Director, Security Platform Operations

About this role

About Northern Trust

As a global leader in innovative wealth management, asset servicing, asset management and banking services, Northern Trust (Nasdaq: NTRS) is proud to guide the world’s most successful individuals, families, corporations and institutions.

Since 1889, we have aligned our efforts with our three guiding Principles That Endure: Service, Expertise, and Integrity. Together, they reflect the three cornerstones of business conduct which we strive to instill in our employees, whom we call partners, and to provide to our clients and the communities we serve worldwide.

With more than 135 years of financial experience and over 24,000 partners, we serve the world’s most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.

he Director, Security Platform Operations is a people leader responsible for the production ownership, reliability, support and lifecycle management of Northern Trust’s enterprise cybersecurity platforms. The Director establishes the global operating model, develops a scalable and geographically distributed team, and ensures that accepted platforms consistently meet service, control, resilience and regulatory expectations.

This Director serves as the organization’s chief operator for security platforms. The role partners closely with Security Platform Engineering, Cloud Security Engineering, Infrastructure, Network, Service Management, Risk and Audit. Security Platform Engineering remains accountable for new capabilities and material change until Security Platform Operations formally accepts the service through the Production Acceptance Gate. Following acceptance, Security Platform Operations owns day-to-day service health, routine administration, support, minor enhancements and continuous service improvement, while Engineering remains accountable for material change and L3 escalation.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

LEAD GLOBAL SECURITY PLATFORM OPERATIONS

• Lead, coach and develop a globally distributed team responsible for operating enterprise security platforms, with a significant delivery presence in India and follow-the-sun support expectations.
• Establish clear service ownership, tiered support responsibilities, escalation paths, on-call expectations and decision rights across platform teams.
• Create a natural career progression for security operations professionals through defined roles, competencies, technical development and leadership opportunities.
• Set operational goals and performance measures covering availability, service levels, incident restoration, problem reduction, backlog health, lifecycle compliance and customer experience.
• Drive an automation-first and SRE-aligned operating culture that reduces manual effort, recurring incidents and operational risk.

OWN PRODUCTION SERVICES AND OPERATIONAL OUTCOMES

• Assume accountable production ownership for security platforms after formal operational acceptance.
• Own platform health, availability, monitoring, alerting, capacity, resilience, performance, licensing, certificates, secrets and service dependencies.
• Lead incident, problem, request and change management for the security platform portfolio, including timely restoration and root-cause remediation.
• Own vendor support cases, escalation management, maintenance schedules, lifecycle planning, end-of-life remediation and operational risk tracking.
• Ensure routine administration, standard configuration changes, patching, upgrades and recurring maintenance are executed through documented and controlled procedures.
• Maintain accurate service records, ownership data and dependencies in ServiceNow ITSM and CMDB where applicable.

GOVERN THE PRODUCTION ACCEPTANCE GATE

• Define and enforce the Production Acceptance Gate used to transfer new or materially changed security capabilities from Security Platform Engineering into Security Platform Operations.
• Confirm that production architecture, configuration baselines, integrations, dependencies, monitoring, alerting, access models and recovery expectations are complete and supportable.
• Require validated runbooks, ticket routing, vendor contacts, escalation procedures, SLO/SLI definitions, failure and recovery procedures, knowledge transfer and support training before acceptance.
• Accept, conditionally accept or reject a transition based on documented operational-readiness criteria; prevent incomplete capabilities from being transferred into Operations by default.
• Ensure acceptance decisions, residual risks, exceptions and post-transition stabilization actions are documented and governed.

MANAGE MINOR ENHANCEMENTS AND THE ENGINEERING BOUNDARY

• Own minor enhancements and low-risk configuration changes that remain within approved architecture, control intent and established platform patterns.
• Establish practical criteria that distinguish routine operational change and minor enhancement from major feature enablement, new integrations, architecture changes and platform replacement.
• Route material changes to Security Platform Engineering while providing operational requirements, production data, testing support and deployment readiness input.
• Maintain an operational enhancement backlog and prioritize work based on service risk, user impact, control effectiveness, effort and regulatory commitments.
• Ensure changes are tested, documented, approved and reflected in runbooks, monitoring and support processes.

