Director, Business Operations

Here at Appian, our values of Intensity and Excellence define who we are. We set high standards and live up to them, ensuring that everything we do is done with care and quality. We approach every challenge with ambition and commitment, holding ourselves and each other accountable to achieve the best results. When you join Appian, you’ll be part of a passionate team dedicated to accomplishing hard things, together.

 

Appian is seeking a Director of Business Operations to drive high-priority strategic and operational initiatives across the company. In this role, you will sit at the intersection of operations, analytics, finance, and product management, working closely with executive leadership to identify and solve our most complex business problems.

This position requires a driven self-starter who can communicate effectively with senior leadership and successfully juggle multiple competing priorities. You are someone who takes projects from ideation to final execution, delivers value quickly, and thrives in a dynamic, fast-paced SaaS environment.

What You'll Do:

• Strategic Decision Support: Leverage data-driven insights and business intelligence from all parts of the business to help senior leadership and business owners make high-stakes decisions.

• Monetization & Pricing Strategy: You will analyze pricing and adoption of our features, discounting trends and recommend changes to our pricing policy.

• Process Architecture: Build and drive the company’s operating system by developing plans on how to best use resources (people, technology, capital). You will create the organizational structures, processes, and tools needed to achieve and optimize outcomes.

• Cross-Functional Leadership: Lead and coordinate strategic initiatives that require alignment across Product, Marketing, People, Sales, and Customer Experience. You will mobilize these teams toward the company’s most critical objectives.

• Operational Improvement: Apply your strategy and operations experience to uncover systemic operational issues at Appian and drive continuous process improvements.

• Market Intelligence: Stay abreast of external trends, benchmarking, and best-in-class business practices to implement sustainable, forward-looking strategies.

• Full-Cycle Execution: Partner with key collaborators to scope and implement operational improvements. You don't just recommend; you execute on those recommendations until you’ve achieved the desired outcome.

• Communication: Effectively communicate complex analytical findings to non-technical audiences, ensuring strategic insights are synthesized in an actionable and compelling manner.

 

About You:

• Bachelor’s Degree in a related field required. 

• 10+ years of relevant experience in investment banking, management consulting, private equity, corporate planning, or business finance/analytics—ideally within a data-driven product/technology company.

• A Framework Thinker: You have a demonstrated ability to distill complex, ambiguous issues into structured frameworks and develop concrete action plans.

• Analytical Expert: You possess strong analytical expertise and extensive experience building integrated models from scratch.

• Technical Proficiency: You are confident using SQL for fetching and manipulating data. Proficiency in advanced Excel/Google Slides is a must; experience with scripting languages (Python or R) is a significant plus.

• Relationship Builder: You have a proven track record of building relationships and communicating with partners across all levels and functions.

• Bias for Action: You move quickly, iterate on analyses, and are comfortable working in a self-guided manner with a high degree of ambiguity.

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Tools and Resources 

• Training and Development: During onboarding, we focus on equipping new hires with the skills and knowledge for success through department-specific training. Continuous learning is a central focus at Appian, with dedicated mentorship and the First-Friend program being widely utilized resources for new hires. 
• Growth Opportunities: Appian