Overview

One of our clients, an International Bank with operations in 5 African countries is looking for a Head of IT to join the group in Zambia.

Technology Leadership and People Management 25%

• Provide continuous people development and mentoring activities to managers and team professionals to achieve excellent business results. Teams include group technology experts, project managers, transformation / change managers, business analysts, process managers, project assurance officers, systems managers, and information analysts.
• Implement the country’s Technology targets operating model in-country.
• Action and drive the people management strategy with the HR team with a focus on talent management, recruitment attraction, resourcing, development, and retention. Communicate the strategy to managers in the country.
• Ensure the development of a high-performing team through embedding formal performance development (PD) and informal strengths-based coaching.
• Coach the management team on how to conduct meaningful PD discussions with their direct reports and ensure that they conduct the process effectively.
• Approve training and development needs for the IT teams. Ensure that identified training is budgeted and executed.
• Monitor and maintain a succession plan for key roles and the management team in the country using the formal Talent Management process for identified talent and approve succession plans for remaining roles.

• Review the outcome of the Talent Review (Career Discussions) process and review effectiveness of the formal Talent Management process.
• Action support from the HR team to interview and recruit direct reports and provide support to them during the recruitment of their teams on request.
• Create effective workforce plans and recruitment demand plans for the department and determine which projects should be managed by team members and which ones should be contracted out.
• Approve leave requests for direct reports and ensure that they manage the leave planning for their teams effectively.
• Act as highest escalation point for all grievances raised in Information Technology for the country.
• Ensure that all poor performance is addressed through the Performance Development Process and that continued poor performance is adequately dealt with. Review programme reports to determine effectiveness of interventions.
• Ensure employees in the country are motivated and their efforts are recognised and rewarded.
• Monitor conflict resolution between in country and regional teams.

Technology delivery management 25%

• Review and understand the country strategies and medium-term plans (MTP) and ensure that new proposals for projects or initiatives are aligned to the elements before approving the proposals.
• Review assessment of future needs for internal clients (though review of their MTP, strategy documents, regular interaction with business units), identify and define additional country projects in support of the overall business goals.
• Prioritise the change portfolio, by reviewing all new business cases against the country strategic priorities and negotiating with other HOD’s in country to finalise the priority lists.
• Oversee the execution of all projects, programmes and initiatives managed by the business and ensure that all key milestones are reported, and risk rated, and that outstanding issues or target dates exceeded are appropriately dealt with and escalated to project sponsors as maybe required.
• Liaise with executives to support key programmes by communicating project intent and obtaining buy-in and resource allocation for delivery of the key components.
• Resolve high-level issues within the Country through providing mitigative actions and driving the implementation of these actions.
• Ensure, for all new project and system change requests, that a thorough risk assessment is conducted to determine the interdependencies between projects and the impact proposed changes may have on seemingly unrelated processes and systems. Review recommendations prepared by the team on how to address these and determine whether the risk and mitigation is adequate, or the change should be altered or declined.
• Monitor and prioritise the demand pipeline received from country into the Group: balancing the change requirements from business with stability and requirements from Group.
• Plan the resolution of technology issues through coordination with the Group Head of IT, Regional teams and in-country stakeholders and investigate relevant systems, processes, and procedure improvements.
• Ensure quick response to Group IT requests to acquire designs, cost estimates, quotes and contribute to the business case preparation to access the funds required to enable the country initiatives
• Align business and technology strategy for the country to drive the implementation of requirements stipulated in the strategy and business needs through facilitating collaborative sessions between business and technology
• Action and deliver country technology architecture in alignment with enterprise architecture and standards
• Manage key Technology projects as set out by Group IT project management methodology to drive business progress and performance and to determine business requirements
• Plan knowledge sharing through engagement with key global stakeholders and alignment of programmes.
• Ensure high standards of Technology services are delivered by managing and monitoring the Technology Service Level Agreement (SLA), interact with Procurement to acquire quality contracts with third party vendors to support the design and development of products to delivery of high level of service to the business.
• Understand over all business dynamics, to provide optimal delivery across the business and utilise shared services centre. Ensure that the successful end-to-end delivery of technology change within the country through effective service delivery and sector project delivery.

