Vice President, AI Operations and Systems

Job Summary

Optimum is seeking a high-impact AI operational leader to join us as our next Vice President of AI Operations and Systems. Reporting to the SVP of Technology Operations, the VP of AI Operations and Systems will bring AI innovation and transformation, with a primary responsibility for leading teams and initiatives to drive operational scale, to improve product performance and customer availability by implementing artificial intelligence (AI) based tools and solutions that accelerate automation and efficiency. This leader and team will collaborate across customer care, product, technology, and network services to integrate customer-facing products, ticket systems, internal OSS/BSS platforms, network elements, private and public cloud infrastructure with an integrated operations platform. This leader will streamline service management platforms in order to reduce manual effort and improve efficiency. The VP’s leadership and expertise will be critical in maintaining a strong foundation for system reliability and performance while enabling a superior customer experience.

Responsibilities

• Leverage AI and ML algorithms to analyze service data and identify patterns, trends, and opportunities for improvement.

• Integrate observability platforms with other data sources.

• Implement AI and automation solutions to reduce operational costs and improve productivity to proactively detect and route issues before they become consumer impacting. 

• Build and develop a multi-year strategic plan driving implementation and innovation to achieve full automation of Technology Operations.

• Develop platforms that provide visualizations and correlations of key systems metrics to isolate and pinpoint performance and customer impacting issues.

• Speed incident response by developing diagnostic tools to assess severity and business impact of potential issues in the technology operating environment.

• Improve incident communications by automating manual tasks and integrating collaboration tools.

• Identify opportunities for automation across service management processes, including incident triage, mitigation, root cause analysis, and resolution.

• Design and implement network automation and orchestration solutions using tools like Ansible, Python, or Software Defined Network (SDN) technologies.

• Streamline network provisioning configuration management, and repetitive tasks to improve efficiency and reduce manual errors.

• Implement best practices for software development, including Agile methodologies and DevOps principles.

• Work with Product Development to define quarterly sprints that support product launches.

• Provide leadership and guidance to the Software Development, Service Desk, ITSM, Analytics, and Ticketing Tool Management teams to ensure alignment with organizational goals.

• Manage vendor and service providers to ensure deliverables meet commitments.

• Manage P&L for technology operations along with budgeting and planning of capital projects.

• Lead the ServiceNow development team responsible for the orchestration and workflow of operational process. 

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Technology, Engineering or related field of study. A Master's degree is preferred

• Minimum fifteen years’ industry experience, with a minimum ten years of leadership experience, specifically within a 24/7 operations.

• Previous experience leading a large-scale service delivery organization is required.

• Expert level experience in Network Operations including risk management and compliance, with experience leveraging analytics, tools and process improvement methodologies to optimize performance.

• Experience developing and deploying automation leveraging artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning.

• Knowledge of and experience working ServiceNow platform.

• Very strong executive presence, communication and presentation skills, translating complex and technical topics into easy-to-understand concepts and messaging.

• In-depth knowledge of ITIL framework and certification is highly desirable.

• Experience leading automation projects and teams in complex capital automation projects.

• Solid financial acumen with experience in budget, planning and financial reporting.

• Demonstrated leadership in a DevOps and SRE models for both cloud and on-prem platforms.

• Comprehensive knowledge of industry regulations, compliance frameworks, and data privacy laws.

• Proficient in assessing, building and motivating high-performance teams.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities, with a results-oriented approach to decision-making.

 • Ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams and manage vendor relationships.