Job Details

Assoc Dir, Ops Excellence & Strategy

Position Number: 7040053
Location: Salt Lake City, UT
Position Type: Executive - Other Executive

Assoc Dir, Ops Excellence & Strategy

Job Summary

The Associate Director of Operational Excellence & Strategy partners with senior leaders and project owners to support strategic initiatives across the University. Working under the direction of the Chief Operating Officer, this role provides hands-on facilitation, coaching, and project leadership to ensure initiatives are well-scoped, aligned to institutional priorities, and positioned to deliver measurable value across workstreams

Responsibilities

Partner with individuals across campus to improve outcomes, enhance experience, and optimize financial resources with some oversight.
Assist University leadership with strategy development, implementation planning, and change leadership.
Coach project owners responsible for delivery of internal projects and programs.
Support project ideation, planning, budgeting, and analysis.
Provide project management expertise and training, as needed.
Convene stakeholders to collaborate, celebrate successes, and champion Operational Excellence across the University.
Ensure all project deliverables meet quality expectations and are completed on time and within budget.
Maintain accountability by actively tracking project progress and effectiveness against stated objectives and targets.
Consult cross-functionally to identify dependencies and enable collaboration.
Demonstrate comprehensive understanding of the University and functional area.
Exhibit strong written and verbal communication skills with relevant media (e.g. PowerPoint, Word, email and face-to-face) for senior audiences.

Functional area expectations Overall. Facilitate the identification and delivery of value across projects for assigned workstreams. Work directly with the leader of Operational Excellence with exposure to senior leaders across the University to deliver strategic initiatives. Develop promoters among senior executives, sponsors, leads, and project owners by adding value and being a good partner. Value. Identify and prioritize opportunities for value creation in terms of outcomes, experience, and financial resources. Communicate the underlying rationale for projects clearly and concisely. Coach project owners in developing high-quality recommendations and business cases that consider relevant benefits, costs, and risks. Communicate progress, results, new opportunities, and decision points to senior leaders. Process. Coach workstream sponsors, leads, and project owners through the stage gate process while maintaining focus on outcomes and value delivery. Simplify and streamline the approach over time and use judgement to provide right level of support given project size and complexity. Identify and escalate implementation risks. People. Build alignment to solutions throughout the solution development process. Create plans for communication and required training. Identify which projects need additional support for change management given the level of disruption.
Basic qualifications: Requires a bachelor's (or equivalency) + 10 years or a master's (or equivalency) + 8 years of directly related work experience.

Minimum Qualifications
EQUIVALENCY STATEMENT: 1 year of higher education can be substituted for 1 year of directly related work experience (Example: bachelor's degree = 4 years of directly related work experience).
Department may hire employee at one of the following job levels:
Associate Director, Operations Project / Program Management: Requires a bachelor's (or equivalency) + 10 years or a master's (or equivalency) + 8 years of directly related work experience.

Preferences

Special Instructions

Requisition Number: PRN44589B
Full Time or Part Time? Full Time
Work Schedule Summary: Monday-Friday, 9:00AM-5:00PM
Department: 02305 - Chief Operating Officer
Location: Campus
Pay Rate Range: $82,939 - $173,391
Close Date: 6/27/2026
Open Until Filled:

To apply, visit https://utah.peopleadmin.com/postings/198323