Director, Technology Services

Kestra Financial, Inc.; Tempe, Northern (AZ, KY); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Kestra Financial, Inc. seeks a Director, Technology Services to lead the team enabling advisors and firms across the Kestra platform. You will manage onboarding, provisioning, and stabilization activities during advisor onboarding and through the lifecycle, coordinating with IAM, cybersecurity, product and vendor teams.

You will drive operational discipline, maintain SLAs, and deliver insights through backlog and SLA reporting while coaching the team to higher performance and scalable processes.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in technology, business, or finance.
• 5+ years of team leadership experience.
• 5–7 years in client service, operations, or tech support.
• Experience in financial services or wealth management preferred.
• Operational leadership in advisor-facing service environments.
• Ability to navigate complex platforms, integrations, and access models.
• Stabilize operations, enforce discipline, and improve service performance.
• Strong written and verbal communication with stakeholders.
• Diagnose issues, prioritize work, and drive progress.
• Experience partnering across IAM, cybersecurity, product, engineering, and vendors.
• Comfort with ambiguity and a bias toward clarity and execution.
• Data-driven decision making and analytical mindset.
• Direct supervision of Technology Enablement Analysts and Specialists.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Technology Services team for advisor and firm setup, configuration, and stabilization across platforms.
• Enforce SLAs, monitor aging cases, and prevent service degradation.
• Oversee onboarding activities with Kestra transition and ongoing BAU support for advisors and firms.
• Serve as escalation point for complex enablement issues requiring analysis and coordination.
• Ensure accurate diagnosis and qualification of issues before escalation to platform, product, IAM or vendors.
• Own service execution discipline including SLAs, documentation, and advisor communication quality.
• Partner with Client Service, Advisor Transitions & Onboarding, IAM, Cybersecurity, Product, and platform teams.
• Establish standards, checklists, and readiness criteria for platforms and services.
• Analyze service trends and root causes to drive process improvements.
• Coach and develop the team; manage performance and workload prioritization.
• Deliver operational reporting on backlog, SLA trends, and dependency drivers.
• Support service model evolution, including automation and scalability initiatives.
• Ensure compliance with regulatory, information security, and policy requirements.
• Other duties as assigned.

Skills

Team Leadership

Operational Excellence

Cross-functional Collaboration

Client Service

Analytics & Data

Communication

Problem Solving

Vendor & IAM coordination

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Job description

Lead with Purpose. Partner with Impact.

The Director, Technology Services leads the team responsible for enabling advisors and firms across the Kestra platform ecosystem by executing core setup, provisioning, and stabilization activities during onboarding, and throughout the advisor lifecycle. This role operates as service function including initial request intake, case assignment and ensuring advisors are properly enabled on required platforms. Team performs first tier issue diagnosis, including resolution where possible, or work is advanced efficiently in partnership with downstream technology platform, product, Identity & Access Management, and vendor teams. The role emphasizes operational stability, advisor experience, SLA performance, and disciplined service execution.

What You’ll Do:

• Lead the Technology Services team responsible for advisor and firm setup, configuration, and stabilization across supported platforms.

• Own team adherence to SLAs by enforcing execution discipline, monitoring aging cases and dependencies, and intervening quickly to prevent service degradation.

• Execute and oversee activities during advisor onboarding with Kestra transition department, and ongoing business-as-usual support for advisors and firms.

• Serve as the escalation point for complex enablement issues requiring advanced analysis, coordination, or advisor communication.

• Ensure accurate diagnosis and qualification of issues prior to submission to platform, product, IAM, or vendor teams.

• Own service execution discipline including SLAs, case aging, documentation standards, and advisor communication quality.

• Partner with Client Service, Advisor Transitions & Onboarding, IAM, Cybersecurity, Product, and technology platform teams to ensure clear ownership and effective handoffs.

• Establish and maintain standards, checklists, and readiness criteria for supported platforms and services.

• Analyze service trends, root causes, and recurring issues to inform process improvements and upstream fixes.

• Develop team capability through coaching, training, documentation, and performance management.

• Prepare and deliver operational reporting on backlog health, SLA trends, resolution timelines, and dependency drivers.

• Support service model evolution following stabilization, including automation, intake improvements, and scalability initiatives.

• Ensure all activities are conducted in accordance with regulatory, compliance, and information security requirements.

• Other duties as assigned.

What You Bring:

• Bachelor’s degree required, in areas of technology, computer science, business or finance preferred.

• 5+ years of team leadership experience.

• Minimum of 5–7 years of experience in client service, operations, or technology support roles.

• Experience in financial services and/or wealth management is strongly preferred.

• Strong operational leadership experience in advisor-facing, technology-adjacent service environments.

• High proficiency navigating complex platform ecosystems, integrations, and access models.

• Demonstrated ability to stabilize operations, enforce discipline, and improve service performance.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with advisors, leaders, and cross-functional partners.

• Ability to diagnose issues, separate signal from noise, and drive work forward efficiently.

• Experience partnering across IAM, cybersecurity, product, engineering, and vendor teams.

• Comfort working in ambiguity with a bias toward clarity, structure, and execution.

• Strong analytical skills with experience using data to inform decisions and improvements.

• Directly supervises Technology Enablement Analysts and Specialists. Responsible for coaching, performance management, workload prioritization, and skill development.