Director of Customer Operations

Blackboard

6d•$140,022 - $210,034•Remote

About The Position

The Director of Customer Operations is a strategic, hands-on leadership role responsible for accelerating the transformation of Blackboard Support and Services while maintaining service levels, improving customer experience, and improving the cost effectiveness of global support and services delivery. Reporting to the Head of Global Support and Services, this leader will translate transformation priorities into operational execution across people, process, tools, data, and cross-functional governance. This role will drive a portfolio of critical initiatives, including the transition to a more modern support operating model, implementation of AI-native support tools, data-driven prioritization of product enhancements in partnership with Product, employee enablement, development of new support and services offerings aligned to Blackboard’s evolving solutions, and measurement of initiative effectiveness. The ideal candidate combines operational discipline, customer empathy, change leadership, analytical rigor, and experience leading transformation in a complex SaaS or environment as well as experience in Education Technology serving Higher Education globally.

Requirements

10+ years of experience in customer operations, customer support, customer success operations, services operations, SaaS operations, or related technology services leadership roles.
Proven success leading operational transformation across people, process, tools, data, and governance.
Experience implementing or scaling support technologies, automation, AI-enabled service capabilities, knowledge management, CRM, case management, or customer engagement platforms.
Strong analytical skills, including the ability to define KPIs, build dashboards, interpret operational data, and convert insights into action.
Demonstrated ability to partner effectively with Product, Engineering, Customer Success, Sales, Finance, Enablement, and senior leadership.
Experience designing scalable operating models, service offerings, support playbooks, escalation frameworks, and performance management routines.
Excellent executive communication skills, with the ability to present complex operational issues clearly and translate data into decisions.
Strong change management skills and ability to lead through ambiguity, competing priorities, and organizational fatigue.
Customer-centered mindset with a track record of improving experience while managing cost, capacity, and operational risk.
Fluency in written and spoken English

Nice To Haves

Experience in education technology, enterprise SaaS, customer support for complex platforms, or global support environments.
Experience with AI, agent assist, virtual assistants, intelligent routing, support automation, knowledge automation, quality automation, or agentic workflows.
Experience building product feedback loops based on support data, customer sentiment, usage data, defect trends, and enhancement requests.
Experience defining packaged services, premium support offerings, adoption services, managed services, or proactive support models.
Experience leading distributed or global teams and influencing without direct authority.

Responsibilities

Support Transformation and Operating Model Execution: Lead execution of key workstreams within the global support transformation, ensuring changes are implemented in a disciplined, measurable, and customer-centered way. Translate strategic transformation goals into actionable roadmaps, milestones, governance routines, operating rhythms, and accountability mechanisms. Partner with support leaders to refine workflows, escalation paths, ownership models, swarming practices, knowledge processes, and service level management. Identify operational bottlenecks and implement scalable processes that improve resolution quality, speed, consistency, and team productivity. Maintain a balanced transformation approach that protects customer experience and service levels while reducing operational waste and unnecessary cost.
AI-Native Support Tools and Automation: Own the operational implementation and adoption of AI-native support tools, including agent assist, intelligent triage, knowledge recommendations, self-service, automation, and AI-enabled quality insights. Define use cases, success metrics, governance needs, and adoption plans for AI tools across support and services workflows. Partner with Technology, Product, Security, Legal, and Support leaders to ensure AI capabilities are accurate, secure, compliant, and aligned to customer expectations. Drive measurable productivity and customer experience improvements through automation, including reduced manual handling, improved first-contact resolution, faster resolution times, higher deflection, and more consistent support quality. Ensure AI implementation is paired with process redesign, employee enablement, and operational governance rather than treated as a standalone technology deployment.
Data-Driven Product Enhancement Prioritization: Build a structured, data-driven voice-of-customer and voice-of-support process that converts support trends into actionable product insights. Partner with Product Management to prioritize product enhancements based on customer impact, case volume, severity, recurrence, support effort, revenue risk, and strategic importance. Establish regular Product and Support operating reviews to align on defect trends, enhancement requests, known issues, roadmap implications, and customer communication needs. Develop dashboards and decision frameworks that help leaders distinguish between training gaps, process gaps, product usability issues, defects, and strategic enhancement opportunities. Ensure customer pain points identified through support and services are systematically tracked, quantified, escalated, and resolved through cross-functional ownership.
Employee Enablement and Change Adoption: Define and drive enablement plans that prepare support and services employees to succeed in the new operating model, including new workflows, tools, role expectations, product knowledge, and customer communication standards. Partner with training, knowledge, quality, and operational leaders to create practical playbooks, job aids, onboarding materials, and continuous learning routines. Assess skill gaps and adoption barriers, then recommend targeted coaching, training, process changes, or role clarification. Promote a culture of ownership, collaboration, customer empathy, continuous improvement, and confident use of AI-enabled tools. Ensure managers have the reporting, routines, and enablement assets required to reinforce adoption and measure behavioral change.
New Support and Services Offerings: Lead definition and operationalization of new support and services offerings that align with Blackboard’s evolving solution portfolio and customer needs. Partner with Product, Customer Success, Sales, Services, and Finance to define scope, packaging, delivery requirements, entry and exit criteria, staffing implications, and success measures. Create repeatable delivery models and operational playbooks for new offerings, ensuring they are scalable, financially viable, and easy for customer-facing teams to understand and execute. Evaluate opportunities to shift from reactive support toward proactive, insight-driven services that improve customer outcomes and strengthen retention. Support business readiness for new Blackboard solutions by ensuring supportability, knowledge readiness, escalation paths, service definitions, and enablement are in place before launch.