Head of Digital & AI Production Operations

Pay Range: The pay range for this job is $0 - $0 annually; actual pay is dependent on experience and geographic location. Benefits: Base pay is only one part of our employee value proposition, which includes a robust benefits package, above-market time off, hybrid working arrangements, incentive compensation, where applicable, and varied learning opportunities. Ralph Lauren Corporation (NYSE:RL) is a global leader in the design, marketing and distribution of premium lifestyle products in five categories: apparel, accessories, home, fragrances, and hospitality. For more than 50 years, Ralph Lauren's reputation and distinctive image have been consistently developed across an expanding number of products, brands and international markets. The Company's brand names, which include Ralph Lauren, Ralph Lauren Collection, Ralph Lauren Purple Label, Polo Ralph Lauren, Double RL, Lauren Ralph Lauren, Polo Ralph Lauren Children, Chaps, among others, constitute one of the world's most widely recognized families of consumer brands.

At Ralph Lauren, we unite and inspire the communities within our company as well as those in which we serve by amplifying voices and perspectives to create a culture of belonging, ensuring inclusion, and fairness for all. We foster a culture of inclusion through: Talent, Education & Communication, Employee Groups and Celebration.

The Senior Director of Digital & AI Production Operations leads a global, 24x7 support organization responsible for ensuring the stability, performance, and continuous improvement of digital and in-store technology platforms. This role connects business priorities to operational execution by leveraging data, automation, and AI-driven insights to deliver measurable outcomes across customer experience, technology strategy, and financial performance. 

This leader drives operational excellence across incident management, service reliability, and partner performance while building a modern, scalable operating model that emphasizes proactive detection, rapid resolution, and a strong culture of continuous learning. Vendor and partner management will be a significant component as the organization evolves toward a more AI-enabled operating model. The role also owns strong budget discipline—not only for cost control, but to set clear guardrails, create efficiencies, and reinvest savings back into transformation

Travel:  Travel is expected; specific frequency and key locations will be aligned with HR and business stakeholders during the hiring process. 

Operational Leadership & Strategy• Lead a global, distributed ProdOps organization supporting online platforms, retail systems, and call center technologies. • Connect operations more tightly to business objectives and technology strategy, with outcomes tied to customer experience, revenue impact, and measurable financial results. • Build and sustain a 24x7 support model balancing automation, AIOps, and human expertise.
AI-Driven Operations & Automation • Champion AIOps by identifying repeatable tasks and automating workflows to reduce operational overhead and improve service reliability. • Leverage machine learning and predictive analytics for proactive alerting, incident prevention, and root cause analysis. • Continuously assess team capacity and shift effort from reactive support to value-added initiatives.
Incident & Problem Management • Establish and enforce a robust incident response framework including proactive alerting and monitoring, rapid triage and prioritization based on business impact, and end-to-end ownership from investigation to resolution. • Refine escalation paths to ensure critical issues are addressed with urgency and accuracy. • Lead post-incident reviews and release retrospectives to drive continuous improvement and learning.
Partner, Vendor & Service Management • Define and manage vendor and partner SLAs, ensuring accountability, transparency, and consistent delivery. • Establish clear service ownership models (e.g., RACI) across internal teams and external partners. • Drive partner performance through metrics, governance, and continuous alignment to business value and reliability outcomes.
Financial & Budget Management • Own budget discipline for Production Operations, using clear guardrails to manage spend and fund priorities. • Identify efficiencies through automation, standardization, and vendor optimization; reinvest savings back into transformation and capability building. • Partner with Finance and Technology leaders to forecast, track, and communicate operational investments and realized benefits.
Data-Driven Decision Making • Develop and maintain operational dashboards and KPIs, including system uptime and availability, incident resolution times, escalation trends, partner performance, and cost-to-serve. • Use data insights to prioritize investments, optimize workflows, and improve service quality and financial outcomes.
Global Team Leadership & Talent Development • Lead and develop managers and their teams across multiple regions. • Drive talent reviews, succession planning, and capability building. • Foster a culture of accountability, innovation, and continuous learning; upskill teams in modern practices including AI, automation, and advanced analytics. Continuous Improvement & Process Optimization • Identify and implement process improvements across ProdOps workflows to improve reliability, reduce toil, and increase operational leverage. • Standardize best practices in incident management, release operations, and service delivery. • Promote agile and DevOps-aligned ways of working across operations and engineering partners.
Core Capabilities • Deep understanding of modern digital operations, including cloud-based platforms and distributed systems. • Expertise in incident management, SRE principles, observability, and AIOps tooling. • Strong ability to link business priorities to operational outcomes and value creation, including measurable financial impact. • Proven leadership of global, 24x7 teams and modern operating models. • Strong vendor/partner management skills, including SLA design, governance, and performance management. • Data-driven mindset with a focus on automation, continuous improvement, and continuous learning.
Career Experience • Senior leadership experience running global, distributed 24x7 production operations, NOC/SiteOps, SRE, and/or enterprise support functions for customer-facing digital platforms. • Demonstrated success evolving a reactive support model into a prevention-first, reliability-led operating model (e.g., improved availability, reduced MTTR, decreased incident volume/toil). • Hands-on leadership implementing AIOps, automation, and modern observability practices (monitoring, alerting, event correlation, predictive insights) to improve operational leverage. • Deep experience owning major incident management, problem management, post-incident reviews, and release/change readiness—driving measurable learning and systemic fixes. • Strong vendor/partner management background, including SLA/SLO design, governance routines, escalation management, and performance remediation across multiple suppliers. • Proven ownership of budgets and financial outcomes (cost-to-serve, run vs. change spend, productivity/efficiency benefits), including creating guardrails and reinvesting savings into transformation. • Track record of building KPI dashboards and operating rhythms that connect operational performance to business objectives, customer experience, and financial results. • Experience leading and developing managers, including talent reviews, succession planning, and upskilling teams in AI/automation and continuous learning practices. Leadership Summary A forward-thinking operations executive who transforms production support from a reactive function into a strategic, value-driven capability. This leader integrates AI, automation, and data to enhance reliability, accelerate resolution, strengthen vendor performance, and improve cost-to-serve—connecting day-to-day operations to business objectives, technology strategy, and measurable financial outcomes while developing high-performing global teams.
Ralph Lauren will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records in a manner consistent with the requirements of the law, including any applicable fair chance laws. Please note background checks will be evaluated individually.