Description

Job Description

Program Director, Global Security Operations Center

Dedicated Enterprise Account • Santa Monica, California

Location

On-site - Santa Monica, California

Employment type

Full-time, exempt. Dedicated to one client account.

Salary range

$150,000 - $175,000 annually

Entity

M1 Global - part of the Specialized family of brands

The Role

You are the single accountable executive for a dedicated global security operations center program built for one enterprise technology client. The GSOC runs two service areas that both fold up into the program you own: an intelligence function producing assessed, decision-ready product for executive stakeholders, and a physical security function running alarm monitoring, video verification, dispatch, access control and the security service queue. It operates 24/7/365 with no scheduled downtime.

A third operations center in Europe covers EMEA and Asia-Pacific and provides failover for Santa Monica. A subcontracted partner employs and locally manages that team, so you do not supervise them. You are accountable for what they deliver: the standards, the service levels, the escalation path and the commercial relationship sit with M1 Global regardless of who badges the operator.

This is an operator's job before it is an account job. You are expected to know a watch floor from the inside. Three functional managers run the day-to-day and you hold them to their measures, but you will not be credible in this seat if the floor is a black box to you.

It is also a build. You set the GSOC operating model with the client rather than around them, decide which of their existing procedures the GSOC adopts, adapts or replaces, and take the program through validation to go-live. Your management team is recruited in parallel with you and seated on the same schedule. You inherit them, you own them from day one, and you own every leadership hire after that.

The two service areas run separate supervisory chains that converge only at you. Personnel are separated; information is not. You own the intelligence-to-operations handoff and you own every service level in the contract, several of which carry financial consequence. When a measure misses, you issue the corrective action plan before you are asked for it.

Key Responsibilities

GSOC Operations
• Own round-the-clock GSOC operations across both service areas - watch floor coverage, minimum staffing, console and platform readiness, shift turnover and continuity of operations.
• Own the intelligence-to-operations handoff and keep it working. Handoff volume, acknowledgement time and quality are measured and reported monthly. Separate supervisory chains must never become separate information.
• Preserve the personnel separation between service areas. No individual performs duties in both, and you attest to that monthly.
• Direct the GSOC response during declared incidents and crisis activations, and activate surge capacity when required.
• Hold the subcontracted European center to the same operating standard as Santa Monica - same procedures, same platforms, same service levels - and own the load-transfer arrangement between the two.
• Own the GSOC technology stack in operation - real-time alerting and mass notification, protective intelligence case management, enterprise access control and video management - including alert relevance tuning and evidencing platform performance for the client, who holds the vendor relationships.

Service Level Performance
• Own a published service level set covering staffing, response, product quality, documentation and stakeholder satisfaction, reported monthly against defined targets.
• Run root cause analysis on any miss, distinguishing individual, process, staffing and platform causes rather than settling for the easiest of the four.
• Issue written corrective action plans with named owners and dates, and close them on schedule.
• Take direct operational control of any function below target for a second consecutive month, and report performance to the client whether or not the numbers are flattering.

Program and Commercial Accountability
• Own delivery, performance and commercial outcomes for the GSOC program as a whole, and sign the monthly operational attestations the contract requires.
• Control program cost against the approved model - overtime, relief coverage, certification spend and attrition.
• Deliver measured continuous improvement on a published cadence, with before-and-after evidence rather than assertions.

Client Relationship and Governance
• Run the monthly operational review and the quarterly business review, and prepare both.
• Hold the executive relationship with the client's security leadership and act as escalation of last resort.
• Maintain the boundary between what M1 Global delivers - labor, supervision, training, quality assurance and program management - and what the client retains: policy, escalation authority, threat management decisions, investigations, platform administration, vendor relationships and guard force contracts.

