Sr. Director, Mission Critical Support

About the role:

As the Senior Director of Mission Critical Support, you are a crucial executive leader within the Larger Enterprise support organization, reporting directly to the Vice President of Supportability, Escalations, Mission Critical, and Trust. You will lead a highly strategic, global team dedicated to driving a premier level of service that helps our top-tier customers be successful at achieving their strategic outcomes. You will maintain a single-minded focus on ensuring our customers receive a differentiated, world-class support experience while extracting maximum value from their Okta investment.

The ideal candidate is a seasoned, business-minded executive with a proven track record of leading mission-critical support teams, driving operational excellence, and serving as a strategic partner to the Go-To-Market (GTM) engine in a fast-paced, high-growth enterprise software company (preferably in the security space). Employing both a strategic visionary mindset and a rigorous operational approach is a must. You will play a pivotal role in helping to drive the shift of this business unit to operate as a P&L, designing a premier service experience, and acting as an executive sponsor across complex, multi-year programs and sales motions.

Job Duties and Responsibilities:

• P&L Transition & Ownership: Help drive the shift of the Mission Critical Support organization toward a P&L structure. Transition the current model into a sustainable business unit, balancing resource investments with the delivery of a highly differentiated, premium service offering.
• GTM & Sales Partnership: Partner closely with the Go-To-Market (GTM) and Sales organizations to integrate premium support offerings into the core sales motion. Act as an executive sponsor during pre-sales, expansions, and renewals to drive premium support attach rates and articulate business value and ROI to C-level customers.
• Strategic Service Design: Drive the strategic vision, market research, and competitive analysis to define and refine mission-critical support service offerings, building a premier level of service tailored to driving successful strategic outcomes for our top customers.
• Proactive Governance: Design and scale proactive support and governance methodologies to deliver personalized, high-touch support to critical customers. Establish frameworks for support plans, health checks, risk mitigation, and executive reporting cadences.
• Organizational Performance: Develop and evaluate advanced measurement criteria to assess organizational health, including Customer Satisfaction (CSAT/NPS), Net Retention Rate (NRR), operating efficiency, premium support attach rates, and overall value delivered to top accounts.
• Leadership of Leaders: Direct management responsibilities for a highly strategic, global team, including managing Directors and Managers. Foster a culture of high performance, accountability, and morale.
• Strategic Goal Setting: Define multi-year organizational strategies and set quarterly OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) that align with overarching corporate objectives.
• Talent Strategy: Attract, hire, develop, and retain top talent across all functional roles. Provide executive coaching, ongoing performance feedback, and succession planning.
• Global Advocacy: Advocate for your organization to drive global visibility. Collaborate across boundaries on enterprise-wide process improvements, systemic customer concerns, and localized business objectives.
• Executive Escalation: Serve as the ultimate point of escalation for key accounts and critical issue management, engaging directly with customer executives to rebuild trust and map out resolution strategies.
• Cross-Functional Alignment: Build and maintain deep cross-functional alignment with Product, Sales, Professional Services, and Customer Success Management.
• Risk Mitigation: Anticipate and mitigate enterprise-level risks by leveraging industry experience, maintaining close involvement with macro-organizational challenges, and keeping a firm grasp on the big picture.

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• 15+ years of industry experience with strong exposure to Customer Support, Professional Services, or Customer Success in a software, SaaS, or systems development environment.
• 8+ years of leadership experience managing highly strategic, global teams in a fast-paced, enterprise-level environment, including proven experience managing managers/directors.
• P&L Experience: Demonstrated experience managing budgets, forecasting, and driving the transition toward (or actively running) a P&L for premium service or support offerings.
• GTM Alignment: Deep experience partnering with sales and marketing teams, participating in customer pitches, and driving value-focused service motions.
• Program Leadership: Enterprise program management experience—managing complex, global initiatives from inception to successful value realization.
• Core Competencies: Executive Leadership, P&L Experience, Customer Relations, Organizational Design, Data Analysis, Effective Communication, Critical Thinking, Business Insight, and Technical Curiosity.
• Operational Agility: The desire and ability to operate strategically at the 10,000-foot level, while retaining the ability to roll up your sleeves and get into the trenches when the mission requires it.
• Process Expertise: Experience defining and scaling support processes in a major SaaS company (e.g., SFDC, ServiceNow, Twilio, Netsuite, Workday, etc.).
• Communication: Outstanding executive presence and communication skills (presentation, written, and verbal) to interact with C-suite customers and internal boards.
• Technical Aptitude: Strong technical affinity; experience working hand-in-hand with software, test, and/or system engineering leaders. Familiarity with software development lifecycles, including Agile/Scrum.
• Thrives in a fast-paced environment with a high rate of change and ambiguity.

Education and Training:

• Bachelor's degree required; Master's/MBA degree strongly preferred.

Okta is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

#LI-MM1
#LI-Hybrid
P25086