Director, Operations and Infrastructure

Department
 

Booth Information Technology

About the Department
 

The University of Chicago Booth School of Business is the second-oldest business school in the U.S. and second to none when it comes to influencing business education and business practices. Since 1898, the school has produced ideas and leaders that shape the world of business. Their rigorous, discipline-based approach to business education transforms students into confident, effective, respected business leaders prepared to face the toughest challenges.
Chicago Booth has the finest set of facilities of any business school in the world. Each of the four campuses (two in Chicago, one in London, and one in Hong Kong) reflects the architectural traditions of its environs while offering a state-of-the-art learning environment.
Chicago Booth is proud to claim:
-an unmatched faculty.
-degree and open enrollment programs offered on three continents.
-a global body of nearly 56,000 accomplished alumni.
-strong and growing corporate relationships that provide a wealth of lifelong career opportunities.
As part of the world-renowned University of Chicago, Chicago Booth shares the University's core values that shape the distinctive intellectual culture. At Booth, they constantly question and test ideas, and seek proof. This extraordinarily effective approach to business leads to new ideas and innovative solutions. Seven of the Booth faculty members have won Nobel Prizes for these ideas - the first business school to achieve this accomplishment.
For more information about the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, please visit: http://www.chicagobooth.edu/.

Job Summary
 

The Director, Operations and Infrastructure for the University of Chicago Booth School of Business (Chicago Booth) Information Technology Department is primarily responsible for building and maintaining a reliable and high performance infrastructure. This person will provide technical leadership and strategic vision for all aspects of the School’s data center, systems, storage and email for the four Chicago Booth campuses (Hyde Park, Chicago downtown, London and Hong Kong). This role is responsible for a team of four systems administrators. Chicago Booth requires high availability and high reliability in a 24/7 operation.

Responsibilities

• Plans, directs and manages the operation of Booth’s systems and network infrastructure. This includes numerous hosted Windows and Linux departmental servers, application servers, database servers, file and print servers, backup services, email servers and gateways, DNS, DHCP, and Active Directory.
• Manages and maintains the enterprise storage and storage area network (SAN) environment including troubleshooting, performance planning, capacity, and continuity planning.
• Leads in the planning, design, documentation and implementation of new systems, storage and virtualization technology.
• Maintains the enterprise virtualization environment (VMware), including troubleshooting, performance monitoring and optimization, capacity, high availability and continuity planning.
• Maintains various cloud environments in platforms such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Services
• Maintains SaaS offerings to include Office 365 and Google Workspace instances.
• Works with Director Applications Development to manage and maintain development, test, staging, and production environments.
• Maintains Booth's Disaster Recovery infrastructure and documentation, ensuring systems and applications are adequately protected according to their SLAs.  Schedule, run and report on bi-annual Disaster Recovery tests.
• Works with Information Security Architect to maintain continuous risk assessments, reviews of critical systems, identify threats, and produce operational policies/procedures documentation.
• Uses the ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) best-practice framework to enhance processes and procedures for delivering high quality services that are aligned with business needs and objectives.
• Manages and oversees the planning, design, implementation and documentation of all new infrastructure projects and upgrades to existing infrastructure.
• Provides regular project status updates on schedule, budget, and deliverables in Project Portfolio Management (PPM) meetings.
• Works with the CIO and peers to develop standards and operational procedures that support current and future operational needs.
• Collaborates with other IT directors to establish well-defined processes and agreed upon schedules for projects and school-wide initiatives.
• Maintains and improves departmental metrics and uptime statistics.
• Ensures timely resolution of service incidents and completion of service requests.
• Ensures compliance with Booth IT Change Management procedures.
• Drives continuous improvement efforts in areas of responsibility.
• Recruits, hires, evaluates and coaches staff.  Ensures staff are fully trained in the technical aspects of their job and establishes documentation requirements to maintain technical control and security.
• Fosters a positive team environment in which roles and responsibilities are clearly defined and in keeping with industry best practices.
• Leads staff in the adoption of new processes, tools, policies and procedures.
• Manages a staffing plan. Coordinates resource availability and staffing levels.
• Works a flexible work schedule to ensure appropriate coverage, with direct reports.
• Manages the operations annual budget.
• Negotiates and manages operations vendor contracts.
• Plans a cost competitive and efficient operations environment. Reports performance against service level agreements (SLAs).
• Evaluates and recommends new technologies.
• Interfaces with the central University IT department (ITS) on common projects, services and support issues.
• Collaborates with Booth business units to support and promote IT projects and initiatives.
• Monitors the implementation of approved best practices and information technology policies that maximizes efficiency and productivity.
• Provides leadership for the planning, design, implementation, budgeting, and management of information technology resources.
• Performs other related work as needed.

