Sr. Director, Security Operations Leader

**This role is hybrid Tuesday - Thursday in the Dallas or Louisville, KY areas.** 

As the most senior security operations leader within Yum! Brands, the Senior Director of Security Operations will report directly to the Global CISO and lead the enterprise-wide function responsible for proactive threat detection, incident response, security monitoring, and operational resilience.

This role has global accountability for the design, execution, and evolution of Yum!’s 24x7 Security Operations Center (SOC)—including threat intelligence, detection engineering, threat hunting, and vulnerability management. The Senior Director will define strategic direction, optimize tooling and operations, and lead a high-performing global team of ~20. This is a VP-caliber role in scope and visibility, with direct impact on Yum!’s enterprise risk management, brand integrity, and operational continuity.

 

Primary Responsibilities:

Strategic Leadership & Vision

• Define and drive Yum!’s global SOC strategy and operational roadmap, ensuring alignment with enterprise risk priorities and business growth objectives.
• Serve as the executive escalation point for cyber threats and security incidents, coordinating C-suite briefings and leading post-incident executive reviews.
• Lead a team of ~30 [SE1] global professionals across SOC operations, incident response, threat intelligence, vulnerability management, and engineering.
• Monitor and interpret global SOC trends, adversary tactics, and emerging technologies, identifying strategic inflection points and proactively evolving Yum!’s detection and response capabilities.
• Security Operations Oversight
• Own and mature Yum!’s 24/7 global SOC, ensuring rapid threat detection, alert triage, root cause analysis, and containment across cloud, on-prem, and hybrid environments.
• Establish and maintain robust playbooks, automation, and coordination protocols for end-to-end incident response, business continuity, and regulatory readiness.
• Lead internal threat hunting and intelligence fusion efforts, integrating commercial, open-source, and internal telemetry to anticipate and disrupt threats.
• Manage Yum!’s enterprise-wide vulnerability management lifecycle, ensuring timely prioritization, remediation, and risk communication across stakeholder groups.

Enterprise Integration & Communication

• Act as the primary conduit between security operations and executive leadership, translating technical threats into actionable business impact analysis.
• Build and maintain collaborative relationships across Digital, Technology, Legal, Brand, and Franchise leadership to embed security operations into Yum!’s culture and decision-making.
• Lead tabletop exercises and executive crisis simulations across brands, functions, and geographies to ensure global preparedness.

Technology, Partnerships & Measurement

• Oversee the performance and evolution of SIEM, SOAR, EDR/XDR, vulnerability scanning, and threat intel platforms.
• Manage strategic MSSP and MDR partnerships; drive vendor accountability and ensure best-in-class SLAs and detection efficacy.
• Define, track, and report on SOC KPIs and KRIs, including MTTD, MTTR, detection coverage, operational maturity, and service delivery effectiveness.

Qualifications: 

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, Cybersecurity, Business Administration, or a related technical field is required.
• Master’s degree in a related discipline is strongly preferred, particularly in cybersecurity leadership, technology management, or enterprise risk.

Experience

• 10+ years of progressive experience in cybersecurity, including at least 5 years in senior leadership roles overseeing global Security Operations Center (SOC), threat detection, incident response, or threat intelligence functions.[KG2] [SE3] 
• Proven track record of leading high-performing security operations teams, developing SOC strategy, and driving operational readiness across global or franchise-based enterprises.
• Demonstrated ability to manage and respond to complex cybersecurity incidents at scale, providing executive-level visibility and business impact analysis.
• Extensive experience with security platforms and frameworks including SIEM, SOAR, EDR/XDR, MITRE ATT&CK, NIST CSF, and cloud-native security tooling (AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Skilled in managing MSSPs and external threat service providers, driving vendor performance, optimizing cost and efficiency, and ensu