Senior Manager - Infrastructure & Networks Operations

INSPIRE | EXHILARATE | DELIGHT

For over seven decades, Chalhoub Group has been a partner and creator of luxury experiences in the Middle East. In its pursuit to excel as a hybrid luxury retailer, the Group has curated a portfolio of over 10 owned brands and strengthened its distribution and marketing expertise for over 400 international names across luxury fashion, beauty, jewellery, watches, eyewear, and art de vivre categories.

Every step at Chalhoub Group is taken to build a future where luxury dreams become reality — bridging cultures and crafting memorable experiences for our consumers. Be it by constantly reinventing itself, committing to innovation, or embracing new technologies, the Group is shaping the future of luxury retail. It delivers seamless omnichannel experiences across more than 950 stores, online platforms, and mobile apps. Driving this innovation journey is The Greenhouse — the Group’s innovation hub, incubator, and accelerator for startups and emerging businesses, regionally and globally.

Chalhoub Group fosters a people-at-heart culture rooted in diversity, equity, and inclusion, and a workplace catalysed by forward thinking and future-proofing. Today, it brings together over 16,000 talented professionals across eight countries in the Middle East, with a presence in LATAM. Their collective efforts have earned the Group the Great Place to Work certification in several markets.

Sustainability is at the core of the Group’s strategy, guided by a clear commitment to people, partners, and the planet. Chalhoub Group is proud to be a member of the United Nations Global Compact, a signatory of the Women’s Empowerment Principles, and to have pledged to reach Net Zero by 2040.

What You'll Be Doing

Chalhoub Group is the leading luxury retail and fashion group in the Middle East and beyond, operating 800+ stores, warehouses and corporate offices across multiple countries.

We run a large hybrid IT estate across on-prem (warehouses/offices/edge sites) and Cloud (Microsoft Azure & AWS), supported by a managed services partner. We are also transforming our operating model toward software-driven IT operations, leveraging GitLab, Terraform, Datadog and FreshService ITSM to automate the full lifecycle of IT services.

We are seeking a high-impact Senior Manager - Infrastructure & Networks Operations to lead and enhance Chalhoub’s RUN operations across our distributed retail, warehouse and office footprint, and our hybrid cloud platforms.

This role is accountable for the availability, performance, security and operational stability of critical infrastructure and network services.

• Lead day to day operations through a managed services partner, ensuring delivery of agreed outcomes via robust vendor governance, clear roles and accountability, tight SLAs, and a programme of continuous improvement.

We are looking for a leader who remains deeply technical, able to dive into incidents, challenge technical root causes and drive permanent fixes, while building a strong team spirit and operational discipline across Chalhoub and Partners

In their endeavour to excellence, the fundamental values all our employees must possess are Commitment, Integrity, Empathy and Flexibility

What You’ll Need To Succeed

1) Operational Leadership & Service Ownership

• Own day-to-day RUN operations for Infrastructure & Networks services across stores, warehouses, offices and hybrid cloud environments.
• Ensure service delivery meets business expectations for availability, performance, stability and user experience, especially for retail-critical services.
• Establish a culture of operational excellence: clear ownership, strong incident discipline, and continuous improvement.
• Act as senior escalation point for complex incidents, high-severity problems, and operational risks.

2) Managed Service Leadership

• Lead and govern Infrastructure & Networks operations delivered by our 3rd party (20+ resources).
• Drive service outcomes through clear operational governance, KPIs, action plans, and proactive risk management.
• Challenge technical decisions, validate RCA quality, and ensure the right fixes are implemented (not workarounds).
• Build a “one team” mindset and ways of working across Chalhoub and our 3rd party.

3) Incident, Major Incident & Problem Management

• Lead operational lifecycle of Incident / Major Incident / Problem Management, ensuring fast recovery and high RCA quality.
• Reduce recurring incidents by enforcing permanent fixes, standardisation, automation and better monitoring.
• Own after-action reviews and ensure actions are delivered end-to-end.

4) Change, Release & ITSM Excellence (FreshService)

• Ensure robust Change Management and governance aligned to ITSM processes (FreshService).
• Improve change success rate by strengthening planning, testing, peer review and operational readiness.
• Ensure strong documentation, runbooks, and knowledge base practices.

5) Microsoft Infrastructure Operations (Must-have technical depth)

• Own operational excellence for Microsoft core services, including:

o Active Directory (authentication, replication, DNS/DHCP, GPO)

o Windows Server operations and troubleshooting

• Provide technical leadership during critical incidents and complex troubleshooting.
• Ensure operational standards for patching, lifecycle, access control and resilience.

