Senior Director of Risk Detection

About Auror

At Auror, we’re empowering the retail industry to tackle theft and Organised Retail Crime, a $150 Billion problem globally. It’s high volume crime that’s increasingly organised in nature and is putting people, retailers, and communities at risk every day.

Founded in New Zealand 12 years ago, we’re working with some of the best and largest retailers in the world across the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

Auror is connecting people and intelligence to reduce crime. We’re using technology for good. 

In partnership with our leading retail partners, we need people with the passion, determination, and innovation required to overcome one of the world's largest problems. If you’re looking to make a difference with and for the people dedicated to stopping crime, for good, then we want you on our team.

We're also embracing the potential of AI to supercharge our impact—whether that's enhancing the way we detect trends, support our customers, or improve internal workflows. As a company, we're committed to responsibly incorporating AI into how we work and what we build, and we encourage all Aurors to be curious about how AI can elevate their work, regardless of role or function.

The Role

Auror’s Risk Detection product is a critical driver of revenue growth and a key pillar in our strategy to deliver on our 50 in 5 mission - to reduce violent retail crime by 50% in five years. We know that this is an ambitious goal, but unless something changes, crime rates will only get worse, and our communities will suffer as a result. That’s why we’ve brought two game changing modules to market, and through integration with License Plate Recognition (LPR) and Facial Recognition (FR) technologies we know we can make a difference. 

Auror Subject Recognition (ASR) and Auror Vehicle Recognition (AVR) are world leading in their ability to drive real outcomes for our retail partners while taking a privacy-led approach to the use of LPR and FR technologies. We are looking for someone who is uncompromising in their belief that technology should be used for good, and who is driven by a desire to make the world a better place through the responsible use of technology.

As a new category in the market, ASR presents a massive opportunity for the right person to take real ownership and drive sustainable growth. As the Senior Director of Risk Detection, you will take full ownership of this product’s GTM strategy and execution, setting a clear strategic vision and building the systems, processes, and go-to-market engine needed to unlock its full potential. This is a senior, cross-functional leadership role at the intersection of advanced technology, operational excellence, and commercial execution.

You’ll thrive in this role if you can move seamlessly between high-level strategy and on-the-ground enablement, and if you’re just as comfortable navigating the hardware-software intersection as you are shaping commercial narratives, building scalable processes, and working directly with sales and customer success teams to drive adoption.

We have strong engagement and a real commitment across all the teams working to drive adoption and growth of ASR and AVR globally, but the distributed nature of the work creates challenges in maintaining alignment, momentum, and a long-term strategic lens. In this role you will strengthen central leadership by unifying strategy, technology, commercialisation, and scalable operationalisation, ensuring the product reaches its full potential and enabling teams to move faster and more confidently together.

Your mission: Create and execute a cohesive, scalable go-to-market motion for Risk Detection by uniting teams, accelerating adoption, and turning this product capability into Auror’s biggest revenue driver. 

Practically this will involve: 

• Strategic Leadership & Direction
• Define and execute a unified go-to-market (GTM) strategy for ASR and LPR that empowers our Sales and Account Management teams to sell and scale confidently.
• Drive the end-to-end strategic vision for Risk Detection, setting clear goals, priorities, and success measures.
• Build long-term systems, processes, and frameworks that make Risk Detection scalable across geographies and customer segments.
• Cross-Functional Alignment & Execution
• Lead and align key teams - Product, Trust and Safety, Deployment, Commercial, Marketing - to ensure tight coordination, clear accountability, and strong execution across the entire product lifecycle.
• Translate strategy into operational plans, ensuring day-to-day execution is smooth, predictable, and high-impact. 
• Deployment & Customer Success Enablement
• Ensure customers realise rapid time-to-value through efficient deployments and high-impact enablement.
• Oversee the success of pilots and rollouts by providing strong leadership to technical project leads and enablement teams, ensuring high-quality, predictable delivery.
• Build repeatable playbooks for rollout, configuration, troubleshooting, and scaling to drive consistency across regions and customer segments.
• Reduce time to pilot by designing and operationalising efficient, scalable deployment systems.
• GTM Enablement & Sales Partnership
• Partner closely with Sales leadership to support key opportunities, and accelerate upsell motions.
• Provide coaching and mentoring that builds deep subject matter expertise across customer-facing teams.
• Product Feedback & Positioning
• Serve as a critical bridge between the market and Product & Engineering, providing insights that influence roadmap, prioritisation, and product-market fit.
• Partner with Product Marketing and the Commercial team to guide product positioning and messaging, ensuring clarity, accuracy, and differentiation across regions.
• Technical Expertise & Advocacy
• Provide technical expertise and advocacy across software and hardware integrations, translating complex concepts for diverse audiences and guiding high-impact decisions. 
• Champion privacy-by-design by collaborating with internal experts to ensure ethical implementation and maintain customer trust.

