Head of Platform Operations

SUMMARY:
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POSITION INFO:

In order to be considered the following is required:

• 12+ years’ IT operations experience with at least 5 years in senior leadership roles
• Strong expertise across infrastructure (compute, network, storage, hybrid / cloud), PaaS platforms (Azure, AWS, GCP, Kubernetes, OpenShift) and application operations
• Proven track record in managing multi-cloud and hybrid enterprise environments
• Demonstrated experience in ITSM, AIOps, observability, and large-scale service delivery
• Knowledge of South African legal / regulatory frameworks and global best practices (POPIA, Cybercrimes Act, ISO 27001)
• Vendor / OEM management and contract execution experience
• Exceptional leadership, communication and client engagement skills
• SLA compliance across infrastructure, PaaS and application layers
• Mean time to detect (MTTD) and resolve (MTTR) incidents
• Service availability, reliability and performance improvements
• Customer satisfaction and value realization outcomes
• Cost optimization and resource utilization efficiency
• Team performance, skill maturity and retention
• Compliance audit success and risk mitigation effectiveness

Duties & Responsibilities:

Strategic & Operational Leadership:

• Define and execute platform operations strategy, covering infrastructure, PaaS and application operations
• Integrate operations across compute, storage, networking, PaaS layers and business-critical applications
• Represent Platform Operations in Service Management Centre (SMC) and across horizontal and vertical forums
• Align platform and application operations to strategic imperatives: growth, customer centricity, innovation, compliance and operational excellence

Infrastructure & Platform Operations:

• Oversee all infrastructure operations (on-premises, hybrid, and cloud: Azure, AWS, GCP)
• Ensure uptime, scalability, and performance of infrastructure services
• Govern PaaS operations: container orchestration (Kubernetes, Docker, OpenShift), middleware, and integration platforms
• Establish resilient DR, BCP, and capacity management across infrastructure and platform layers
• Drive automation, observability, and AIOps-led monitoring across infrastructure and PaaS services

Application Operations:

• Lead end-to-end application operations (AppOps), including deployment, lifecycle management, monitoring and performance optimization.
• Govern incident, problem, and change management for critical applications, ensuring minimal downtime
• Partner with development and DevOps teams for CI/CD pipelines, release management, and security compliance
• Drive business application adoption, value realization and performance improvements for clients

Governance, Compliance & Risk:

• Establish policies, standards, and work instructions covering infrastructure, platform, and application operations
• Ensure compliance with South African legislation (POPIA, PFMA, FSCA/PA, Cybercrimes Act) and international standards (ISO 27001, ITIL 4)
• Govern data sovereignty requirements (e.g. SAPS data remaining within South Africa)
• Manage risk and issue registers, with proactive mitigation and escalation processes

Stakeholder & Client Engagement:

• Serve as the senior operational leader for infrastructure, platform, and application matters across clients
• Support client executives in value realization forums, operational reviews and executive governance sessions
• Manage escalations with OEMs and partners (ScienceLogic, Motadata, Seceon, CorrServe, Resolve)
• Demonstrate measurable value outcomes (cost savings, performance improvements, SLA compliance) in client engagements

People & Performance Leadership:

• Lead, mentor, and manage cross-functional teams (infrastructure engineers, platform specialists, application support teams, operations managers)
• Define clear RASCI matrices, balanced scorecards, and KPIs for each role under Platform Operations
• Foster a high-performance culture, embedding ethics and workforce framework across remote and onsite teams
• Ensure continuous learning, certification, and professional development

Innovation & Continuous Improvement:

• Drive maturity through Foundation, Crawl, Walk, Run model
• Advance automation, self-healing, and autonomous IT practices
• Introduce and operationalize new service capabilities: CMDBaaS, Observability-as-a-Service, AIOps-as-a-Service, and Autonomous IT-as-a-Service
• Ensure cost efficiency, workload optimization, and continuous service improvements

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