6) Network Operations (Cisco)

• Oversee operational reliability of Chalhoub’s multi-country network estate:

o WAN/LAN/Wi-Fi connectivity across stores, warehouses and offices

o Cisco networking and security services

• Ensure strong monitoring, incident response, and operational controls for network stability.

7) Storage, Backup & Recovery (Commvault preferred)

• Ensure reliable operations of enterprise storage platforms (capacity, performance, resiliency, lifecycle).
• Own backup and recovery operations aligned to business needs (RPO/RTO).
• Drive backup maturity: restore testing, reporting, compliance and continuous improvement.
• Strong knowledge of enterprise backup tooling; Commvault experience is a strong advantage.

8) Automation, Observability & Modern Operations

• Drive transformation toward software-driven operations:

o Git-based ways of working (GitLab)

o Infrastructure-as-Code automation (Terraform)

o Observability and proactive monitoring (Datadog)

o ITSM integration and workflow automation (FreshService)

• Reduce manual work and operational risk through automation-first improvements.

9) After-Hours Escalation & On-Call

• Participate in (or lead) an on-call / after-hours escalation model to ensure business continuity.
• Ensure effective operational coverage, escalation paths, and clear ownership for out-of-hours incidents.

Skills & Experience:

Must Have

• 10+ years experience in Infrastructure and/or Networks operations in large enterprise environments (retail / multi-site strongly preferred).
• Proven experience leading RUN operations with managed services delivery models.
• Strong technical expertise in Microsoft technologies, including:

o Active Directory (must-have, deep troubleshooting capability)

o Windows Server (must-have)

• Solid experience in Cisco networking and enterprise networking fundamentals (target: CCNA–CCNP level knowledge; certification is a plus).
• Strong experience with Storage technologies and enterprise operations.
• Strong experience with Backup operations and restore processes (Commvault preferred).
• ITIL-aligned operations leadership: implement and run Incident, Problem, Change, Request, Release, and Service Level Management; maintain CMDB/configuration & asset controls; enforce SLAs/KPIs and continuous service improvement.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, including ability to operate under pressure.

Nice to Have

• Cisco certification (CCNA / CCNP) or equivalent.
• Experience with Azure and AWS operations in hybrid environments.
• Experience with GitLab, Terraform, Datadog, FreshService (or similar tools).
• Experience driving Infrastructure-as-Code / Network-as-Code operating models.
• ITIL foundations (pragmatic, outcome-driven application).

Impact & Success Measures

• Major incidents & recurring issues: reduce P1/P2 vs baseline; cut repeat-incident rate through strong RCA and permanent fixes.
• MTTR: improve restore time by severity; meet SLAs via clear runbooks, effective on‑call, and targeted automation.
• Availability & performance: increase uptime for business‑critical services; improve response/latency KPIs.
• Change quality: raise % of successful changes (no rollback); reduce failed/emergency changes.
• Incident backlog health: lower ageing and SLA breaches; maintain a clean, prioritised backlog.
• Automation: grow % of standard changes executed via controlled, repeatable workflows; reduce manual effort and errors.
• Backup & restore: increase backup success %; verify restore pass rate and meet RTO/RPO through routine testing.
• Service/vendor performance: improve SLA compliance %; maintain scorecards and timely escalation closure with clear accountability.
• Cost & efficiency: reduce run cost vs baseline; lower cost per incident/ticket.
• Stakeholder satisfaction: increase CSAT for incident resolution.
• Reporting & governance: consolidated dashboard; daily/weekly ops reviews; monthly SLA/scorecards; clear RACI and escalation paths.
• Continuous improvement: deliver CSI initiatives with measurable gains in MTTR, availability, quality, and cost.

What We Can Offer You

With us, you will turn your aspirations into reality. We will help shape your journey through enriching experiences, learning and development opportunities and exposure to different assignments within your role or through internal mobility. Our Group offers diverse career paths for those who are extraordinary, every day.

We recognise the value that you bring, and we strive to provide a competitive benefits package which includes health care, child education contribution, remote and flexible working policies as well as exclusive employee discounts.

We Invite All Applicants to Apply

It Takes Diversity Of Thought, Culture, Background, Differing Abilities and Perspectives to truly Inspire, Exhilarate and Delight our customers. At Chalhoub Group, we are committed to inclusion and diversity.

We welcome all applicants to apply and be part of our exciting future. We ensure equal opportunity for all our applicants without regard to gender, age, race, religion, national origin or disability status.