Head of IT Governance - Permanent – Bahrain – Job Ref: 26025

Job Title: Head of IT Governance

Salary : 4-5k BD a month

Sector: Banking

Role Type: Permanent

Location: Bahrain

Job Ref: 26025

Please note: You must be a Bahraini national to be eligible for this role.

Role Statement & Purpose:

• Head – IT Ops Governance and Control will streamline and harmonize all processes and control measures across the technology landscape, ensure alignment with overarching business objectives, promote a cohesive approach across units with IT to ensure tight control, yet allow for agile delivery, in the most effective and efficient manner.
• The role will ensure prioritization of tasks, compliance to standards and policies, define and disseminate service level agreements within Business Units at each entity and across entities for shared services and uniformity of process, procedures, and control measures.
• The role will undertake the budgeting, project tracking for the technology deliverables and Operational expense control and monitoring including entity recharges and agreements on the specific contracts and share of each entity.
• The role will closely work with Finance, Strategy, and PMO to ensure alignment and reporting consistency and information updates.

Objectives:

• Functional Governance Framework which is aligned with the Group.
• Documented Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with Business Units, subsidiaries and Group.
• Functional Organization Structure with clear segregation of duties and no single points of failure
• Published Governance Processes and Procedures in alignment with the Organizational policies and industry best practices.
• Annual Technology Budgets (CAPEX and OPEX).
• Published “Key Performance Indicators”

Responsibilities:

• Implement local control in line with group polices.
• Ensure license compliance in line with group enterprise agreement. Share license utilization with Group
• Coordinate and support the group in tracking the group and local SLA’s and provide periodical reports for adherence and non-compliance.
• Keep the Group updated on major incidents faced at the subsidiary level and impacts the Technology services.
• Establish the Governance Framework and align with the Group establishing local controls (like CAB) in line with Group policies
• Establish the Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with Business Units, subsidiaries and Group. Once agreed and established, ensure regular monitoring and adjustments are done to optimize the services and SLAs
• Functional Organization Structure with clear segregation of duties and no single points of failure.
• Published Governance Processes and Procedures in alignment with the Organizational policies and industry best practices.
• Annual Technology Budgets (CAPEX and OPEX).
• Published “Key Performance Indicators”.
• Annual review and adjustment of organization structure covering roles and responsibilities to adapt the evolving landscape, organization strategic initiatives, directions and Group alignment.
• Establish and regularly update Governance Processes and Procedures in alignment with the published policies, industry best practices and Group guidance.
• Define, Manage, Maintain, Track and Report the technology budgets and expenses ensuring all expenses are complaint with the Expense Policy and payments are cleared within the terms as the agreements.
• Define, Review, Track, and Report on the “Key Performance Indicators”.
• Conducting regular “Operational Risk Self Assessments”. Track, Review, and take corrective actions for all recorded IT Risks.
• Prepare and review IT resource capacity plans and take necessary actions to ensure the capacity is aligned with the IT workload covering both “Business as Usual” and “Projects”.
• Manage vendor relationships and contracts ensuring regular reviews and assessments as per the Policies are completed including timely notifications for contract expiries and terminations.
• Manage and Track asset inventory to ensure effective utilization of assets avoiding duplicate functionality by aligning with Architecture business objectives.
• Keep the Group updated on major incidents faced and impacts on the Technology services.

Minimum education level/discipline:

• A bachelor’s degree in information technology, Computer Science, or a related field.
• Experience with ISO 27001 Certification or PCI-DSS Certification.

Required experience in terms of region/industry/business/function/role:

Requires a seasoned professional with a comprehensive background in the banking or financial services industry, adept in managing IT applications, development, infrastructure, and operations within the GCC region (preferred) and international one is accepted in a well reputed company and experienced in senior roles overseeing information technology architecture.

Required System Access:

• Core Banking Systems : Read-only access for audit log reviews.
• Incident Response Systems : Read Only Access to platforms for coordinating incident response and disaster recovery.
• GRC Tools : Read-only access to manage governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) processes.
• Procurement System : Reviewer and Approver role to review budgets and approve requests (PO, Invoices) including the Dashboards related to expenses, orders, and payments.
• OSR Management System : Reviewer and Approver role review and approve the OSR onboarding and renewal requests.