Director, Professional Services, U.S. Public Sector

Director, Professional Services, U.S. Public Sector (NGFW/SASE)This position requires an active U.S. Government DoD Top Secret security clearance (or higher). Your Career As the Director, Consulting Services for the US Public Sector, you will be the leader responsible for NGFW/SASE Consulting for the US Public Sector, including full-time employees and/or assigned personnel. You will be responsible for driving leadership over the professional services business and providing strategic and operational oversight to the Senior Managers and regional delivery leaders who report to this role. You will be instrumental in defining the operating model and organizational structure necessary to scale technical services delivery across key U.S. Federal, State, and Local accounts. This role is highly integrated with the Service Sales, Product Sales, and other Support teams, focusing on building strong, trusted customer relationships and ensuring successful outcomes.Your Impact Set the strategic vision and direction for all post-sales technical service delivery in the US Public Sector, ensuring consistent and high-quality execution for Palo Alto Networks' NetSec Products. Act as the single point of accountability for technical services, interfacing with GCS, Sales, Product, Engineering, and Partner teams to ensure alignment and delivery of business outcomes. Serve as the Executive Sponsor for strategic US Public Sector accounts, engaging with executive-level customer stakeholders (e.g., CIOs, CISOs) to provide value reviews and resolve high-stakes escalated issues. Build and develop a high-performing team of technical professionals through hiring the best talent in the industry, mentoring/coaching, and performance management in line with the defined capability requirements for the team. Drive and achieve the following business and operational objectives:Maintain consistently high utilization of PS consultants through optimal planning and backlog management.Design and maintain the best resource mix across FTEs and contractors, maximizing quality and agility.Reduce Time to Value (TTV) by accelerating deployment and adoption timelines.Contribute to Service Sales Growth by enabling scalable, value-driven technical offerings.Achieve global target service margin ratios through delivery efficiency and cost control.Build and sustain strong, strategic relationships with subcontractors and delivery partners.Ensure high levels of customer satisfaction (CSAT) through proactive support and continuous improvement.Drive continuous improvement across the delivery of Netsec Professional Services and Customer Success Engineering, through the use of Automation and AI to drive efficiency, quality, and scale. Standardize and continuously optimize the NetSec operating rhythm and delivery practices to improve service health. Represent US Public Sector region at a global level, sharing customer insights, local challenges, and opportunities for regional impact. A significant portion of your impact is external: collaborating with the sales leadership team, product, portfolio, and support teams, where you will act as the Professional Services liaison to enable client success. You will build strong customer relationships and be the point of contact for successfully handling customer escalations to maintain high customer satisfaction.Your Experience 10+ years of experience in technical services, professional services, customer success, support or related functions within a high-growth SaaS/cloud enterprise environment. 5+ years of experience in a leadership role managing regional teams, including direct and matrixed reporting lines. Demonstrated success in managing performance against KPIs related to deployment, adoption, margin, utilization, and CSAT. Strong foundational understanding of Internet security concepts and products, with a demonstrated knowledge of NGFW and SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) architecture and its components. Demonstrated experience running a profitable Professional Services or Customer Success business, including achieving revenue/margin targets, managing backlog, health and optimizing project closure rates. Skilled in key business systems, including:Experience with Professional Services Automation (PSA) tools (e.g., Clarizen, Certina, Kantata) for tracking metrics like utilization, time-off, and backlog.Experience with Sales Management tools (e.g., Salesforce) for revenue forecasting and pipeline review.Experience with Business Intelligence (BI) tools (e.g., Tableau) for reporting on key operational metrics.Demonstrated ability to manage critical customer escalations effectively and ensure prompt resolution for high-profile clients. Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to clearly articulate complex technical knowledge to non-technical individuals and leadership. Undergraduate degree in a related field (CS, IS, EE, CE, IT, etc.) or commensurate experience. US Government DoD Active Top Secret Clearance or higher. Relevant industry certifications such as CISSP and/or PMP are highly desirable. Background in cybersecurity or enterprise IT preferred. Ability to travel up to 25%+ domestically to customer sites and internal business meetings.