Director, Digital Operations

Ashurst; Brisbane; Hybrid; AUD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Ashurst seeks a Director, Digital Operations to lead the Digital Operations function within Advance Digital and Data, shaping how AI and automation are intake, prioritized, delivered, and measured. You will drive an AI-first, agile operating model and ensure value delivery to firm leadership.

You will manage a diverse, cross-regional team and partner with senior stakeholders to align portfolio strategy with business goals, ensuring speed, scale and measurable outcomes.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in technology portfolio management, delivery, or digital operations across regions.
• 5+ years in a senior leadership role over multi-disciplinary teams.
• Bachelor's degree in business, information systems, engineering or related field; equivalent experience.
• Experience with AI-native operations and generative AI tools.
• Strong executive presence and communication with senior stakeholders.
• Advanced degree or agile certification is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Digital Operations function within the Advance Digital and Data practice.
• Own the operating model for intake, prioritization, delivery, and measurement.
• Ensure AI-first, agile delivery with regular visibility of progress.
• Manage a portfolio of AI and agentic solutions aligned to firm strategy and outcomes.
• Collaborate with the Chief Digital and Data Officer and Advance leadership to align demand with strategy.

Skills

Portfolio management

Delivery management

Digital operations

Agile delivery

AI fluency

Executive communication

Budget ownership

Vendor negotiation

Cross-cultural leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree

Advanced degree

Job description

At Ashurst Perkins Coie, we're helping shape the future economy. With a global team of more than 3,500 legal professionals across 52 offices, we partner with leading organisations to solve complex challenges across a diverse range of industries, with a distinct strength in technology, energy & infrastructure, and financial services. Advance is our NewLaw division, a global team of lawyers, legal analysts, project management professionals, and technologists delivering innovative technology and AI-enabled legal services to clients across the world.

We draw on deep experience in advanced legal solutions, managed services, legal operations and flexible resourcing, and work seamlessly with our legal advisory and risk consulting teams to deliver holistic, tailored outcomes for our clients' most-complex legal needs.

We invest in digital tools, best-in-class AI platforms, and the latest process design methodologies. We offer a unique experience in law for enthusiastic and innovative people to gain access to market-leading work, experienced practitioners, and technology to build your own career and realize your full potential.

About the role:

The Director, Digital Operations leads the Digital Operations function within the firm's Advance Digital and Data practice and owns the operating model through which digital, data, and AI work is intaken, prioritized, delivered, and measured.

The Director builds that model on two principles, AI first and agile. Agents and automation handle intake triage, demand analysis, portfolio reporting, and capacity forecasting so that the team can concentrate on judgment and prioritization. Agile ways of working deliver value in short, planned increments, shortening time to value and giving stakeholders regular visibility of progress. The Director is accountable for the integrity of the digital portfolio, the throughput and predictability of delivery, and the reliability of the performance and value reporting the practice provides to firm leadership.

The Director manages a portfolio increasingly made up of AI and agentic solutions for clients, practices, and business operations, whose cost, performance, and value continue to change after release, and adapts portfolio and delivery practices accordingly. The role calls for a creative, curious, and AI first leader who uses AI in their own work, redesigns processes around it rather than automating existing steps.

The Director partners with the Chief Digital and Data Officer and Advance leadership to align digital and AI demand with firm strategy and evidence the value of the firm's digital and AI investments.

Please review the job description attached to the role on our careers site for more detail on the role and what we're looking for.

About you:

• You have 10+ years of progressive experience across technology portfolio management, delivery management, or digital and business operations, including delivery across multiple geographic regions.
• You have 5+ years in a senior leadership role over multi-disciplinary teams, including at least 3 years managing people managers, ideally across offices, time zones and cultures.
• You can set the operating model for an AI-native enabling function and align it to practice strategy, business goals and measurable outcomes.
• You use generative AI and agentic tools fluently in your own work, and you understand AI architecture, maturity, cost and lifecycle well enough to redesign operations around them rather than add them on top of existing processes.
• You have built or transformed an operations, portfolio or delivery function to run on AI and automation, with measurable gains in speed, scale or cost.
• You bring deep expertise in agile delivery and portfolio management at scale, including intake and prioritisation, capacity planning, dependency and risk management, and defensible tradeoff decisions in a federated, high-demand environment.
• You design and interpret operational reporting, including OKRs, delivery and adoption metrics, and value realisation, using portfolio management, agile planning and data visualisation tools.
• You like to experiment: you run structured pilots, measure the results and scale what works, taking process change from design through to adopted, measured outcomes.
• You have strong executive presence and excellent written and verbal communication skills, and you can explain complex technical tradeoffs to senior, non-technical stakeholders.
• You have a bachelor's degree in business, information systems, engineering or a related field, or equivalent experience, and can own a functional budget and negotiate with vendors. An advanced degree, a portfolio or agile certification, and experience in professional services or a law firm are all a plus.

#LI-AWF #Hybrid