Senior Director, Workplace Operations

Ankura Consulting Group • Chicago, IL

2d • Hybrid

About The Position

Ankura is a team of excellence founded on innovation and growth. Ankura Business Services (ABS) Summary - The goal of ABS is to provide support and assistance to Ankura’s client facing business groups. All of Ankura’s ABS groups work together to achieve a common goal, which is to create innovative solutions for our clients. Ankura Business Services (ABS) includes Finance, Legal, IT Services, Marketing and Communications, Real Estate, Conflict Check, Operations & Workplace Services, and the People Office. Collaborative lateral thinking, hard-earned experience, expertise, and multidisciplinary capabilities drive results. Together, Ankura’s ABS groups work in harmony to Protect, Create, and Recover Value for our clients. The Operations & Workplace Services (OWS) Team provides operations, business services and workplace services to senior professionals and employees supporting the daily management of the business and local office. Working within a global team, OWS team creates a sense of community while driving operational excellence, providing office support, administering processes and systems, supporting projects, and assisting in the overall efforts to ensure efficient service delivery for the firm and its clients. Role Overview: The Senior Director, Workplace Operations leads the US OWS team, driving service excellence across business operations and workplace functions for a global consultancy. This role provides day-to-day leadership to Operations Associates and Managers, ensuring accurate, efficient, and cost-effective support for client service teams. Responsibilities span time entry compliance, physical security, Salesforce data quality, and supplier coordination. The role supports operational transformation through technology-enabled reporting and process optimization, while fostering a strong sense of community, financial, operational and AI acumen. Additionally, the Senior Director develops and executes the firm’s evolving real estate strategy in partnership with firm leadership, aligning capacity with business needs and managing US real estate operations. This role is an exempt position ideally based in New York or Chicago. Washington DC could also be considered though preference is for New York or Chicago. This is a hybrid-based role.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in a Business-related field.
• Minimum 10 years of management experience.
• Prior experience in a professional services environment is highly desirable.
• Highly proficient in technology, especially Microsoft Office resources (e.g., Outlook, SharePoint, Teams) and applications (e.g., Excel, PowerPoint, Word).
• Real Estate Strategy experience is desired.
• Demonstrated presentation skills and an ability to influence others.
• Critical thinking skills and initiative to proactively address issues, identify and solve areas of business process improvement.
• Professional presence and consistently exhibit high levels of discretion, integrity, and confidentiality.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills with attention to detail.
• Financial acumen and budget management.
• Skilled at effectively managing and prioritizing escalations or business-critical situations.
• Well-developed and professional interpersonal skills, with an ability to interact effectively, in both written and verbal communication, with people at varying levels of the firm.
• Demonstrated proactive approaches to problem-solving with strong decision-making capability.
• Proven ability to establish, build and maintain relationships with peers, client service delivery professionals, and leadership.
• Seeks to achieve challenging business goals and meet deadlines in a fast-paced environment with competing demands.
• Ability to coordinate, control, and organize multiple functions and activities.

Responsibilities

• Support the transformation of the operations function enabling technology solutions to monitor and report on operational activities.
• Responsible for overseeing physical security across all office locations, including access controls, emergency preparedness, and crisis response protocols.
• Develops and maintains procedures for secure travel, ensuring alignment with firmwide risk and safety standards.
• Coordinates with internal teams to deploy resources and lead security exercises.
• Responsible for ensuring firmwide time entry compliance by consultants, including generating weekly reports, establishing escalation procedures, and coordinating with business group leaders.
• Leverages Operations Associates to submit time on behalf of consultants, streamlining compliance and minimizing delays.
• Implements automated alerts and performance-linked KPIs to reinforce accountability.
• Serves as the operations representative with IT applications to ensure timekeeping systems are current, functional, and aligned with business needs.
• Partner with Corporate Finance on third-party supplier management.
• Oversee Operations Associates in maintaining Salesforce data quality, ensuring accurate and timely entry of pursuit, account, and contact records.
• Leads data remediation initiatives to resolve duplicates, incomplete fields, and misaligned taxonomy, and partners with data governance teams to refine business rules and support system enhancements.
• Lead US real estate strategy and execution across the firm's 20+ US office footprint, implementing the Real Estate playbook and partnering with Firm and Business Group Leaders to align capacity with evolving business demands.
• Lead, coach, and develop a team of Operations Associates to deliver business operations and workplace services in support of the Firm’s tactical and strategic objectives.
• Ensure Operations Associates are planning and allocating resources, based on skills, previous experience, availability, or project budget, to meet business and project demands while maintaining a high level of customer service and maximizing resources.
• Manage both real estate and office workplace services budgets while maintaining a strong focus on cost and spend management.
• Use vendors and service providers to the best advantage of the Firm on the dimensions of time, cost, and quality.
• Provide learning and development opportunities to ensure personal growth and build talent pipelines for OWS and other ABS functions.
• Complete interviewing, selection, onboarding, and integration of new team members.
• Create an environment of service for Ankura employees, anticipate needs, and provide support to allow senior professionals to be more efficient and effective.
• Work with IT to drive effective use of technology applications and resources to support the client service delivery and related activities of the Firm’s personnel, including Firm-wide and Practice-specific tools, processes, and databases throughout OWS.
• Ensure data privacy and confidentiality in accordance with current records management policy, procedures, and best practices.
• Drive continuous improvement across the team, identifying and implementing changes that improve efficiency and/or service quality.
• Strong track record of leading geographically diverse teams, fostering collaboration, consistency, and high performance across regions.
• Demonstrated success navigating complex, matrixed organizations, aligning diverse stakeholders across business groups to deliver enterprise outcomes.

Benefits

• For individuals assigned and/or hired to work in California, Colorado, New York or other states with relevant pay transparency laws, Ankura is required to include a reasonable estimate of the compensation range for this role. This compensation range is specific to the said markets and considers a broad range of factors including but not limited to skill sets, experience and training, licensure and certifications, and other business and organizational needs. The disclosed range estimate has not been adjusted for the applicable geographic differential associated with the location at which the position may be filled. The range does not include additional benefits outside of salary. At Ankura, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their role and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each role. A reasonable estimate of the current base pay range is between $85,000 to $200,000; this range is not a promise of a particular wage.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior