Principal, Strategic Initiatives

Security represents the most critical priorities for our customers in a world awash in digital threats, regulatory scrutiny, and estate complexity. Microsoft Security aspires to make the world a safer place for all. We want to reshape security and empower every user, customer, and developer with a security cloud that protects them with end to end, simplified solutions. The Microsoft Security organization accelerates Microsoft’s mission and bold ambitions to ensure that our company and industry is securing digital technology platforms, devices, and clouds in our customers’ heterogeneous environments, as well as ensuring the security of our own internal estate. Our culture is centered on embracing a growth mindset, a theme of inspiring excellence, and encouraging teams and leaders to bring their best each day. In doing so, we create life-changing innovations that impact billions of lives around the world.

As a Principal, Stategic Initiatives, you will play a pivotal role in driving high-impact, cross-functional initiatives within Microsoft's CISO Operations teams. In this role, you will be responsible for executing strategic goals, providing leadership in program execution, and ensuring alignment across teams to deliver critical outcomes. You will work closely with stakeholders at all levels of the organization, focusing on scalable programs that drive Microsoft’s security vision forward.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond. In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.

Responsibilities

• Lead Cross-Functional Initiatives: Drive the execution of large-scale initiatives, ensuring alignment across multiple teams and stakeholders.
• Strategic Partnering: Work closely with senior leadership to define and execute initiatives that support key business priorities.
• Program Execution: Ensure continuous optimization of processes, leveraging data-driven insights to refine approaches and drive improvements.
• Data-Driven Insights: Monitor key performance indicators (KPIs), analyze program data, and make informed decisions to optimize performance. Stakeholder Communication: Regularly update senior leadership and other stakeholders on program status, risks, and resource needs, facilitating alignment and decision-making.
• Cross-Team Collaboration: Foster strong collaboration among technical, product, and operational teams to ensure cohesive execution of initiatives.
• Customer-Centric Focus: Lead efforts to understand user needs, conducting research and applying insights to drive program success.
• Mentorship & Leadership: Provide mentorship, helping navigate challenges and build skills.
• Collaborate with senior leadership, product, and engineering teams to integrate security into the design of new systems, applications, and services.
• Act as a trusted advisor, providing strategic guidance on complex security challenges and recommending security solutions that align with business goals

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• 7+ years of experience in software development lifecycle, large-scale computing, modeling, cyber security, anomaly detection, Security Operations Center (SOC) detection, threat analytics, security incident and event management (SIEM), information technology (IT), and operations incident response
  • OR Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science or related field.
• Experience managing high-impact, high-visibility initiatives that directly contribute to the organization’s strategic goals.
• Required communication skills (verbal and written) with ability to present complex ideas to senior leaders, aligning teams and driving decisions.
• Required analytical skills, with the ability to synthesize data to make informed decisions and drive program improvements.

Additional Requirements:

• Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include, but are not limited to the following specialized security sc