Director of IT Operations

We are looking for an innovative Director of IT Operations to join our IT team! The global church is quickly moving towards more digital ministry solutions. Lifeway is hitting the gas pedal and moving towards creating cutting edge, trustworthy experiences for churches. Our next Director of IT Operations will help lead us into this new season. Operational excellence and continuous improvement are at the heart of this position due to the critical nature of the oversight responsibilities. This includes end user services, network / infrastructure / cloud operations, DevOps, and incident/ change management across the corporate office, warehouse, distribution center, and two major data centers.

Do you have a passion for supporting the IT team responsible for all technology hardware, applications and integrations? Are you skilled at strategic planning of the IT infrastructure, supporting all systems and applications? Do you have a heart for equipping the local church?  As our Director of IT Operations reporting to the CITO, you will work closely with Lifeway IT teams. As a collaborator, the Director also liaises with all department leaders to facilitate current and future technology needs. As we adapt to the rapidly changing industry, you will drive skill development and nurture the exceptional engineering talents of your team. 

Why Lifeway? 

This is a place where you can bring your faith and work experience to join in the most important mission in the world: making disciples of Jesus Christ. Whether you’re a creator or storyteller, data guru or problem-solver, or anywhere in between, if you’re passionate about serving the church, we have a place for you. Lifeway has a strong Work from Anywhere (WFA) culture that is deeply focused on our mission and values. While headquartered in Nashville, TN, many of our positions are remote-eligible and have autonomy and flexibility with work hours. We provide equipment and resources to ensure team members have access to a productive and ergonomic workspace. Lifeway hosts all-team meetings several times per year and provides travel for key team gatherings for remote-based team members. Full-time employees are eligible for enrollment in our comprehensive benefits plans including healthcare, vacation and sick time, holiday pay, care days, 401(k) plan, maternity and paternity leave, adoption assistance, mission trip time, and more. 

This role is remotely based in the Nashville and surrounding area and will require some in-person meetings and team gatherings.

Learn more about our culture at team.lifeway.com/culture-code

• Provide leadership and foster development for a team of 30+ individuals 
• Facilitate foundational ITIL framework across IT for migration to Services Model 

• Oversee end-user computing teams to include Service Desk operations 
• Partner with the Information Security team to ensure infrastructure security and PCI compliance 
• Establish the systems and processes to test and perform disaster recovery 
• Ensure maximum uptime and stability in the company's systems and networks to ensure first-class customer experience with online applications, sites, and events 
• Influence change to work toward best practice operations at an enterprise level 

• Collaborate with key IT and business stakeholders 
• Tactical style that effectively triages performance issues and drives root cause analysis 
• Business acumen to effectively frame operational improvement conversations with executive level stakeholders 
• Work through ambiguity and demonstrate sharp focus on the right business outcomes 
• Establish the metrics dashboard for IT operations  

• Oversee Vendor Management and Business Office operations 
• Remain current with the solutions landscape  
• Lead business case, selection, implementation, and ongoing management of 3rd party providers to agreed SLAs for outsourced infrastructure services, including: cloud services, server operations, networks, and desktop configurations 

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Information Systems, or Computer Science 

• Advance degree in MIS, preferred 
• 12+ years of experience managing Enterprise Network Services & Network Engineering and/or Operations 
• 10+ years as a senior IT leader 
• 10+ years managing a staff of technical engineers 
• 5+ years experience leading teams on networking technologies in  PC / Mac environments and Microsoft 365 

• Demonstrated senior IT leadership success with large scale projects / programs 
• ITIL certification with one or more organizational implementations of ITIL standards 
• Outstanding organizational, interpersonal and communication (written and verbal) skills 
• Background in LEAN/Agile methodologies 
• Experience with AWS or other cloud infrastructure and leading DevOps teams