Dir - IT Platform Operations (Salesforce)

PRIMARY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Strategy / Planning

• Defines and executes theSalesforce Platform Operations strategy, aligning to enterprise IT strategy, architecture direction, and business priorities.

• Partners with product owners, delivery leads, capacity planners, and business stakeholders toforecast demand, plan releases, and ensure operational readiness.

• Establishes and maintains strong liaison relationships with business and IT partners to deliver effective, sustainable platform solutions.

• Leadscontinuous improvementacross operational processes (incident, problem, change, release, environments, DevOps, monitoring, and service management).

• Develops business-focused concepts and recommendations, includingrisk, cost-benefit, roadmap impacts, technical debt prioritization, and defect/enhancement triage.

• Fosters an environment ofDesign Thinkingand operational excellence (automation-first mindset, standardization, resiliency engineering).

• Develops and maintainsplatform roadmaps(operational maturity, tooling, monitoring, secure configuration, performance optimization) and plans for end-of-life/retirement of assets and capabilities.

• Interfaces with customers/stakeholders regarding service offerings, operating model, value proposition, and onboarding processes.

• In conjunction with product owners and communications partners, develops acustomer communications strategyto promote awareness of platform events (maintenance, major releases, incidents, and capability launches).

• Benchmarks and manages IT metrics for the Salesforce platform and operations organization.

Platform Definition / Risk Management

• Defines operational attributes and standards for the Salesforce platform includingavailability, performance, scalability, security, compliance, and recoverability.

• Oversees the development and adoption ofgovernanceacross environments, org strategy, identity/access, data retention, integrations, and release management.

• Prioritizes and directs continuous improvement initiatives includingtechnical debt reduction, hardening, reliability enhancements, and defect resolution.

• Oversees the development of operational metrics aligned to business outcomes and KPIs (e.g., uptime, incident trends, change success rate, lead time, user experience measures).

• Oversees development and negotiation ofSLAs/OLAsfor Salesforce services and dependent service teams.

• Assesses and communicates risk across the platform lifecycle; recommends and directs mitigation plans (security vulnerabilities, performance constraints, release risks, vendor risks, resiliency gaps).

• Defines and directs interactions with governance, audit, compliance, security, and quality teams.

• Removes technical and functional roadblocks across teams, coordinating with architecture, engineering, shared services, and other platform/product teams to resolve dependencies.

Service Cost / Financial Management

• In partnership with financial analysts, manages the cost to run the Salesforce platform including licenses, managed services, tools, environments, and platform-related services.

• Identifies cost optimization opportunities and drives efficient consumption (license governance, environment strategy, automation, tooling rationalization).

• May performprofit & loss / chargebackanalysis where applicable.

• Negotiates cost allocation for shared services and enterprise capabilities tied to Salesforce operations.

• Ensures cost effectiveness while maintaining appropriate service levels and risk posture.

Procurement Planning

• Identifies/approves procurement needs for new operational capabilities (monitoring, automation, security tools, sandbox strategy, CI/CD, backup/restore).

• Identifies assets/tools/services that are obsolete and drives retirement planning.

• Documents improvement plans based on current deployment, performance, and operational maturity gaps.

Platform Performance, Reliability, and Support

• Establishes and drives platform operational excellence across:

  • Incident, Problem, and Change Management

  • Release/Deployment operational readiness

  • Environment management and capacity planning

  • Monitoring/alerting and observability

  • Business continuity, backup/restore, and disaster recovery (as applicable)

• Leads internal continuous improvement review meetings focused on reliability and customer experience.

• Ensures performance meets KPI, SLA, and OLA requirements; develops and maintains dashboards/scorecards to measure outcomes and identify chronic problems.

• Regularly reviews platform value realization against business and IT strategy.

• Serves as a primary escalation point for high severity issues; coordinates recovery and resolution and ensures timelyroot cause analysisand follow-up actions.

Vendor / Partner Management

• In coordination with the Vendor Management Office (VMO), manages vendor and partner performance to ensure outcomes align to expectations.

• Provides input into contract development, renewals, and SOW governance.

• Reviews service provider performance; escalates issues and drives remediation plans for underperformance.

• Oversees contractor work and performance, including onboarding, delivery quality, and compliance with operational standards.

People / Team Leadership

• Responsible for people leadership and/or matrix leadership of cross-functional team members supporting Salesforce platform operations (admins, engineers, release managers, DevOps, support leads).

• In collaboration with Centers of Competence, manages goals, skills development, training, and workforce planning.

• Participates in Agile / SAFe ways of working to reduce risk and coordinate interdependencies with other product trains.

• Coaches and mentors team members; models strong communication, conflict resolution, and a sense of urgency.

• May directly contribute when needed (e.g., operational playbooks, acceptance criteria, governance standards, escalation support).

• Other duties as assigned.

Experience and Educational Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Business, or related field, or equivalent work experience.

• Typically10+ yearsin IT with progressive responsibility;5+ yearsin leadership roles preferred.

• Demonstrated experience operating and scaling enterprise SaaS platforms, with significant experience inSalesforce(Sales/Service/Experience Cloud, Platform, integrations).

• Experience with service management practices (ITIL-aligned), operational governance, and cross-functional delivery.

• Budget and vendor management experience preferred (including managed services and licensing).

Minimum Skills, Knowledge, and Ability Requirements:

• Strong leadership and stakeholder management skills; able to influence across IT and business organizations.

• Deep understanding of platform operations disciplines (reliability, incident/problem/change, release readiness, monitoring/observability, capacity planning).

• Working knowledge of Salesforce ecosystem and operational considerations (org/environment strategy, security model, integrations, CI/CD, data governance).

• Familiarity with Agile / SAFe principles and the ability to operate effectively in a product-centric model.

• Strong analytical, prioritization, and decision-making skills; able to communicate status and escalate risks with sound judgment.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; comfortable presenting to executive audiences.

• Proven ability to drive continuous improvement, automation, and process standardization.

• Strong organizational skills and ability to meet commitments in a fast-moving environment.

We provide compensation, benefits, and resources that enable a highly inclusive culture and support our team members' ability to live with purpose every day. In addition to traditional offerings like medical, dental, and vision care, we also provide a comprehensive suite of benefits that focus on the physical, emotional, financial, and social aspects of wellness. This encompasses support for working families, which may include backup dependent care, adoption assistance, infertility coverage, family building support, behavioral health solutions, paid parental leave, and paid caregiver leave. To encourage your personal growth, we also offer a variety of training programs, professional development resources, and opportunities to participate in mentorship programs, employee resource groups, volunteer activities, and much more. For details, visit https://www.virtualfairhub.com/cencora

Cencora is committed to providing equal employment opportunity without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, age, disability, veteran status or membership in any other class protected by federal, state or local law.

The company's continued success depends on the full and effective utilization of qualified individuals. Therefore, harassment is prohibited and all matters related to recruiting, training, compensation, benefits, promotions and transfers comply with equal opportunity principles and are non-discriminatory.

Cencora is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities during the employment process which are consistent with legal requirements. If you wish to request an accommodation while seeking employment, please call 888.692.2272 or email hrsc@cencora.com. We will make accommodation determinations on a request-by-request basis. Messages and emails regarding anything other than accommodations requests will not be returned