Senior Director – IT Change and Release Management

We are seeking a dynamic and forward-thinking Senior Director of Change and Release Management to lead our global team through an exciting period of transformation. This pivotal role involves orchestrating software and infrastructure changes across an evolving organization, supporting a visionary shift from traditional IT Service Management (ITSM) concepts to a more modern, DevOps-driven philosophy. The ideal candidate will possess a unique blend of leadership, technical proficiency, and a deep understanding of both ITSM and DevOps strategies and tactics.

As the Senior Director of Change and Release Management, you will be at the forefront of fostering innovation and driving the adoption of best practices in change and release management. You will oversee a talented global team of analysts and developers, guiding them in the creation and implementation of processes that enable efficient and effective flow of change, seamless coordination of releases, and stringent governance around change and release standards.

At Marriott, Change and Release Management has three core philosophies:

1. Improve the flow of changes to software and/or systems, advocating for automation where applicable.
2. Proactively detect problems with changes and related releases before they happen.
3. In the event a failure or an incident, recover as fast as possible.

This role demands a strategic thinker who can balance the need for agility with the necessity of maintaining control and compliance in a complex IT environment. Your leadership will be instrumental in transforming our change and release management practices, ensuring they not only support our current needs but are also aligned with our future growth and evolution towards a more agile, responsive IT organization.

CANDIDATE PROFILE 

Education and Experience 

Required:

• 10+ years overall work experience in Information Technology, application development or similar relevant experience including: 
  • 7+ years’ experience supporting cross-functional application and infrastructure teams with technology change and release needs.
  • 5+ years in a technical discipline role with experience in planning, implementing and evaluating change and release processes, systems and/or initiatives
  • 4+ years applications support in a cloud environment, technical infrastructure, system implementation experience. 
  • 4+ years ensuring change and release process elements are in full compliance with security policy and relevant national or international standards
• Undergraduate degree or equivalent experience/certification in Information Technology, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field.
• Extensive experience working with ServiceNow ITSM, ITOM, Asset Management and Application Portfolio Management.
• Ability to work across organizational boundaries to lead and influence continuous improvement initiatives. 
• Advanced knowledge of ITSM processes, procedures, infrastructure change and release management.

Preferred:

• Experience with and knowledge of IT outsourcing activities in a managed services environment.
• Extensive experience working with ServiceNow ITSM, ITOM, Asset Management and Application Portfolio Management.
• Experience working in a private and public cloud.
• Experience collaborating with teams across operations, incident and problem management, application development, 
• Familiarity working in a Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) organization supporting change management, capacity planning, efficiency, and emergency response.
• Broad technical acumen across multi- discipline applications with a solid understanding of current technologies
• Experience operating in a DevSecOps environment
• Experience applying measurement processes/methods for assessing program outputs and outcomes or progress toward goals and objectives.
• Experience working with global, distributed team members in different time zones.
• Proven ability to effectively prioritize and execute tasks in a high-pressure environment.
• Ability to work across organizational boundaries, to help lead and influence change
• Ability to command the process across all levels to ensure customer focus; including being assertive and self-starting
• Demonstrated leadership experience in influence and garnering alignment from external organizations
• Ability to align change and release management strategies with concurrent projects and organizational strategies
• Skilled in conceptualizing creative solutions, documenting them, and presenting/selling them to senior management.
• Extremely high level of analytical ability with complex pro