IT Director

Cheil USA / Corporate Services / Information Technology

IT Director

Plano, Texas

About us

We are Built to Connect.

At Cheil Worldwide, we create connected experiences that move people with work that's bold enough to stand out, clear enough to be understood, and enduring enough to be remembered. Born from technology and built from one of the world's largest tech ecosystems, we move with innovation, not after it.

Cheil USA serves as the lead agency for Samsung. And while Samsung remains a key partner, our work extends across a growing portfolio of globally recognized brands. Powered by a team of 200+ creative problem-solvers, we thrive on pushing boundaries and redefining how brands engage with people.

We are looking for people who chase the Never Been Done Before. Curious thinkers. Driven doers. People who want to create Connected experiences that matter.

We're a platform-agnostic team of over 200 specialists. From engineer-storytellers and creative specialists to data-designers, our hybrid talents turn emerging technologies into tangible stories that bring us closer to the future (What's Next?), relentlessly exploring new ways brands can connect with the audiences that matter most to them.

About the Role

We are a high-performance creative agency operating at the intersection of digital innovation and physical experience. As our creative output scales into complex physical-digital hybrid experiences and AI-driven territory, our foundational infrastructure must evolve to match it.

We are seeking an IT Director to take ownership of the "Business of IT", securing the network, optimizing the budget, and leading the team that keeps the agency running. You are part Fixer (stabilizing infrastructure), part Fortifier (locking down security), and part Scaler (building processes for growth). Your mission is to migrate our services to local control and establish a Service-First culture that empowers our employees to work effortlessly without compromising security.

The 90-Day Mission

We value clear targets. In your first quarter, success looks like:

• Service Unification: Collaborate with the Software Engineering Team to implement a unified ticketing system and a standardized SLA framework for corporate service requests.
• Budget Audit: Complete a forensic audit of all hardware/software spending to identify immediate opportunities for optimizations.
• Local Control: Plan a roadmap to migrate critical services from legacy/external dependencies to fully managed local control.

Key Responsibilities

1. Operational Leadership & Strategy

• Manage the IT P&L. Audit vendor contracts, negotiate renewals, and aggressively optimize spend without degrading performance.
• Oversee on-premise and cloud infrastructure for a 200-person office, managing a hybrid environment (50% Mac / 50% Windows).
• Lead and develop our IT Technicians to be proactive support specialists. Ensure seamless and efficient support for delivery teams to ensure agency work proceeds without any major obstacles.
• Create automated solutions for common manual workloads to boost productivity among internal teams for tooling, provisioning, and service implementation.
• Oversee internal IT-based projects for AV in conference rooms, air-gapped internal networking, and other related systems.

2. Governance, Security & AI Policy

• Enforce the agency's security and compliance policies for Generative AI. Implement network-level blocking for prohibited tools and manage the provisioning of approved Enterprise AI seats.
• Maintain 100% local endpoint compliance (patching, EDR, encryption).
• Implement security without breaking the workflow of agency delivery teams, ensuring that the complexity of our systems is handled on the backend, allowing for seamless access for billable staff. Your goal is to find the 'Yes, and...' solution to security blockers.

3. Vendor & Asset Management

• Streamline the purchasing lifecycle for assigned workstations and high-performance hardware (Render stations, VR rigs, Mac Studios).
• Serve as the primary point of contact for ISPs, software vendors, and IT-related contractors. Hold them accountable to their SLAs.

Required Qualifications & Skills

• 10+ years in IT Operations, with at least 3 years in a leadership role (Manager, Director, Head of IT).
• Deep technical expertise in managing both macOS (Jamf/Kandji) and Windows (Intune/SCCM) environments at scale.
• Proven experience managing on-premise server rooms, complex networking (VLANs, Firewalls, VPNs), and storage solutions (NAS/SAN) for creative workflows.
• Experience implementing security frameworks (SOC2 readiness, ISO 27001), enforcing software governance policies, and overseeing penetration testing.
• Must be able to work in-office at the Plano, Texas location.

Nice-to-Haves

• Agency Experience: You understand that agency work is fast-paced. You know how to support many unique needs across a roster of cross-functional stakeholders with empathy.
• Migration Experience: You have successfully led a project to repatriate services from an MSP or central corporate IT back to local in-house management.

What You'll Get

• Autonomy:

• You are not just following a corporate playbook. You are writing the operating manual for our region.

• Impact:

• You are the Shield that protects our IP. Your work directly enables our 'Experience Engineering' teams to build world-class projects safely.

• Culture:

• We are a fun group of passionate artisans. We work hard, we respect the craft, and we value smart solutions over bureaucratic hurdles.