Business and cost management 20%

• Coordinate the efforts of the different teams to ensure minimal duplication of efforts, maximum efficiency and to maximise value for money.
• Approve re-allocation of resources between different areas e.g., allocate headcount or budgets within overall approved resources for the year.
• Contribute to the development of strategy for the next 2-3 years by providing a view on potential improvements for products or services and an assessment of the existing situation and anticipated changes in the external environment.
• Monitor departmental budgets including signing off, of invoices and quotations within mandate. Escalate out of budget items to the Managing Director for approval.
• Monitor, manage and record country change budget spend within budget.
• Investigate effectiveness of processes and systems in use and make alterations where required while ensuring adherence to global governance requirements.
• Monitor and benchmark productivity of country against other business units and local competitor banks and create measures to improve productivity.
• Agree and manage service offerings and Service Level Agreements in conjunction with internal customers (agree annually and measure monthly).
• Plan the Technology resource requirements for the country (including people, Capex, Opex, systems and Strategic Investment), negotiate and secure its allocation to the business unit and ensure delivery based on the promised business results.
• Translate the business strategy into meaningful operational targets and strategic focus areas for the country and ensure that the focus areas are disseminated in country.
• Action integration of internal supply chain for the business unit. Work with other HOD’s in the respective areas to improve service delivery for the business unit and ensure maximum utilisation of shared services

Systems and Process Management 15%

• Manage end-to-end ownership, to ensure that all technology requirements are met for day-to-day systems use, performance and maintenance, enhancements and change projects with adequate service level agreements in place for Country and the Shared Services centre.
• Programme and manage the implementation of major systems including contracting with internal and external providers.
• Ensure that the team produces quality documents required for systems enhancements including Business Requirement Definition (BRD), Business System Specification inputs and, User Acceptance Test plans ad reports and all other change governance documentation required.
• Ensure that all policies, procedures, standards, and governance for the country are adequately documented and published according to the Group standards by assigning responsibility within the team and having coaching sessions with team members to help them understand the requirements.
• Ensure the services escalation framework is developed and maintained for the country It Team.

Governance, Control and Risk management 15%

• Action and drive a culture of proactive compliance in the function.
• Conduct root cause analysis, design and implement mitigation plans to ensure the bank is prepared for future disruption in production.
• Ensure the development of programme update reports according to the frequencies determined by the key stakeholders for each programme. Review reports prepared for key initiatives and write the executive summaries for those programmes based on the key risks, issues, and milestones and present these to Exco.
• Review project risk logs to identify high impact high probability items and work with the Country Risk and Compliance teams to ensure that adequate risk mitigation and risk acceptance takes place.
• Ensure that the team maintains an adequate log of programme activities and report items to Group IT and Exco where required.
• Ensure compliance of all programmes, projects, and initiatives in the country with programme governance standards (policies, procedures, methods, templates, reporting standards, version control etc.) by reviewing samples of programme files prepared in the team on an ad hoc basis. Ensure regular communication of governance requirements to members of the Projects and Transformation team.
• Ensure adequate reporting mechanisms are in place to track if the benefits defined in Business Cases are realised.
• Ensure that all issues with benefits realisation are escalated to the project sponsors and advise them on how to update business cases to reflect new realities or if programmes need to be stopped due to changed circumstances.
• Ensure quality of project delivery, through conducting occasional formal audits on project documentation and reviewing the project assurance reports prepared in the team.
• Take full accountability for the resolution of issues raised in Management Assurance and the Bank’s Internal Audit reviews and ensure that a culture of zero tolerance for audit failures is embedded in the department.
• Ensure solutions are delivered and implemented according to original design, allowing for tactical changes according to longer term strategic plans that comply with the banks policies
• Review technology and information architecture artefacts within the context of the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC).
• Act as a key contributor for the area’s Risk Management Control Framework.
• Review audit scopes issues/findings logs defined by managers in the team and the Bank’s Internal Audit or Management
• Assurance prior to audits commencing to ensure adequate attention given to closure within the agreed timelines
• Approve required compliance attestations and ensure that impacted team members complete their attestations.
• Review and approve Control Self Assessments (CSA) and Risk and Control Assessments (RCA’s) prepared in the function. Complete attestations to testify to the adequacy of controls on request.
• Review the Business Continuity Management (BCM) plan prepared for all processes for adequacy. Ensure required tests of the plan are executed and that all test failures are addressed.
• Oversee the development of Key Technology Risk framework. Actively work to minimise the amount of economic capital that must be set aside for operational risk.
• Action, drive and implement Disaster Recovery (DR) for all aspects to ensure ongoing production and quick turnaround times in cases where there are system down times e.g., Severity 1 and Severity 2 etc.

Knowledge and Skills

• Leadership capability
• Change management
• Project management
• Financial management
• Risk management
• Commercial awareness
• Business consulting acumen and management

Education & Experience

• A Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer science, Information science, Management Information Systems, or related fields.
• Master’s degree or MBA will be an added advantage
• At least 10 years post qualifying experience in Management of ICT Systems and Administration at senior management or operational level, including a minimum of 3 years with a strategic responsibility.
• Strong interpersonal and influencing skills.
• Project management skills
• Planning, Governance processes and reporting
• Proven ability to interpret strategy and execute effectively
• Proven experience in managing and delivering on a complex business project Portfolio

Technical competencies

• Deciding and initiating action
• Persuading and influencing
• Leading and supervising
• Creating and innovating
• Relating and networking
• Formulating strategies and concepts
• Applying expertise and technology
• Entrepreneurial and commercial thinking