Advisory Operations Director, Cybersecurity
About Us
ISTARI is a strategic cybersecurity advisory company with a bold vision: to curate the defining cybersecurity ecosystem of our time - uniting enterprise, academia, government, and innovators to build collective resilience. At the heart of this mission, ISTARI helps clients achieve lasting organisational cyber resilience by convening and applying world-class talent, expertise, and innovation through a uniquely powerful network - with ISTARI as the central orchestrator.
The Opportunity
This is the operational and governance engine room of our Advisory practice and a hands-on role. You will build the frameworks, not just oversee them.
You will own the end-to-end operational success of Advisory engagements across ISTARI internally and in collaboration with portfolio companies and strategic partners, ensuring disciplined execution, strong commercial performance, and consistent high-quality client outcomes.
You will also own the governance, lifecycle management, and continuous evolution of ISTARI's Advisory capabilities, service catalogue, and associated roadmaps - keeping services current, relevant, and differentiated.
What You’ll Do:
1. Governance: Implement and enforce QA frameworks across the full advisory lifecycle, from opportunity scoping to final delivery. Maintain ISTARI's governance standards and protect the reputation of the practice.
2. Advisory Delivery & Engagement Management: Coordinate internal teams, portfolio companies, and strategic partners to ensure seamless execution, knowledge transfer, and a consistently strong client experience.
3. Traffic Control & Resourcing: Manage global allocation of internal FTEs, partners, and portfolio resources. Balance demand, specialist capability, and commercial objectives across all engagements.
4. Expert Network Stewardship: Oversee onboarding, vetting, and governance of subcontractors and specialist partners. Ensure all third parties meet ISTARI standards on delivery quality, commercial terms, and client engagement.
5. Commercial Hygiene: Monitor project budgets in real time. Ensure all engagements are properly scoped and priced to protect profitability.
6. Service Catalogue & Capability Lifecycle: Own the Advisory Service Catalogue end to end. Ensure services are clearly defined, costed, packaged, and continuously refreshed to reflect new IP, regulatory developments, emerging threats, and market demand.
7. Advisory IP, Knowledge & Industry Intelligence: Capture and curate advisory IP, methodologies, and client insights. Maintain a central, current knowledge base that underpins ISTARI's Advisory offering.
8. Operational Reporting: Provide regular reporting to the Global Head of Advisory and ExCo on delivery performance, utilisation, margin, pipeline alignment, and service catalogue maturity.
What You'll Bring
- Experience in a cybersecurity, risk, technology, or professional services advisory environment, with a strong understanding of how high-value services are structured, delivered, and evolved.
- Proven ability to govern and evolve service portfolios and capability frameworks in fast-moving markets.
- Strong commercial acumen, fluent in margin management, utilisation, and partner cost dynamics.
- Metrics-driven and operationally disciplined, able to build structured governance in a scaling environment.
- Confident working with senior stakeholders across leadership, partners, and portfolio companie, able to challenge constructively and maintain alignment.
- Experience with CRM/PSA and knowledge management platforms (e.g. Salesforce, Confluence or similar).
- Scale-up mindset, comfortable building and running frameworks simultaneously as structures evolve.
Compensation and Benefits
- Competitive base salary, benchmarked against industry practice in our hub locations
- Performance-related annual bonus, linked to individual contribution
- Comprehensive benefits: medical and dental cover, pension contributions, and life insurance
- Hybrid working model - with willingness to travel for client engagements