You’ll be reporting to James Corbett, Co-founder & CTO

As a technical founder at Auror my role has evolved over time, initially leading the development of Auror’s crime intelligence platform, my focus now is on enabling Auror’s long term growth through product innovation and partnerships. The other focus I have is building out the technical support structures that will allow Auror to scale as we take on the global crime problem. I love what we are about here at Auror, and it makes me proud to be part of a high performing team that is building a platform that helps keep our communities safe. I love seeing those around doing amazing work and I'm always ready to roll up my sleeve to help people meet their potential. Outside of Auror you will find me wandering around the zoo with my three kids (ages 5, 3 and 1), and when it’s warmer, at the beach building giant sand castles.

Requirements

About you

• You bring strong commercial acumen, with experience launching complex products into new markets and shaping pricing, positioning, and commercial strategies across geographies.
• You have a strategic mindset, able to set a clear vision, prioritise ruthlessly, and align cross-functional teams around shared goals.
• You’re a strong operator who can turn strategy into actionable plans, run disciplined execution rhythms, and build scalable systems.
• You excel at cross-functional collaboration, effortlessly context-switching and tailoring communication for executives, engineers, and customer-facing teams.
• You bring strong technical expertise, with depth across software, hardware, and where the two intersect. You communicate complex concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• You’re an inspiring people leader who develops and motivates teams, including in matrixed or informal leadership structures.
• You have a proven ability to partner with GTM teams to support and accelerate enterprise sales, particularly with emerging or complex technologies.
• You thrive in ambiguous, fast-evolving environments, creating clarity and direction where none yet exists.

We are looking for people who demonstrate a strong alignment to our Guiding Principles (you can find these on our Careers page).

Auror is committed to providing an inclusive and accessible application process to all candidates and we are actively working to improve diversity within the tech industry. We celebrate diversity and inclusiveness at Auror, regardless of (but not limited to) race, gender, sexual orientation, family status, religion, ethnicity, national origin, physical disability, veteran status, or age.

If you need adjustments to any part of our recruitment process because of accessibility reasons, please do not hesitate to let us know during the application process. We will work with you to identify adjustments that will allow you to perform at your best.

Benefits

• Competitive salary range: Depending on level of experience, $175,000 - $210,000 (PL6)
• Annual bonus: Eligibility for a NZD $15,000 bonus at the end of the financial year if we’ve hit our revenue goals together.

• Employee share scheme: You’ll own part of a company making a real difference!
• Flexibility: We are hard-working and outcome focused, but recognise there is more to life than work. We promote a healthy work/life blend.
• Shorter work weeks (at full pay): Everyone gets Friday afternoons off, so you can start your weekend early, and do more of whatever it is that makes you happy.
• Focus on mental and physical health: We understand how vital our health is and have policies to support your wellness, including Wellness Days,  and up to $750 NZD for expert sessions every year.
• Health insurance: We prioritise looking after your health by covering 100% of your individual health insurance plan through nib health insurance. 
• Family-friendly: We offer comprehensive paid parental leave - 12 weeks for birth parents and 6 weeks for non-birth parents following birth, adoption, or surrogacy, available to all Aurors from day one.
• Personal growth: We support our team to participate in courses, conferences, or events that will help them develop their skills.
• Team love: We have regular team lunches and social events where most (if not all) activities are during work hours.

Next steps:

If you’re excited about our mission and you have the experience and a passion for this role, please hit “Apply”.

If you’re not sure that you tick all the boxes but feel you’re close to what we’re looking for, please apply anyway! We’re proud that Auror is a place where everyone can learn and grow so we’d love to hear from you.

You'll be asked to submit a cover letter as part of your application. While this is optional we do encourage it, as we find cover letters can tell a story that resumes alone often cannot. Our hiring team love to understand what attracted you to this role and why you are excited about the opportunity to join Auror.

Once you apply, you’ll hear from us to acknowledge your application. If you have questions about any of the above, or if you have any accessibility requirements, we’ll be able to help you from there.