Director, Identity Governance & Directory Services

The Director, Identity Governance and Directory Services will be a key member of the new Versant Cyber organization. This individual will lead the strategy and implementation of enterprise-wide identity lifecycle governance and access control capabilities. This leader will design policies and processes for identity governance, and enforcement of fine-grained access provisioning across a wide spectrum of platforms, services, and users—supporting both workforce and application-level access at scale. This individual will serve as the primary authority on enterprise identities and access governance strategy, including role-based access control (RBAC), attribute-based access control (ABAC), policy-as-code systems, and zero trust access enforcement. Reporting to the VP, Identity and Security Services, they will work to ensure a seamless and secure identity lifecycle that supports the operational needs of a fast-moving media organization. RESPONSIBILITIES: Key areas of focus for the Director, Identity Governance and Directory Services include leading the design, implementation, and governance of scalable access control mechanisms across enterprise platforms. The role emphasizes building policy-driven, context-aware authorization services that enable precise access decisions across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. The successful candidate will be responsible for the following activities: Define and execute the enterprise IGA strategy, including joiner/mover/leaver processes, access request workflows, and identity lifecycle governance. Lead deployment, configuration, and operations of IGA platforms (e.g., SailPoint, Microsoft Entra ID). Oversee and streamline access certification and attestation campaigns across the enterprise. Establish and maintain role-based (RBAC) and attribute-based access control (ABAC) models to enable scalable, context-aware access decisions. Integrate IGA processes with HR systems, ServiceNow, and line-of-business applications for automated provisioning/deprovisioning. Define policies and standards for policy-as-code enforcement, ensuring compliance with security, privacy, and regulatory frameworks. Lead the strategy, design, and operations of enterprise directory services (e.g., Active Directory, Entra ID, LDAP) to support authentication, authorization, and federation. Ensure directory platforms are highly available, scalable, and integrated with modern identity services (SSO, MFA, PKI). Define and enforce directory and access management standards, including naming conventions, OU structures, and group hierarchies. Define and enforce policies for administrative tiering, privileged group management, and directory-level separation of duties. Oversee directory hygiene, schema management, synchronization, and federation across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Partner with platform, cloud, and DevOps teams to embed directory and identity services into CI/CD, automation, and DevSecOps processes. Promote a culture of diversity, inclusion, collaboration, and continuous improvement within the access governance domain.