Sr. Director, Software Engineering - Strategic Provider Operations

About the Role

The Senior Director, MSP Governance, designs, leads, and continuously improves Gap’s governance system for a multi-provider managed services ecosystem including Technology Operations, Application Development & Maintenance, and Managed Security Services. This role ensures disciplined, outcome-oriented, and evidence-based governance, driving operational excellence and accountability across all MSP relationships, ensuring delivery to our customers. Your work output supports the unified framework across our MSPs achieving consistent delivery standards, performance outcomes, and strategic alignment.
What You'll Do

Strategic Provider Governance & Operating Rhythm
• Establish and lead an integrated governance framework for our MSPs, ensuring alignment with organizational needs with clear decision rights.
• Chair cross-provider governance forums and facilitate weekly operational reviews, monthly service reviews, quarterly executive/QBR cadence, and annual MSP strategy summits.
• Standardize governance process and tools, including meeting decks, agenda templates, action and decision logs, and escalation summaries.
• Enforce participant discipline, ensuring accountable delivery leaders present, commit, and follow through, escalating non-compliance when governance expectations are not met.

Performance, Financial & Contract Management
• Oversee and verify MSP adherence to all contractual obligations, including service levels and regulatory requirements.
• Lead and coordinate internal and external audits, ensuring all required documentation and evidence are maintained, accessible, and audit ready.
• Conduct regular reviews of our MSP performance against contract terms and service level agreements (SLAs).
• Maintain a compliance dashboard ensuring visibility to executive leadership.
• Track audit findings and drive timely remediation of identified gaps.

Risk Compliance & Regulatory Management
• Proactively identify, assess, and mitigate risks across the MSP ecosystem.
• Maintain and continuously improve integrated cross-provider risks, actions, issues, and dependencies.
• Lead regular risk reviews with providers and internal stakeholders, escalate critical risks to executive leadership, and ensure robust mitigation strategies are in place.
• Facilitate quarterly risk workshops with MSPs and internal teams.
• Ensure all risks have clear owners, mitigation plans, and deadlines.

Continuous Improvement & Innovation
• Champion a continuous improvement culture, identifying opportunities to increase efficiency, reduce risk, and enhance service experience.
• Develop, track, and verify the effectiveness of action plans ensuring performance standards are met, and non-compliance is corrected.
• Ensure prompt implementation, outcome measurement, and escalation when necessary to drive continuous improvement.
• Lead root cause analysis sessions to solve issues and process improvement.
 

Step-in Rights & Escalation Leadership
• Maintain readiness to exercise step-in rights, including scenario planning documentation, and collaborating with key partners in legal, HR, and operationalteams.
• Lead the process for step-in rights when necessary, ensuring minimal disruption to business operations and continuity of service delivery.
• Develop and periodically test step-in playbooks and readiness checklists.
• Coordinate cross-functional teams to ensure needs are met, along with seamless execution of step-in rights.
• Document lessons learned and update procedures.
 

Partnership & Relationship Management
• Coordinate transparent, timely communications with executive leadership and stakeholders, ensuring visibility into performance, risks, escalations, and governance outcomes.
• Foster a culture of transparency, trust, and shared accountability among providers, internal stakeholders, and all team members.
• Prepare and deliver executive summaries to include what happened, impact, root cause hypotheses, mitigation plans, and clarity of decisions needed.
• Operate and continuously improve the escalation path from operational to executive levels, maintaining transparency across providers and our internal stakeholders.

Who You Are

• 10+ years in technology service management, vendor management, governance, or IT operations leadership in a large enterprise environment.
• 5+ years leading governance for large outsourcing/MSP relationships (multi-provider and/or multi-tower preferred).
• Demonstrated experience running governance forums from operational to executive levels, with measurable improvement outcomes.
• Strong knowledge of ITSM/ITIL concepts and how operational processes tie into governance.
• Strong leadership skills with a history of guiding high-performing teams.
• Commercial fluency to partner effectively with contract/commercial leaders.
• Excellent executive communication skills, strong facilitation, and a track record of driving accountability across teams that do not report to you.
• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree preferred.