Job Details

Director, Operational Excellence & Strategy

Position Number: 7041177
Location: Salt Lake City, UT
Position Type: Business - Management

Director, Operational Excellence & Strategy

Job Summary

The Director provides strategic leadership and enterprise-level insight to multiple project teams within the Operational Excellence initiative, under the direction of the Chief Operating Officer. This role partners with senior leaders and project sponsors to ensure initiatives are strategically aligned, effectively executed, and delivering measurable institutional value across workstreams.

Responsibilities

Partner with individuals across campus to improve outcomes, enhance experience, and optimize financial resources with minimal oversight.
Assist senior University leadership with strategy development, implementation planning, and change leadership for complex, cross-campus initiatives.
Coach team members, workstream leaders and project owners responsible for delivery of internal projects and programs.
Support project ideation, planning, budgeting, and analysis.
Provide project management expertise and training, as needed.
Convene stakeholders to collaborate, celebrate successes, and champion Operational Excellence across the University.
Ensure all project deliverables meet quality expectations and are completed on time and within budget.
Maintain accountability by actively tracking project progress and effectiveness against stated objectives and targets.
Consult cross-functionally to identify dependencies and enable collaboration.
Demonstrate comprehensive understanding of the University and functional area.
Exhibit strong written and verbal communication skills with relevant media (e.g. PowerPoint, Word, email and face-to-face) for senior audiences.

Functional area expectations: Operational Excellence and Strategy Overall. Support the overall strategy and facilitate the identification and delivery of value across projects for assigned workstreams. Work directly with the leader of Operational Excellence with exposure to senior leaders across the University to deliver strategic initiatives. Develop promoters among senior executives, sponsors, leads, and project owners by adding value and being a good partner. Value. Identify and prioritize opportunities for value creation in terms of outcomes, experience, and financial resources. Pressure test assumptions and quantification of value using analytical methods when required. Communicate the underlying rationale for projects clearly and concisely. Coach project owners in developing high-quality recommendations and business cases that consider relevant benefits, costs, and risks. Communicate progress, results, new opportunities, and decision points to senior executives. Process. Coach workstream sponsors, leads, and project owners through the stage gate process while maintaining focus on outcomes and value delivery. Simplify and streamline the approach over time and use judgement to provide right level of support given project size and complexity. Identify and mitigate implementation risks. People. Identify key stakeholders and build alignment throughout the process of developing solutions to improve the effectiveness of the University. Create plans for communication and required training. Identify which projects need change management support and guide leaders through change. Basic qualifications: Requires a bachelor's (or equivalency) + 12 years or a master's (or equivalency) + 10 years of directly related work experience.

Minimum Qualifications
EQUIVALENCY STATEMENT: 1 year of higher education can be substituted for 1 year of directly related work experience (Example: bachelor's degree = 4 years of directly related work experience).
Department may hire employee at one of the following job levels:

Director, Operations Project / Program Management: Requires a bachelor's (or equivalency) + 12 years or a master's (or equivalency) + 10 years of directly related work experience.

Preferences

Special Instructions

Requisition Number: PRN44585B
Full Time or Part Time? Full Time
Work Schedule Summary: Monday-Friday, 9:00AM-5:00PM
Department: 02305 - Chief Operating Officer
Location: Campus
Pay Rate Range: $91,232 - $190,730
Close Date: 6/27/2026
Open Until Filled:

To apply, visit https://utah.peopleadmin.com/postings/198324