Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Lumen is a trusted network for the AI-powered world, providing secure connectivity through its expansive fiber network. The Manager of VPN with AI & Digital Operations will oversee the delivery of VPN services while leading digital transformation initiatives, focusing on AI and automation to enhance operational efficiency and service quality.
Responsibilities
- Manage day-to-day VPN order delivery across multiple regions and customer segments
- Ensure timely, accurate provisioning aligned with customer SLAs and business goals
- Drive performance against key metrics including FTR (First Time Right), cycle time, and backlog health
- Identify process gaps and lead initiatives to improve efficiency, quality, and scalability
- Champion automation and simplification efforts to reduce manual work and errors
- Partner with cross-functional teams to implement sustainable solutions
- Establish clear performance expectations and track team productivity and quality
- Analyze operational data to identify trends, risks, and opportunities
- Deliver executive-level reporting with actionable insights and recommendations
- Collaborate closely with Design/TDG, Field Operations, Offnet/Build, and Customer Experience teams
- Act as a point of escalation for complex orders and customer-impacting issues
- Drive alignment across teams to ensure seamless order flow and issue resolution
- Build and maintain a prioritized AI/automation roadmap tied to business objectives (defect removal, cycle time, cost out, revenue enablement)
- Run structured ideation (workshops, office hours, intake) to capture high-value chat use cases across business functions
- Establish 'value by design': define hypotheses, baselines, and target benefits for each use case (e.g., hours saved, cost avoided, NPS impact), and ensure every release has measurable outcomes
- Translate ideas into clear user stories, success criteria, and risk/controls; create business cases with ROI, effort, and dependencies
- Rapidly prototype chat/agent flows (prompts, intents, orchestrations) and lead pilot experiments; document reusable patterns and standards
- Partner with Security, Compliance, and Data Governance to meet responsible AI standards (privacy, fairness, transparency) and regulatory obligations
- Build dashboards and operational scorecards (adoption, time saved, quality, compliance) to guide decisions and show value
- Identify automation opportunities and policy/role changes needed to unlock impact; partner to implement and measure improvements
- Lead cross-functional Kaizen/Lean sprints to remove waste (handoffs, rework, queue time) and instrument processes for observability
- Industrialize wins: standardize playbooks, reusable components, and reference architectures (e.g., agents, copilots, RPA, Power Platform)
- Achieve 18,000 hours of efficiency improvement across the organization
- Operate a tight release cadence (backlog hygiene, Definition of Ready/Done, change management) with clear entry/exit criteria
- Enforce quality gates (testing, security reviews, data quality) and manage operational readiness (runbooks, SLAs, on-call)
- Publish executive-ready updates (milestones, benefits realized vs. target, risks/mitigations) and maintain audit-ready documentation
- Create lightweight enablement (playbooks, prompt libraries, short demos) that make chat solutions stick
- Evangelize best practices; host 'art of the possible' sessions and help teams become data guardians of their content for AI use
- Coordinate with Security/Legal on responsible AI standards, access controls, and data classification
- Work closely with Operations leaders, Product owners, Engineering, Security, HR, and Finance to align roadmaps, budgets, and controls
- Translate business priorities into technical work; resolve trade-offs quickly with a bias to action and customer impact
- Provide executive-ready updates and evidence of impact; resolve blockers quickly and transparently
- Lead, coach, and develop an inclusive, high-performance team to achieve individual and organizational goals
- Set clear expectations, priorities, and performance standards aligned to business objectives
- Conduct regular 1:1s, performance reviews, and development planning
- Provide regular feedback, recognition, and career development support
- Identify skill gaps and enable training, mentoring, and career growth opportunities
- Monitor workload, capacity, and team health to ensure sustainable performance
- Cultivate a culture of experimentation with guardrails-failing fast, learning fast, scaling what works
- Foster a culture of accountability, inclusion, and continuous improvement; recognize and reward strong performance and contributions
Skills
- Minimum: Bachelor's Degree and 3 years of related business operations management experience
- Strong discipline in maintaining a use-case backlog and governance process from intake triage discovery pilot production, including readiness across security, privacy, and data access
- Skilled at translating ideas into clear user stories with success criteria, risk/controls, ROI modeling, and dependency mapping
- Promotes a culture of accountability, inclusion, and continuous improvement
- Excellent collaboration and effective listening skills
- Strong attention to detail and superior organizational skills
- Proven ability to present information to various levels in organizations
- Understanding of project management
Benefits
- Lumen offers a comprehensive package featuring a broad range of Health, Life, Voluntary Lifestyle benefits and other perks that enhance your physical, mental, emotional and financial wellbeing.
- We're able to answer any additional questions you may have about our bonus structure (short-term incentives, long-term incentives and/or sales compensation) as you move through the selection process.
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