Sr. Director Identity Governance

Sr. Director of Identity Governance

New York, NY (preferred) / Charlotte, NC

Hybrid, Full-Time

Summary:

Our client is seeking an experienced, strategic and hands-on Sr. Director of Identity Governance to lead and operate the enterprise identity program across the organization.

This is a senior leadership role for a deep practitioner of identity governance - someone who understands not just the tools, but the underlying principles that make an identity program effective at enterprise scale: how access should be modeled, how it should be granted and revoked, how it should be certified, and how governance policy translates into real controls that reduce risk.

The Sr. Director will own the full identity lifecycle across a complex, multi-brand enterprise supporting over 25,000 user accounts across 360 global businesses.

Responsibilities:

Identity Governance & Administration

• Co-author enterprise IAM policies and standards in partnership with Information Security, Risk and Compliance, providing clear guidance and guardrails for all business units on identity, access and directory practices.
• Lead the design and operation of access certification programs, ensuring timely, risk-appropriate review of entitlements across applications, infrastructure and privileged systems.
• Architect and mature the enterprise role model, including role-based access control (RBAC) design, role mining, role lifecycle management and separation of duties (SoD) frameworks.
• Drive the joiner/mover/leaver (JML) lifecycle program, ensuring identity provisioning and deprovisioning is accurate, automated where possible, and tightly integrated with HR systems of record.
• Establish and enforce least-privilege principles across the enterprise, with a structured approach to identifying and remediating access sprawl, orphaned accounts and over-privileged roles.
• Participate in and support audit activities conducted by internal audit, external auditors and regulatory bodies, providing documentation, walkthroughs and remediation support as required.
• Partner with the Information Security, Risk and Compliance teams to ensure identity governance controls satisfy SOX, HIPAA and PCI DSS requirements, and support audit activities with documentation, walkthroughs and evidence.

Strategic Leadership & Program Ownership

• Define and execute the multi-year strategy for the client's enterprise identity program, spanning governance, access management, privileged access, secrets management and directory services, aligned with corporate security, compliance and technology objectives.
• Serve as the enterprise subject matter authority on identity governance principles and practice.
• Partner with IT leadership and business unit technology leaders to drive adoption, integration and continuous improvement of identity services across the client's portfolio.
• Develop and maintain the identity program roadmap, balancing platform stability, security posture and evolving business needs.
• Represent the identity program in senior leadership forums, steering committees and technology strategy discussions.
• Champion an automation-first and AI-forward approach across the identity program, identifying opportunities to apply automation, AI and generative AI to drive process efficiency, reduce operational cost and accelerate delivery of identity services.

Architecture, Design & Engineering

• Lead the architecture and design of enterprise identity solutions, including single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA), identity lifecycle management, role-based access controls (RBAC), privileged access, and secrets management.
• Oversee and contribute to engineering efforts across the identity platform portfolio, spanning IGA, IdP/SSO, PAM and secrets management capabilities.
• Govern the Microsoft Active Directory and Entra ID environments, including hybrid identity design, Conditional Access policy, directory synchronization and integration with cloud and SaaS platforms.
• Drive the design and implementation of identity integrations with cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, GCP), SaaS applications, HR systems and enterprise applications.
• Establish and enforce identity standards, reference architectures and engineering best practices across the organization and business unit partners.
• Evaluate and recommend emerging identity technologies, frameworks and vendors to continuously advance Hearst’s identity capabilities.

Platform Operations & Service Delivery

• Own the reliable, secure and scalable operation of our client's full enterprise identity platform - including IGA, IdP/SSO, PAM, secrets management and directory services - serving as an internal platform-as-a-service provider to our client's business divisions.
• Establish and monitor service-level objectives (SLOs), key performance indicators (KPIs) and operational health metrics for all identity services.
• Develop and maintain operational runbooks, service catalogs and self-service capabilities that enable internal business unit customers to onboard and consume identity services efficiently.
• Ensure high availability, disaster recovery and business continuity of identity systems across the enterprise.
• Drive continuous improvement in platform reliability, operational efficiency and cost-to-serve by applying an automation-first mindset - leveraging scripting, orchestration, AI and generative AI capabilities to reduce manual effort, accelerate identity processes and improve service quality.

People Management & Team Development

• Lead, mentor and develop a high-performing identity team of 5–9 direct reports, including engineers, architects and operational staff.
• Establish clear goals, performance expectations and development plans for each team member, fostering a culture of accountability, continuous learning and professional growth.
• Recruit, onboard and retain top identity talent, building team depth and succession coverage across critical functions.
• Foster a collaborative, inclusive team culture aligned with our client's values and commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Vendor Management, Licensing & Cost Optimization

• Own all vendor relationships within the identity portfolio, spanning IGA, IdP/SSO, PAM, secrets management and directory tooling providers.
• Lead contract negotiations, renewals and RFP processes for identity platforms and services, partnering with Procurement and Legal as appropriate.
• Manage license entitlements, consumption tracking and true-up processes to ensure compliance and cost efficiency.
• Drive IT cost optimization initiatives within the identity portfolio, identifying opportunities to consolidate tools, reduce license waste and maximize return on investment.
• Develop and manage the identity program budget, including capital and operating expense planning, Technical Project Manager planning, forecasting and variance reporting.