IT Operations and platforms Director

Business Purpose & Value Contribution 

This leadership role owns everything Graitec's people and customers rely on to work: the enterprise applications estate, the cloud and workplace infrastructure, and the global service experience. 

The role owns service quality, platform reliability, cost and delivery capability. You will be a senior partner to the business rather than a back office, building a lean, well-run, AI-enabled estate that scales with the business rather than with headcount. 

Value is measured in business terms: colleague productivity and experience, platform reliability and resilience, unit cost and operating leverage. 

Key Outcome expected 

What success looks like in the first 12 months 

• A global service desk with a customer service mindset, published service levels, a service catalogue, and self-service that people choose to use, with colleague CSAT and NPS measured and improving. 

• The Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations programme fully supported from the run side, with the operating and support model agreed before each go-live. 

• A consolidated cloud estate, and the joiner, mover and leaver lifecycle automated end to end.

• A single credible view of platform cost, licence position and vendor performance, with savings achieved.

• Teams organised, sized and led as one function, with single points of failure addressed.

• First wave of AI and automation live in operations, with a measured reduction in manual effort and ticket volume. 

• Strong resilience with backup and disaster recovery tested to an agreed schedule.

Responsibilities 

Enterprise Platforms 

• Own the lifecycle of Graitec's enterprise platforms: Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations and CRM, professional services automation, HR and payroll, and customer and web platforms. 

• Partner with Business Transformation so change lands cleanly into a supportable run state, and with Data & AI so platforms produce data the business can trust.

• Manage the platforms as products: named owners, adoption measured, and a roadmap prioritised on business value, under a clear operating model for release and technical debt.

Service Excellence 

• Build an ITIL-aligned global IT service experience around the user: responsive, measured and service-led.

• Publish service levels and a service catalogue, run incident, problem and change management through a modern ITSM tool, and provide self-service that reduces manual demand.

• Own the digital workplace: Microsoft 365, Copilot, endpoint management, and the joiner, mover and leaver lifecycle with HR and the Work Experience Partners. 

• Use adoption data and colleague feedback to remove the recurring causes of demand, not only to resolve the tickets.

AI & Automation in Operations 

• Set the agenda for AI and automation inside IT: assisted and automated resolution, self-healing operations, and AI in the digital workplace, so service quality improves as demand grows. 

• Partner with Data & AI to embed AI into platforms and workflows with measurable benefit, keeping the estate ready through clean identity, governed data and controlled access. 

• Track and report the effect: manual effort removed, time to resolve, and cost avoided. 

Cloud, Infrastructure & Resilience 

• Own the Azure landing zones, network, identity and integration platform, and remediation of legacy debt.

• Be accountable for availability, performance, backup, disaster recovery and operational resilience, with recovery objectives agreed with the business and tested to schedule.

• Drive automation and infrastructure as code so the estate scales without headcount scaling with it.

People & Leadership 

• Lead and develop a distributed team of platform, support and infrastructure managers, building capability, succession and a culture of ownership. 

• Lead adoption and change so new ways of working land with colleagues, not only new technology.

Vendor Management & Licensing 

• Own the platform and infrastructure cost base, the licence position and the vendor portfolio, negotiating the major relationships to outcomes rather than to renewal dates. 

• Bring transparency to unit cost and demonstrate the operating leverage as Graitec grows.

• Build the investment cases for major technology spend, stating benefits, risks and payback, and report on what was realised.

Security & M&A 

• Work in close partnership with Information Security so hardening, patching, access control and audit evidence are built into operations, supporting SOC 2, ISO 27001 and further accreditations.

• Deliver IT integration for acquisitions, from day one readiness to full absorption into a common architecture.

Skills & Experience 

• Senior leadership of IT operations and enterprise applications in an international business, with accountability for both run and change.

• Deep experience of the Microsoft enterprise stack: Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations and CRM, Microsoft 365, Azure, Entra ID and modern endpoint management.

• Track record of building high-satisfaction, feedback-driven, customer-first IT support.

• Experience supporting or running a major ERP modernisation, including the transition from programme to steady state.

• Proven cost, licence and vendor management at scale, and IT integration of acquisitions from day one readiness to full absorption.

• Evidence of using AI and automation to improve service and reduce cost at scale, not only in pilots.

• Comfortable at leadership team level: building investment cases, articulating cost, risk and benefit, and reporting what was realised.

• Calm and decisive under pressure, strong on incident management and escalation, and willing to be hands-on when it matters.

Also valued 

• ITIL v4, TOGAF or equivalent qualifications 

• PMP, PgMP or equivalent programme management qualifications 

• Experience of a distributed, multi-entity, multi-country estate 

• Experience of a growing, acquisitive or private equity backed business