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San Jose, California, United States
Onsite
Group Director, Physical Security Operations
Location: San Jose, California
Reports to: Vice President, Global Security
Job Level: Group Director
About the Role
Cadence is seeking an accomplished and forward-leaning Group Director of Physical Security Operations to serve as the global operational leader for the company’s physical security program. Reporting to the Vice President, Global Security, this leader will translate enterprise strategy into consistent, risk-aligned execution across regions, sites, offices, laboratories, and high-security R&D environments.
The Group Director will lead the Regional Security Directors and the Senior Manager of the Global Security Operations Center (GSOC), creating a unified operating model across regional field operations and global monitoring, intelligence, escalation, and response. In addition to enterprise-wide leadership, this role will directly oversee physical security operations across the Americas.
This is a critical leadership position for a company operating at the forefront of semiconductor design, AI acceleration, and global R&D expansion.
Key Responsibilities
Global Operations Leadership & Governance
• Serve as the global operational leader for physical security and principal advisor to the Vice President, Global Security.
• Lead, align, and develop the Regional Security Directors and Senior Manager, GSOC, with clear accountability, decision rights, performance expectations, and succession planning.
• Establish a scalable global operating model, governance cadence, standards, metrics, and executive reporting across regional operations and the GSOC.
• Drive consistent implementation of global policies, standards, SOPs, and service levels while allowing appropriate adaptation to local law, risk, and culture.
Americas Operations
• Provide direct leadership and oversight for physical security operations across the Americas, including guarding, access control, CCTV, visitor management, incident response, executive support, event security, and life-safety coordination.
• Partner with business, HR, Legal, Workplace, IT, Facilities, Engineering, and Business Continuity leaders to identify risk and deliver practical mitigation strategies.
• Oversee regional threat, risk, and vulnerability assessments and ensure remediation plans are prioritized, funded, tracked, and closed.
GSOC, Incident & Crisis Leadership
• Ensure the GSOC serves as the central hub for global monitoring, intelligence, communications, escalation, incident coordination, and operational insight.
• Integrate regional operations with GSOC workflows to enable timely detection, disciplined escalation, rapid response, and consistent incident documentation.
• Serve as the senior operational leader for significant security incidents and establish effective escalation, communications, and after-action review processes.
Global Program Leadership & Modernization
• Define global frameworks, playbooks, minimum operating requirements, metrics, and reporting for physical security operations.
• Drive modernization of access control, CCTV, visitor management, GSOC platforms, analytics, automation, and systems integration using an AI-first mindset where appropriate.
• Promote open, scalable, and interoperable security architecture and convert operational data into enterprise risk visibility and executive decision support.
Cross-Functional, People & Vendor Leadership
• Advise executive and regional leadership on emerging threats, operational risk, incident outcomes, resource needs, and strategic mitigation plans.
• Build a globally connected leadership team and foster accountability, integrity, collaboration, inclusion, and operational excellence.
• Own workforce planning, budget development, investment prioritization, and global vendor governance in partnership with the Vice President, Global Security.
• Represent Global Security in major projects, sensitive business initiatives, and customer or compliance engagements involving physical security.
Qualifications
Required
• 15+ years of progressively responsible experience in corporate security, physical security operations, law enforcement, military, intelligence, or a related field, including significant leadership responsibility.
• Proven success leading multi-region or global physical security operations in a complex multinational organization.
• Demonstrated ability to lead senior security managers, regional directors, GSOC/SOC functions, and geographically dispersed teams.
• Strong command of incident management, crisis leadership, investigations, threat and risk assessment, and executive escalation.
• Expertise with modern access control, CCTV, visitor management, GSOC operations, analytics, and security systems integration.
• Ability to influence executives and cross-functional stakeholders, balance global consistency with regional requirements, and convert strategy into measurable execution.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills and sound judgment when handling sensitive, high-impact matters.
• Ability to travel domestically and internationally as required.
Preferred
• Experience in high-technology, semiconductor, intellectual-property-sensitive, R&D, laboratory, or advanced engineering environments.
• Professional certification such as CPP, PSP, CFE, CTM, or a comparable credential.
• Experience leading or transforming a GSOC, deploying global standards, or modernizing enterprise security technology.
• Working knowledge of relevant security, resilience, and compliance frameworks in a multinational environment.
Why This Role Matters
This role is the operational bridge between global security strategy and execution. It unifies regional leadership, Americas operations, and the GSOC into one accountable operating model, elevating the original regional mandate into an enterprise-wide leadership function that protects Cadence’s people, facilities, intellectual property, and business operations.
The annual salary range for California is $196,000 to $364,000. You may also be eligible to receive incentive compensation: bonus, equity, and benefits. Sales positions generally offer a competitive On Target Earnings (OTE) incentive compensation structure. Please note that the salary range is a guideline and compensation may vary based on factors such as qualifications, skill level, competencies and work location. Our benefits programs include: paid vacation and paid holidays, 401(k) plan with employer match, employee stock purchase plan, a variety of medical, dental and vision plan options, and more.