Leadership and Talent
• Inherit a management team recruited in parallel with you, own their development, measures and accountability from day one, and own every leadership hire after that.
• Set and defend the supervisory model on the floor, including supervisors who carry no routine queue.
• Own staffing coverage as a service level outcome. Schedule construction, call-out coverage and relief staffing are delivered by M1 Global's Fusion Centers through a Workforce and Scheduling Analyst dedicated to the account; you own fill rate, minimum staffing compliance and the client's experience of both. The client is never asked to solve a coverage problem or approve overtime.
• Own attrition and succession depth. Analyze why people leave, share the analysis, and act on it.

Standards and Documentation
• Own version control of the GSOC procedure library, post orders and escalation matrices, lead knowledge capture from the client's existing team during transition, and ensure documentation is written during the work rather than reconstructed afterward.

Required Qualifications
• Experience: Ten or more years in security operations, including five years managing managers in a 24/7 environment.
• GSOC operations: Direct, hands-on experience running GSOC or enterprise command center operations - watch supervision, console operations, shift turnover, minimum staffing, escalation and incident coordination. Program or account leadership above a floor you never worked is not a substitute.
• GSOC leadership and build: Senior leadership of a live 24/7 GSOC with personal accountability for its operational performance, and a track record of standing one up or materially maturing one on a defined schedule.
• Platforms: Working command of the GSOC technology stack - real-time alerting and mass notification, protective intelligence case management, enterprise access control and video management - deep enough to challenge a manager's configuration decision on the merits.
• Contract ownership: Demonstrated accountability for a client-facing service contract carrying measured service levels with financial consequence, including its delivery economics: labor cost, coverage models and overtime exposure. You have owned the number, not reported on it.
• Certification: ASIS International Certified Protection Professional (CPP), held at hire and maintained current as a condition of continued assignment.
• Communication: Executive-grade written and verbal communication. You can brief a client's security leadership on a bad month without losing the room.
• Education: Bachelor's degree in criminal justice, security management, emergency management, business or a related field - or equivalent practical experience.
• Eligibility: Authorized to work in the United States. Able to pass background, drug and client-required security screening.

Preferred Qualifications
• Certifications: ASIS Certified Protection Professional (CPP), active or ability to obtain within 1 year of appointment in position.
• Dual discipline: Experience leading both an intelligence function and a physical security console function under one program. Most candidates have run one. Both is rare, and it is what this GSOC requires.
• Scale: GSOC operations across multiple centers, time zones and countries, including accountability for a center delivered by a subcontracted or managed-service partner.
• Speed: Experience taking a GSOC from contract award to live operations inside 90 days.
• Sector: Prior GSOC leadership in technology, media or another high-visibility enterprise environment.

Key Competencies

GSOC Operations

Watch Floor Command

Service Level Ownership

Program Build

Client Relationship

Commercial Judgment

Talent Development

Decision-Making Under Pressure

Candor

Work Environment
• On-site at a client global security operations center in Santa Monica, California. This is an embedded role - you work inside the client's operation, in their systems and their workspace, under M1 Global.
• Full-time, aligned to a 24/7/365 operation, with flexibility to observe and support day, swing and overnight shifts. A program director who only ever sees the day shift does not know the operation.
• Expect to be reachable when the GSOC escalates. Possible domestic and international travel.
• Schedule construction, call-out coverage and relief staffing are delivered by M1 Global's Fusion Centers through a Workforce and Scheduling Analyst dedicated to the account. You own the coverage service levels and the KPI performance behind them; you do not run the scheduling function.
• M1 Global is the employer of record. You are assigned to a single client program and work on no other M1 Global account.
• Employment is contingent on background, drug and client-required security screening. Authorization to work in the United States is required; visa sponsorship is not available for this position.

Compensation

$150,000 - $175,000 annually

The posted range is the salary scale M1 Global reasonably expects to pay for this position, published in accordance with California Labor Code section 432.3. Actual placement within the range depends on experience, credentials held at hire and internal equity. Compensation includes M1 Global's standard employee benefits package.