Minimum Qualifications
 

Education:

Minimum requirements include a college or university degree in related field.

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Work Experience:

Minimum requirements include knowledge and skills developed through 7+ years of work experience in a related job discipline.

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Certifications:

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Preferred Qualifications

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in a technology field or management.
• Master’s degree.

Experience:

• At least ten years of experience in a production environment supporting enterprise systems, including server hosting, security and information protection and replicated disaster recovery architectures.
• At least five years of management experience with project and operational budgeting oversight.
• Experience with IT Infrastructure Library/IT Service Management and formal change management controls, ITIL certification.
• Experience with vendor evaluation and relationships management; request for information (RFI) and request for proposal (RFP) writing experience.

Technical Skills or Knowledge:

• Working knowledge of Storage Area Network (SAN) and backup technologies.
• Working knowledge of virtualization technologies and topology designs.
• Working knowledge of system and network management frameworks.
• General knowledge and familiarity with AI technologies such as generative AI (ChatGPT, Microsoft CoPilot), and Large Language Model offerings.
• Expertise in operations technologies and processes, including EMC Unity/Isilon, Red Hat Linux, Windows 2016/2019/2022, and Cisco firewall technologies. 

Preferred Competencies

• Very strong customer service orientation.
• Characteristics of sound judgment based on information available to support good decision-making.
• Outstanding interpersonal and communication skills, highly articulate in both oral and written forms, translating complex technical concepts into non-technical language,.
• Proven IT technical leadership with strategic planning and staff development skills.
• Proven technical experience with broad knowledge and support of networks, servers systems, applications, databases, messaging and cloud-based technologies.
• Strong project management skills, including experience with large-scale projects, working effectively across organizational boundaries and disciplines.
• Strong team-building skills with technical and non-technical staff.
• Excellent supervisory skills.
• Proven ability to plan and operate within operations procedures and service level agreements.
• Work successfully under pressure and meet deadlines.
• Work successfully as member and leader of a team.

Working Conditions

• This position is currently expected to work a hybrid schedule based on coverage needs onsite.

Application Documents

• Resume/CV (required)
• Cover Letter (required)

When applying, the document(s) MUST  be uploaded via the My Experience page, in the section titled Application Documents of the application.

Job Family
 

Information Technology

Role Impact
 

People Manager

FLSA Status
 

Exempt

Pay Frequency
 

Monthly

Scheduled Weekly Hours
 

37.5

Benefits Eligible
 

Yes

Drug Test Required
 

No

Health Screen Required
 

No

Motor Vehicle Record Inquiry Required
 

No

Posting Statement
 

The University of Chicago is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity/Disabled/Veterans and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, national or ethnic origin, age, status as an individual with a disability, military or veteran status, genetic information, or other protected classes under the law. For additional information please see the University's Notice of Nondiscrimination.

 

Staff Job seekers in need of a reasonable accommodation to complete the application process should call 773-702-5800 or submit a request via Applicant Inquiry Form.

 

We seek a diverse pool of applicants who wish to join an academic community that places the highest value on rigorous inquiry and encourages a diversity of perspectives, experiences, groups of individuals, and ideas to inform and stimulate intellectual challenge, engagement, and exchange.

 

All offers of employment are contingent upon a background check that includes a review of conviction history.  A conviction does not automatically preclude University employment.  Rather, the University considers conviction information on a case-by-case basis and assesses the nature of the offense, the circumstances surrounding it, the proximity in time of the conviction, and its relevance to the position.

 

The University of Chicago's Annual Security & Fire Safety Report (Report) provides information about University offices and programs that provide safety support, crime and fire statistics, emergency response and communications plans, and other policies and information. The Report can be accessed online at: http://securityreport.uchicago.edu . Paper copies of the Report are available, upon request, from the University of Chicago Police Department, 850 E. 61st Street, Chicago, IL 60637.