At Lyft, our purpose is to serve and connect. We aim to achieve this by cultivating a work environment where all team members belong and have the opportunity to thrive.
Lyft's Safety & Customer Care (SCC) organization manages over 1.7 million monthly customer interactions and serves as Lyft's primary direct touchpoint with riders and drivers. The focus for Safety & Customer Care is making riders and drivers feel safe and comfortable while riding or driving with Lyft, ensuring they make it safely to their destination every time, and transforming every support interaction into a moment of genuine connection. From prevention to intervention and accountability, SCC ensures the Lyft community continues to be trusted and inclusive. The over 350 person organization has two core focus areas — Trust & Safety, and Customer Care — and is made up of talented individuals across Product, Engineering, Data Science, Analytics, Design, Research, and Operations.
The VP, Safety & Customer Care will report to the Head of LUS & SCC, Michael Brous, and be responsible for executing a strategic transformation that leverages AI to reimagine how technology and human expertise combine to deliver exceptional customer care and safety experiences at scale. We're looking for a customer-obsessed executive leader who can serve as Lyft's internal and external voice on safety and customer trust while driving execution across a complex, cross-functional organization. This role requires a unique combination of operational excellence, Trust & Safety depth, and technology transformation leadership — the ideal candidate understands what "great" looks like in safety, can shift fluidly from high-level strategy to root cause analysis with agents, and has the leadership presence to inspire and align teams across disciplines.
Lyft's idea candidate demonstrates our core competencies:
- Safety Expertise & Judgment: Deep understanding of Trust & Safety functions — from product & tech upstream upstream necessities to policy & operations downstream — with the ability to see how all pieces fit together across functions. Knows what "good" looks like and can hold teams accountable to that standard. Demonstrates a forward-thinking and analytical approach to tackling unsolved safety challenges and scaling solutions for broad deployment
- Strategic Vision & Execution: Ability to develop and implement long-term strategic vision that prioritizes customer-centricity, leveraging research, data science, design, and engineering expertise to craft and execute roadmaps focused on enhancing both digital and physical aspects of the customer experience
- Transformation Leadership: Proven ability to lead organizations through significant technology-driven change while maintaining operational excellence and team morale
- Executive Presence: Credible, commanding presence with the ability to represent Lyft on safety matters with regulators, media, and senior government officials. Serves as a trusted advisor to executive leadership
- Cross-Functional Influence: Exceptional interpersonal and communication skills with proven ability to inspire teams and stakeholders. Fosters cross-functional teamwork to drive development while avoiding siloed decision-making
- Customer Centricity: Starts with the customer, not the business. When constraints conflict with customer needs, innovates to solve for both. Maintains relentless commitment to delivering superior customer experiences
- Team Building & Operational Excellence: Manages, inspires, and develops high-caliber teams, providing mentorship and coaching. Creates processes that unlock operational excellence. Comfortable managing distributed teams and multiple priorities with flexibility and adaptability
Responsibilities:
Industry, Vision & Strategy
- Leverages deep and up-to-date industry expertise — across Customer Care, Trust & Safety, and AI tools and platforms — to continue driving a forward thinking SCC vision and strategy
- Engages as a thought leader on the industry, leveraging external relationships to inform partnership opportunities
Trust and Safety Leadership & External Presence
- Serve as Lyft's definitive voice on safety and customer trust with regulators, policymakers, media, and external stakeholders
- Operate as a trusted partner to the Lyft executives and the board on all matters of Safety & Customer Care, extending beyond just SCC and into other company priorities, such as autonomous vehicles
- Guide Lyft's Trust & Safety function, ensuring consistent preventive efforts, policy enforcement, platform integrity, and rapid response to safety incidents
Product Leadership & AI Transformation
- Demonstrate keen product sense to guide tech roadmaps that bring our ambitious vision to life
- Drive the evolution of SCC into an AI-native organization, scaling self-serve and agent AI while balancing high quality and efficient human touch that build customer loyalty
- Oversee platform modernization, including migration to modern systems and deprecation of legacy tools
Operational Leadership & P&L Ownership
- Own the SCC P&L, maintaining cost discipline while investing in quality and transformation
- Drive operational excellence across all customer touchpoints: chat, voice, email, and emerging channels
- Accountable to the delivery of key metrics across operations (i.e. SLAs, service quality), product & tech, and safety (i.e. incidents, deactivations)
Cross-Organizational Partnership
- Partner with stakeholders across the Lyft business – Legal, Communications, Policy and more – to drive upstream improvements that prevent customer issues
- Create the environment that ensures customer insights inform product development and company-wide decisions
- Shape SCC's role in expansions and strategic partnerships to ensure safety and support readiness from day one
Organization & Culture
- Lead and develop a high-performing, international organization of 350 full-time employees with BPO partnerships across the globe, spanning Operations, Trust & Safety, Product, and Technology
- Inspire a culture of customer obsession, accountability, and continuous improvement while attracting and retaining top talent for emerging needs
- Drive agent evolution from problem-solvers to relationship builders as AI handles increasingly complex routine work
Location & Travel
- Base location: San Francisco (preferred) or New York
- Travel expected to key operational sites and for regulatory/policy engagement
Experience:
- 15+ years of experience in customer operations, Trust & Safety, or related fields, with at least 5 years in senior executive roles
- Deep Trust & Safety expertise with demonstrated experience as a credible external spokesperson
- Proven track record leading large, complex organizations through technology-driven transformation
- Experience with AI/ML applications in customer service or trust & safety contexts
- Strong financial acumen with P&L ownership of substantial operations ($50M+)
- Experience managing global, distributed teams
- Experience with safety-critical operations where rapid incident response is essential
- Experience supporting new product launches, expansions or partnerships with significant safety or support implications
- Background in rideshare, mobility, marketplace, or platform businesses with two-sided trust dynamics, a plus
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 with company match to help save for your future
- In addition to 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
- Monthly Lyft credits and complimentary Lyft Pink membership
Lyft is an equal opportunity employer committed to an inclusive workplace that fosters belonging. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regards to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, age, genetic information, or any other basis prohibited by law. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories consistent with applicable federal, state and local law.
Lyft highly values having employees working in-office to foster a collaborative work environment and company culture. This role will be in-office on a hybrid schedule — 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. Your recruiter can share more information about the various in-office perks Lyft offers. Additionally, hybrid roles have the flexibility to work from anywhere for up to 4 weeks per year. #Hybrid
The expected base pay for this position in the San Francisco / New York City metro areas is $350,000. In addition to the base pay, this role is eligible for competitive equity awards, bonuses, and benefits. You can read more about Lyft’s employee benefits here. [https://www.lyft.com/careers/life-at-lyft]
Total compensation is dependent on a variety of factors, including qualifications, experience, and geographic location. Your recruiter can share more information about the salary range specific to your working location and other factors during the hiring process.