsiveness, and transparency across all global markets.
• Represent Cyber Defense during major incidents, executive briefings, and board-level discussions, serving as a key enterprise spokesperson during cybersecurity events and crisis management activities.

Operational Excellence

• Oversee the Global Security Operations Center (GSOC) to ensure 24x7 detection, response, and containment of threats across global networks, cloud environments, and restaurant technologies.
• Lead enterprise-wide incident response, forensics, and post-incident review processes, ensuring rapid mitigation and continuous improvement.
• Manage global threat intelligence programs to identify, assess, and prioritize emerging risks relevant to McDonald’s operations, supply chain, and digital ecosystem.
• Direct the insider threat program, balancing risk detection with privacy and compliance considerations.
• Lead the Offensive Security and Red Team functions responsible for testing McDonald’s global technology and application ecosystem, validating resilience across platforms that power restaurant, customer, and market operations.
• Oversee the development and tuning of global detection and response content, automation, and telemetry pipelines across endpoint, network, and cloud environments.

Global Service Delivery (MSP Model)

• Build and scale Cyber Defense as a shared service to McDonald’s global markets, owner-operators, and affiliates of varying maturity.
• Establish frameworks for onboarding, service levels, and operational playbooks that ensure consistency and flexibility across different market models.
• Collaborate with regional technology teams to integrate detection, response, and intelligence capabilities while respecting sovereignty and local regulatory requirements.
• Partner with Enterprise Architecture, Identity, and Endpoint teams to ensure a cohesive “defense-in-depth” architecture supporting both corporate and restaurant systems.

• 12+ years of experience in cybersecurity operations, incident response, or threat management, with…