Director, Business Planning & Central Operations

About the role

The Director of Business Planning & Central Operations is a newly created role within Lyft's Customer Care Operations organization. This leader will ensure the org is resourced and positioned for the future, and will own the functions that keep Customer Care financially disciplined and execution-ready.

Responsibilities

• Business Planning & Strategy

  • Partner with the Senior Director to drive H1 and H2 planning
  • Translate annual objectives into operational plans, investment decisions, and resource models
  • Lead the investment brief process: sizing opportunities, articulating trade-offs, and building the business cases that secure resourcing for strategic priorities
  • Drive capacity planning, scenario modeling, and long-range forecasting to ensure the internal and external workforce scales efficiently alongside platform growth and AI adoption
  • Define and operationalize OKRs across the portfolio, then build the rhythms and infrastructure — scorecards, business reviews, and performance dashboards — that hold teams accountable and give leadership clear visibility into progress and outcomes

• Growth & Integrations

  • Operational readiness for major product launches, external partnerships, and platform expansions — ensuring Customer Care is prepared from scoping through hypercare
  • Own the integration framework for new lines of business and strategic partnerships, including Lyft's expansion into autonomous vehicles and external mobility platforms
  • Serve as the connective tissue between Customer Care and Product, Engineering, Legal, and Communications on initiatives with significant customer support implications

• Vendor & Financial Operations

  • Own financial operations across the portfolio, partnering with Finance and Workforce Management to maintain cost discipline, model the impact of product changes and AI automation, and invest strategically in quality and transformation
  • Lead end-to-end management of Lyft's BPO vendor relationships — owning governance cadences, enterprise-level performance reviews, SLA enforcement, escalation management, and contract renewals, in close partnership with Procurement for new and renegotiated agreements

• People Leadership

  • Hire, develop, and retain high-performing teams
  • Create clarity of ownership across a function that sits at the intersection of finance, operations, and technology, where the decisions made show up directly in customer experience and cost structure

Requirements

• 10+ years in business strategy, operations, consulting, or investment banking, with at least 5 years in a senior leadership role owning complex operational or strategic functions
• Strong financial and analytical foundation — comfortable building capacity models, stress-testing business cases, and translating the output into a crisp leadership narrative
• Experience leading or supporting large-scale growth initiatives, integrations, or partnerships, ideally in a marketplace or platform business
• AI fluency — you understand how AI is reshaping operations and can lead through that transformation with confidence
• Exceptional cross-functional partner — you build trust with Finance, Product, Tech, and Operations and can drive alignment across a matrixed organization
• Clear, direct, and decisive — you make decisions with the information available, communicate them crisply, and adapt when new data arrives

Qualifications

• Experience in customer support or contact center operations is a plus, not a requirement
• MBA or equivalent advanced degree preferred; strong quantitative background required

Benefits

• Great medical, dental, and vision insurance options with additional programs available when enrolled
• Mental health benefits
• Family building benefits
• Child care and pet benefits
• 401(k) plan to help save for your future
• 12 observed holidays, salaried team members have discretionary paid time off, hourly team members have 15 days paid time off
• 18 weeks of paid parental leave
• Biological, adoptive, and foster parents are all eligible
• Subsidized commuter benefits
• Lifty Pink - Lyft team members get an exclusive opportunity to test new benefits of our Ridership Program

Pay

The expected base pay range for this position in the Nashville area is $157,440 - $196,800.

Schedule

This role will be in-office on a hybrid schedule following the establishment of a Lyft office in Nashville — Team Members will be expected to work in the office 3 days per week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Lyft considers working in the office at least 3 days per week to be an essential function of this hybrid role.