Senior Director, STEP Strategic Operations, Central Strategy & Planning Lead

Company Description

It all started in sunny San Diego, California in 2004 when a visionary engineer, Fred Luddy, saw the potential to transform how we work. Fast forward to today — ServiceNow stands as a global market leader, bringing innovative AI-enhanced technology to over 8,100 customers, including 85% of the Fortune 500®. Our intelligent cloud-based platform seamlessly connects people, systems, and processes to empower organizations to find smarter, faster, and better ways to work. But this is just the beginning of our journey. Join us as we pursue our purpose to make the world work better for everyone.

Job Description

We are seeking a Senior Director, STEP Strategic Operations to lead a world-class Strategy and Planning team serving the Success Technology Engineering and Platform (STEP) organization.   

This role is both a trusted strategic thought partner to the CPO & COO, the GVP of STEP Strategic Operations and the entire STEP leadership team and also serves as an active cross-functional collaborator and team builder to bring our strategy to life across ServiceNow as we execute today and transform for tomorrow. You will skillfully help us manage through a rapid change to an AI-Native future.  

You will partner with leaders across product, engineering, design, and GTM to ensure we deliver on the full potential of ServiceNow’s product portfolio. This includes both foundational strategic excellence such as in-depth market analysis, business performance breakdown, robust business plan creation as well as planning excellence including collaboration on integrated planning across all functions of the company all while re-imagining the way we work in an AI-Native world (embedding AI into decision-making and planning cycles). You will be a leader on Strategy & Planning across the company.  

The ideal candidate combines executive presence, strategic prowess, financial and operational acumen, and a proven ability to drive large-scale work in complex, fast moving environments. The candidate must have an exceptional ability to lead and influence at the Executive level, demonstrated success in driving ambiguous and complex initiatives, and world-class strategic and story telling skills, underpinned by a foundation of operational excellence. Your team will solve complex business and product problems, orchestrate setting strategy, plan for execution, and work closely with teams executing always with an eye to incorporate real-world feedback into strategic thinking and planning. You will facilitate the product portfolio strategy, prioritization, and analysis. You will work closely with cross-functional stakeholders to accelerate innovation and drive impact by directly contributing to overall company business objectives.  

What you get to do in this role: 

• Serve as a key partner to the CPO & COO, their leadership team, and the GVP of Strategic Operations on all Strategy, Portfolio, and Planning topics. Drive the thinking as we transform to AI-Native. 

• Lead the charter of in-depth Strategy thinking for the Product Portfolio with a rapid learning loop based on real-world business and customer results all to ensure we make the right strategy choices across our product portfolio.  

• Working collaboratively on Planning with product, sales, marketing, Corporate Strategy, and other corporate leaders and operational teams to ensure we are setup for success. 

• Design and institutionalize repeatable Strategy & Planning mechanisms that drive speed, scale, and accountability. 

• Drive portfolio value management, linking investments to outcomes across monetized and non-monetized areas, and enabling faster trade-off and reinvestment decisions. 

• Build, lead, and develop a high-performing, inclusive Strategy & Planning team that scales with the growth and ambition of ServiceNow. 

Be a leader for the org in raising performance standards, evolving culture, and ensuring adoption of new ways of working. 

Qualifications

To be successful in this role you have: 

• Experience in leveraging or critically thinking about how to integrate AI into work processes, decision-making, or problem-solving. This may include using AI-powered tools, automating workflows, analyzing AI-driven insights, or exploring AI’s potential impact on the function or industry.
• Proven leadership of both strategy and operations during large-scale transformation in a global tech or SaaS organization. 

• 10-15+ years of relevant work experience (or 10+ years post-MBA or equivalent higher degree) in tech strategy/ops functions, management consulting, investment banking, or private equity.   

• Experience in leveraging or critically thinking about how to integrate AI into work processes, decision-making, or pro