Job Summary
The Operations Senior Manager leads and drives the delivery of IT service and infrastructure for Elementis. Role is responsible for breadth of IT operations and services across Elementis’ international operations that include the US, UK, EU, Brazil, Taiwan and China. The role is responsible for strategic vision and roadmap planning of IT operations so they are maintained and developing in line with Elementis business strategy.
Job Description
Position in Organization
Reports to IT Director
Direct Reports: This role has 8 direct reports based across Europe, Asia and Americas.
Department: IT Operations
Responsibilities
The Operations Senior Manager is responsible for overseeing the Elementis network, server infrastructure and IT systems. This role entails ensuring their security, performance and maintenance, as well as delivering IT services to all internal users.
1. Leadership
You lead, coordinate and supervise the work of IT operations team providing them with guidance, feedback, and training and fostering a culture of collaboration and teamwork.
2. IT operations vision and policies
You develop and maintain IT service and practices to manage, control and secure the IT operations.
You develop roadmap plans for maintenance, enhancement, optimisation and take-on of new business systems. This aligns IT operations with current and future business requirements and goals.
You evaluate risks and mitigations and develop resilience, recovery, backup and disaster recovery processes and plans.
3. Operational direction
You supervise daily operations of networks and infrastructure. You assess system performance and recommend, justify and implement improvements including managing installations, upgrades and configurations of hardware and software.
You implement the security of the entire IT environment from network, data and storage and communication systems to end user devices and manage system security operations.
You manage relevant IT budgets, forecasting and ensure cost-effectiveness is maintained.
A short-term priority is to establish the new Elementis Support & Technology Hub in Porto, which includes the fit-out of the facility, provision of devices, computers, network infrastructure, storage, and communication services. Following this setup, the focus shifts to monitoring IT service quality, security, and performance, ensuring the Hub is fully operational and ready to support new starters.
You lead and participate in other IT and Elementis projects as needed to deliver the business goals.
4. Managing external services and parties
You assess and purchase new and replacement services, hardware, services and licenses.
You optimise and manage contracts with vendors, service providers and software licenses.
You oversee service level agreements, key performance indicators, and metrics to ensure that service partners adhere to their contractual obligations.
5. User service management
You ensure that the IT service provided by your team to Elementis users is to the agreed standard.
You establish and monitor internal service level agreements, key performance indicators and metrics to measure and manage the performance and quality of IT services.
You identify and resolve issues or problems that may affect the delivery or quality of IT services, such as troubleshooting, support, maintenance, or security incidents. You act as Incident manager in the event of service interruptions and threat incidents.
6. Best practice and compliance:
You ensure that IT activities are within the limits of good practice and applicable regulations.
You keep up to date with the latest IT trends, developments, and best practices.
You ensure data is handled, transferred, or processed according to secure, legal and company guidelines.
Decision making
The role is the Elementis authority on IT operations and the primary decision-maker on operational strategy, operating model and practice.
This role has autonomy to manage the budget allocated to IT operations, including approving POs.
This role also selects and procures the IT services, devices, infrastructure hardware, software and licenses.
What will it take
Job Competencies
User-orientated: building strong relationships and delivering user-centric solutions is critical to providing an IT service that meets agreed standards and user expectations.
Effective communication with stakeholders, including senior management, vendors, and users, using both written and verbal approaches is crucial in all aspects of this role, especially within a global organization.
Planning, prioritizing and aligning IT operational activity and projects with the goals of Elementis is key to optimizing resources to deliver business needs. In this regards, strong organizational skills are essential.
Optimizes work processes: knowing the most effective and efficient workflow for getting things done is key to making the most of tight resources; with a focus on continuous improvement.
Consistently focusing on driving results holding oneself accountable for the IT service and team performance. Strong problem-solving aptitude is critical to address the daily situations that an IT service encounters.
Building effective teams: This role will have to bring together service analysts and technical managers located globally to effectively operate as one team and meet Elementis’s needs
Technical Knowledge and Skills
Principal competence is technical expertise of infrastructure, operations and service management.
Project management is a key competence for an IT role to ensure activity and projects are delivered on time and on budget, and stakeholder expectations are managed.
Experience with IT system installation, configuration and analysis.
Knowledge of security and data protection operations and legislation (e.g. GDPR).
Position Requirements
Education: Computer science, Information Systems or similar degree / professional qualification would be an advantage.
Experience: 10+ Years of experience in an IT Operations Manager role or similar managerial role with demonstrable experience on IT service and infrastructure.
IT Skills: Excellence in infrastructure, operations and service management.
Language Skills: Verbal and written fluency in English.
Working arrangements: Minimum 3 days a week in the office
Traveling required: Occasional travel to other Elementis sites as required.