Operational Excellence Program Manager

About the Role
In alignment with our values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day. We are seeking an Operational Excellence Program Manager with a primary focus on reducing stranded capacity. This key role is part of the local team involved in deployment planning and optimization of IT capacity, closely collaborating with Electrical Engineers and Critical Environment Field Service Engineers.

As a member of the company’s Cloud Operations & Innovation (CO+I), you will play a pivotal role in delivering core infrastructure and foundational technologies for services like Bing, Office 365, Xbox, OneDrive, and the company Azure platform. Your efforts will enable data center capacity through improved Infrastructure Utilization Effectiveness (IUE) and Power Harvesting (PH), while leading retrofit initiatives to upgrade legacy data centers and optimize capacity in our existing fleet. At CO+I, we emphasize personal and professional development, offering training and growth opportunities such as Career Rotation Programs, Diversity & Inclusion trainings, and professional certifications.

Join us in CO+I and empower billions across the world as we build a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive.

Responsibilities

• Strategy & Business Planning
  Partner with the Regional Director and Leadership Team to translate priorities into actionable plans with clear milestones, ownership, and measurable outcomes. Coordinate annual, quarterly, and long-range planning. Track priorities requiring leadership intervention and support business reviews, offsites, and strategic planning sessions.

• Operational Governance & Execution
  Establish strong governance to track commitments, actions, risks, and dependencies. Ensure leadership decisions are executed, promote consistent practices across countries and data centers, and help surface material risks relating to availability, safety, security, operational readiness, capacity, and compliance.

• Executive Communications
  Assist the Regional Director with clear, consistent executive communications by translating complex operational information into concise presentations, briefings, and leadership updates.

• Stakeholder & Cross-Functional Alignment
  Serve as a coordination point between the Regional Director, country leaders, and partner functions to build strong cross-functional relationships, facilitate shared ownership, and ensure operational priorities are represented in broader organizational discussions.

• Business Performance & Insights
  Monitor regional KPIs, commitments, and strategic initiatives. Consolidate performance data into concise executive insights that identify trends, gaps, dependencies, and priorities to enable transparent, data-driven leadership decisions.

Qualifications
Required

• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field and industry experience
• Experience in senior-level program or portfolio governance roles within complex operational environments
• Strong governance, structure, and execution discipline with proven experience working with senior leadership and translating strategy into execution
• Experience operating as an individual contributor with executive-level exposure

Background Check Requirements
Ability to meet company, customer, and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include, but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings:

• Company Cloud Background Check: This position will be required to pass the company Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Additional Or Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working in a data center, critical infrastructure, technology operations, or similar infrastructure environments
• Ability to understand technical dependencies and operational risks without being the technical decision owner

This position will be open for a minimum of 5 days, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis until the position is filled.

The company is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations, and ordinances. If you need assistance with religious accommodations and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, please refer to the appropriate resources.