Senior Director, IT Operations

Senior Director, IT Operations

Remote - United States (Phoenix, AZ preferred)

We are looking for a head of IT to lead and support our teams in the next evolution of Blackboard. This is not a role for maintaining an existing IT estate. Over the coming months, this leader will support a new operating system for the company, optimize tools and processes, and use artificial intelligence to level up every service the IT organization delivers, from onboarding and identity to support, procurement, and reporting.

The measure of success will be that the company runs better and teams move faster.

Blackboard reestablished as an independent business in March 2026 and has launched into its next era. We've started with real strengths and real opportunities, as both a brand-new company and as a brand our customers have trusted for thirty years. We serve institutions and their students, all of whom are navigating how artificial intelligence changes teaching and learning. How we rethink the operations of our own business is a credibility asset as we help others through our offerings.

We intend to be a reference for AI transformation through the leaning in of this leader.

• The estate. Global corporate systems, endpoint and device management, identity and access management, networking, collaboration platforms, and the enterprise application portfolio. You will lead the full software-as-a-service portfolio and its spend. Critical platforms your team will manage include our productivity, HRIS, ERP/Finance systems, and our Salesforce CRM.
• The fleet. Global endpoint management across operating systems, including hardened build standards, full-disk encryption, configuration baselines, and browser and extension controls. Automated patching with published remediation targets by severity, and the reporting to show you are hitting them. You are accountable for security agent coverage and health across the fleet, deployed and maintained by your team, operated by Security. Devices are enrolled before they are issued and recoverable when they are lost.
• Identity. Identity is the perimeter. You own the identity infrastructure end to end, both human and agentic including but not limited to: directory, single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, and the joiner, mover, leaver lifecycle. Access is provisioned by role, and the roles are designed so people get what they need on day one without accumulating what they no longer need. You run recurring access reviews with evidence that satisfies audit, retire stale and orphaned accounts, and deprovision on a clock measured in minutes for terminations.
  
  Role changes trigger the same rigor as departures. You bring the same discipline to privileged access, service accounts, and non-human identities, including the machine and agent identities that AI tooling introduces. This work is done in tight partnership with Security, which sets the standards you operate against and validates the outcome.
• The service. Employee support across all regions, including coverage model, escalation, and the experience standard. You set what "good" means, and you are accountable to it.
• The transformation. The operating system of our work needs to be refreshed to suit a 2026 company: to drive productivity and leverage AI. Beyond individual productivity, this role is responsible for efficiency and automation across IT operations. Your experience will help inform and implement that transformation.
• The partnership. Close working relationships with Security, Finance, HR, Marketing, Support, Rev Ops and Sales. Corporate systems decisions are business decisions, and you will partner with the leaders who depend on them. Lastly, close partnership and alignment with security will be critical. Security sets policy and standards. You own the systems that enforce them and the evidence that proves enforcement.
• The team. Building, developing, and in places restructuring a global organization. Some of this work will change what roles exist. You will lead that honestly and with care.
• Audit and compliance. ISO 27001, SOC 2, FedRAMP, and GovRAMP are requirements of doing business. You know what those obligations require of corporate systems, and your team is in the room with Security and the auditors, producing evidence as needed.
• Responsible AI in practice. Policy without enforcement is not governance. You own the approved AI tool inventory and the controls that make it real: endpoint and browser policy, extension…