DRIVE SERVICE IMPROVEMENT, GOVERNANCE AND ASSURANCE

• Use incidents, recurring tickets, control gaps, capacity trends and stakeholder feedback to drive measurable service improvement.
• Define, review and communicate metrics on SLO attainment, availability, incident restoration, recurring problems, ticket aging, change success, backlog health, lifecycle compliance, automation and platform risk.
• Ensure audit and regulatory support is delivered with strong evidence quality, traceability, repeatable operations and clear ownership across PCI DSS, SOX, GLBA, OCC/FFIEC and related expectations.
• Own operational documentation, service reviews, risk and control reporting, executive updates and remediation plans for the platform portfolio.
• Partner with Finance, Procurement and Vendor Management on licensing, renewals, consumption, support agreements and cost optimization.

WHAT YOU'LL BRING

• 15+ years of experience in information technology, cybersecurity, infrastructure, network security, service operations, SRE, platform engineering or related disciplines, with 5+ years leading enterprise-scale teams or major security operations programs.
• Proven people leadership capability, including setting direction, developing talent, assigning work, managing priorities, coaching leaders and senior specialists, and creating accountability for operational outcomes.
• Demonstrated experience operating business-critical security platforms in a complex, highly regulated enterprise.
• Strong command of ITIL-aligned service management, incident and problem management, change governance, service transition, operational resilience and SLO/SLI practices.
• Experience establishing production-readiness criteria, accepting services into operations and managing clear boundaries between engineering and operations.
• Deep familiarity with vulnerability management, zero trust, network security, SASE / SSE, web security, SaaS security and associated enterprise operating models.
• Excellent executive communication skills, including the ability to explain service risk, control tradeoffs, investment needs, operational performance and remediation priorities.
• Ability to balance service reliability, regulatory commitments, operational backlog, team capacity and stakeholder needs across a broad platform portfolio.

NICE TO HAVE

• Prior experience in financial services, banking, asset servicing, wealth management or another highly regulated industry.
• Experience leading a globally distributed operations organization with follow-the-sun responsibilities.
• Experience with ServiceNow ITSM, CMDB and Vulnerability Response, and with security platforms.
• Experience transforming an engineering-led tool portfolio into formally owned, measurable and supportable services.
• Relevant certifications such as CISSP, CISM, ITIL 4, SRE Foundation, Microsoft Azure or comparable security and service-management credentials.

Salary Range:

$164,600 - 288,000 USD

Salary range is a good faith estimate of base pay. Northern Trust provides a comprehensive benefits package including retirement benefits (401k and pension), health and welfare benefits (medical, dental, vision, spending accounts and disability), paid time off, parental and caregiver leave, life & accident insurance, and other voluntary and well-being benefits. Northern Trust also provides a discretionary bonus program that may include an equity component.

Work Authorization

Applicants must be authorized to work in the U.S. without the need for employment-based visa sponsorship now or in the future. Northern Trust will not sponsor applicants for U.S. work visa status for this opportunity (no sponsorship is available for H-1B, L-1, TN, O-1, E-3, H-1B1, F-1, J-1, OPT, CPT or any other employment-based visa).

Working with Us

As a Northern Trust partner, you will be part of a flexible and collaborative work culture, which has a strong history of financial strength and stability. Movement within the organization is encouraged, senior leaders are accessible, and you can take pride in working for a company committed to an inclusive workplace and assisting the communities we serve.

Philanthropy is deeply rooted in Northern Trust’s history and is an essential element of our culture. Employees around the world give their time and talent to work for the greater good of their communities.

Reasonable Accommodation

Northern Trust is committed to working with and providing adjustments to individuals with health conditions and disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please email our HR Service Center at [email protected], or alternatively you can discuss your individual requirements with the recruiter you are working with.