Service Delivery Head

Role: Service Delivery Head

Department: IT Infrastructure Managed Services

Location: Dubai

Reports To: Head of: Business / CEO

Employment Type: Full-Time, Permanent

Experience Required: 20+ Years

Travel Requirements: As required by business

The Service Delivery Head is a senior executive role responsible for the end-to-end ownership, governance, and growth of all Managed Services accounts within the IT Infrastructure business. This leader will serve as the primary custodian of service quality, customer satisfaction, and operational excellence across a broad portfolio of enterprise and mid-market clients. This role demands a hands-on, results-driven leader who combines deep technical expertise across infrastructure domains with exceptional people management and strategic customer relationship skills. The ideal candidate will have traversed the full spectrum of IT operations from the data center floor to the boardroom and will bring both the credibility and the gravitas to lead large, diverse delivery teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Service Delivery & Operations Management
  
  

■ Own and drive the end-to-end delivery of all Managed Services across the client portfolio, ensuring SLA/KPI adherence and continuous service improvement.

■ Provide executive oversight for 24x7 operations including NOC, Service Desk, End User Computing, Data Center, and Field Services.

■ Establish, monitor, and refine operational frameworks, escalation procedures, and incident/problem/change management processes aligned to ITIL best practices.

■ Drive regular service reviews with clients, presenting performance metrics, RCA reports, and roadmaps for improvement.

■ Champion automation, tooling, and process efficiency initiatives to reduce operational toil and improve delivery margins.

• Service Transition & Onboarding
  
  

■ Lead and govern the Service Transition function for new account onboarding and contract renewals, ensuring seamless handover from presales/solutioning to steady-state operations.

■ Define and own transition plans, RACI matrices, risk registers, and knowledge transfer frameworks.

■ Ensure all technical baselines, runbooks, and operational documentation are in place prior to go-live.

■ Conduct post-transition reviews and drive lessons-learned into repeatable delivery models.

• Customer Relationship Management
  
  

■ Act as the executive point of escalation and relationship owner for all Managed Services clients.

■ Build and sustain trusted advisor relationships with CIOs, IT Directors, and procurement stakeholders at client organizations.

■ Proactively identify upsell, cross-sell, and contract renewal opportunities in collaboration with the sales and presales teams.

■ Lead quarterly business reviews (QBRs), executive briefings, and customer satisfaction programs (CSAT/NPS).

■ Resolve critical escalations with ownership, empathy, and decisive action.

• People & Team Management
  
  

■ Lead, mentor, and develop a large multi-disciplinary delivery organization comprising Service Managers, Technical Leads, Engineers, and Support Staff.

■ Build a high-performance culture centered on accountability, customer centricity, and continuous learning.

■ Drive talent acquisition, succession planning, and retention strategies across the delivery function.

■ Set clear goals, conduct performance reviews, and manage career development plans for direct reports and extended teams.

■ Foster cross-functional collaboration between delivery, presales, engineering, and commercial Teams.

• Financial & Commercial Accountability
  
  

■ Own the P & L of the Managed Services delivery function, driving profitability without compromising quality.

■ Manage resource planning, capacity models, and cost optimization across shared delivery pools.

■ Partner with commercial teams on contract negotiations, pricing models, and deal structuring. ■ Track and report on delivery financials including revenue recognition, cost of delivery, and margin performance.

Experience Requirements

■ 20+ years of progressive experience in IT Infrastructure, with a significant portion in managed services or outsourcing environments.

■ Minimum 8–10 years in a senior leadership role managing large-scale service delivery organizations (200+ headcount preferred).

■ Proven track record of managing multi-client managed services portfolios with full P&L accountability.

■ Hands-on experience across datacenter, network, systems, cloud, and end-user domains — not purely managerial.

■ Demonstrated experience in Service Transition — successfully onboarding complex accounts from presales to steady state.

■ Experience managing geographically dispersed teams across onsite, nearshore, and offshore delivery models.

■ Exposure to global/regional enterprise accounts and experience navigating complex client stakeholder environments. ■ Strong familiarity with ITIL framework; ITIL v4 Foundation or Expert certification preferred.

■ Experience with relevant toolsets: ServiceNow, Splunk, SolarWinds, ManageEngine, SCOM, Ansible, or equivalent.

Qualifications & Certifications

Educational Background

■ Bachelor degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or related field (mandatory).

■ Masters degree / MBA is an advantage, particularly with a technology or operations management focus. Preferred Certifications

■ ITIL v4 Expert or Managing Professional

■ PMP (Project Management Professional) or PRINCE2

■ AWS / Azure / GCP — Architect or Operations level

■ VMware VCP or VCAP

■ Cisco CCNP / CCIE (advantageous)

■ ISO 20000 or ISO 27001 Lead Auditor/Implementer (advantageous)

TECHNICAL DOMAIN EXPERTISE REQUIRED: The candidate must possess deep, hands-on understanding across the following infrastructure Domains:

Domain: Data Center Operations; Key Areas: Physical infrastructure, power & cooling, colocation management, capacity planning, DCIM

Domain: Service Desk & ITSM; Key Areas: L1/L2/L3 support, ticketing platforms (ServiceNow, Remedy), ITIL processes, SLA governance

Domain: End User Computing (EUC); Key Areas: Desktop/laptop lifecycle, VDI/DaaS, O365/M365, Mobile Device Management (MDM), imaging

Domain: Network Operations Center (NOC) ; Key Areas: 24x7 monitoring, event management, network performance, SNMP/NMS tools, ITOM

Domain: Systems & Servers; Key Areas: Windows & Linux administration, Active Directory, patch management, server lifecycle

Domain: Networking; Key Areas: LAN/WAN/SD-WAN, routing & switching, firewalls, load balancers, network security

Domain: Storage & Backup; Key Areas: SAN/NAS, backup & recovery, replication, data lifecycle management

Domain: Virtualisation; Key Areas: VMware vSphere/vSAN, Hyper-V, VDI (Horizon, Citrix), containerisation (Docker/Kubernetes)

Domain: Cloud Platforms; Key Areas: AWS, Azure, GCP — cloud operations, hybrid cloud management, cloud cost governance, IaaS/PaaS

Domain: Shared Services Delivery ; Key Areas: Multi-client delivery models, shared NOC/SOC, resource pooling, white-label operations

LEADERSHIP & BEHAVIOURAL COMPETENCIES

■ Executive Presence: Ability to engage and influence C-suite stakeholders both internally and at client organizations.

■ Strategic Thinking: Balances operational demands with long-term service strategy and business growth goals.

■ Customer Obsession: Relentless focus on client satisfaction, retention, and experience.

■ People Leadership: Inspires, develops, and holds large teams accountable with fairness and clarity.

■ Decisive Problem Solver: Thrives under pressure; owns escalations and drives swift, effective resolution.

■ Commercial Acumen: Understands the commercial drivers of managed services; thinks in terms of value, margin, and growth.

■ Adaptability: Comfortable operating in fast-paced, evolving environments with changing client and business needs.

■ Collaborative: Works cross-functionally with sales, pre-sales, engineering, and finance to deliver integrated outcomes.

Skills: manageengine,scom,splunk,aws,itil,client management,solarwinds,servicenow,ansible,service transition,iso 20000

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