Monitoring Solutions & Equipment – Director Global Operations

Client is a Privately owned company that provides monitoring solutions and equipment for studying manmade and natural seismicity. They are headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, with offices in Calgary, Beijing and Houston and have representatives worldwide.

Their customers are what motivate and inspire them, and have always been, first and foremost, their partners in scientific discovery. Together, they have found solutions to the most difficult monitoring challenges, developing new products and services along the way. Working with the world’s leading scientific institutions, universities, and geological surveys, as well as some of the world’s largest energy producers, our Client has been changing the way the world does seismology for over 30 years.

Over the years the company has evolved into the full-service, integrated solutions provider we are today, offering turnkey seismic networks, industry-leading precision instrumentation, complete data processing and analysis services, and software applications. Their innovative technology is used in mission-critical seismic arrays and tsunami warning systems in over 90 countries across the globe.

Scope of Position

Despite everything we know, the earth still has its mysteries. Beneath the surface, it is ever-changing and there is still much to understand. Client develops industry leading instrumentation and services used to measure and record the very precise movements of the earth.

These innovative products and services are deployed in the most remote locations on the earth – from the bottom of the ocean to the peak of the Matterhorn Mountain – to study man-made and natural seismicity. As a member of the Client’s team, you will have the opportunity to work collaboratively with all areas of the business to expand the boundaries of seismic research and explore the unknown/discover the inner workings of our planet.

This is an exciting opportunity for an outcome-focused senior professional with a proven track record of successfully leading diverse operations teams tasked with delivery of data products and actionable intelligence using a Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) business model.

The successful candidate will lead cross-functional teams consisting of data analysts, geophysicists, cloud operations specialists, field engineers, PhD scientists, project managers and external contractors in managing, growing, and evolving a 24/7 cloud-based data center which powers Client’s Seismic Monitoring Services (SMS) industry-leading seismic monitoring solutions.

The Director of Global Operations is a high-profile, strategic position tasked with managing all aspects of a data-as-a-service product delivery from definition, through deployment, fine-tuning and eventual steady-state operation in support of long-term business growth and market diversification objectives.

The position places strong emphasis on team leadership and talent development, strong client relationship building, effective use of leading-edge technologies in support of the desired business outcomes and collaborative team-based approach towards the ultimate goal of disrupting and transforming the passive seismic monitoring solutions market.

Job Duties

• Oversee and be accountable for a 24/7 cloud-hosted data center delivering mission-critical data acquisition and analysis services to a diverse industry client base, on budget and to client requirements.
• Own all aspects of Client’s SMS post-sale customer experience and success; ensure service product lines are delivering value in alignment with customer requirements.
• Drive the evaluation and implementation of leading-edge technologies (such as AI) as well as innovative operational practices to disrupt the geophysical service market, enhance product value proposition, manage operational risk, and elevate barriers to entry.
• Lead a customer-focused culture throughout the diverse operations teams to build strong client relationships and strengthen the Client’s brand.
• Build and manage a distributed organization in support of market segment, product, and geographic diversification business strategy.
• Manage the transformation of the operational organization from being a data and data product provider to being an actionable intelligence provider in alignment with client outcomes across target industries.
• Anticipate changes and risks throughout the data and service product lifecycle; assess, mitigate, and manage accordingly.
• Mentor, develop and empower the next level of leaders (talent) to grow with the organization and sustainably drive long-term business objectives.
• Build high-performing teams by partnering up with Human Resources to execute a people strategy that attracts, retains, and motivates top talent.
• Build and lead an organization espousing SciDevOps culture: one cohesive value stream from scientific algorithms to software development, deployment, and operation.
• Build and lead a learning organization through continuous improvement processes and culture as demonstrated by key business and performance indicators and metrics.
• Establish and continuously review key metrics, analyses, and trends to continuously improve customer satisfaction and business performance.
• Provide sales and marketing support, including business-level discussions as well as detailed product and technical meetings with customers.
• Facilitate program reviews/status updates to executives and senior management.

Competency Profile

Quality Orientation
Strives for excellence in products, processes and/or services through continued evaluation, enhancement, and redefinition of quality standards.

Customer/Client Orientation
Strives to provide customers/clients with personalized and efficient service; Listen and understands customer/client needs and conveys then back to the organization to take appropriate action; Quickly follows up on customer/client concerns and deals with them in a professional and efficient manner; Monitors and acts on measures of customer/client satisfaction.

Stress Tolerance
Stays calm and controlled under pressure; Maintains a consistent level of activity and performance when placed in tense situations; can deal with ambiguity without getting disconcerted.

People Management
Establishes and communicates clear priorities and sense of direction; Clarifies roles and responsibilities; Adapts management style to achieve optimum results.

Strategic Approach
Develops a strategic plan to realize the vision; Revises strategy in light of changing circumstances; Takes a long-term view of organizational success; Works to clarify long term organizational goals; Able to stand back from immediate problems in order to focus on more far-reaching ideas.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Science or a related field.
• 10+ years of relevant experience leading teams in delivering complex data products and services for a variety of industrial applications in sectors such as Oil & Gas, Mining, Geothermal, Power Generation, CO2 Sequestration or similar.
• Extensive experience in data product and service delivery to an international client base.
• Familiarity running operations teams utilizing DevOps culture, practices, and tools.
• Familiarity and experience with subscription-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) business and operational service delivery models.
• Experience managing continuous operation of cloud-based software platforms in mission-critical and high-availability applications is considered an asset.
• Experience with passive seismic monitoring technologies and applications is considered an asset.