Chief Information Officer at Vodafone Global Enterprise

Role purpose:

• To define, deliver and be accountable for the strategy, planning, design, development, delivery, quality and optimization of all IT Services & Products in the South African Market.
• Responsible for initiation, design and implementation of major transformation change projects within IT. To design, develop, integrate, deploy, and operate all IT-based business processes and IT applications.
• Formulate & implement IT strategy, to achieve Business Goals for better Productivity, business Flexibility & Cost Effectiveness and through close interaction with Business.
• Ensure Quality of IT Service Delivery by nurturing of relationships with Strategic Service partners (including Outsourcing) through SLAs, Transformation and Governance.  
• Liaison with Vodacom Group IT and Vodafone Global (VFG) teams for alignment with VFG policies and implementation of Global initiatives.
• Build IT capability through appropriate initiatives, including insourcing of key digital resources, aligned to Tech 2025 requirements.

SA IT scope covers : 

End-to-End IT Portfolio Management (CBU, VB, COPS, Corporate) :

• Application (DevSecOps)  - Developments, Enhancements & modifications, Support & Maintenance & Operations 
• Digital Platforms and Channels
• Big Data and Analytics
• RPA
• CVM
• Enterprise Infrastructure - Data Centre, Disaster Recovery, LAN / WAN / Connectivity & End-User-Services Infrastructure, Cloud Services
• Billing COE – Fraud, Risk and Billing Services
• Cross functional – Help Desk, Security & Quality, SOX compliances & Processes  
• Lean Portfolio Management
• Cyber Security
• Technology Assurance

Ensures availability, performance, and scalability of the whole IT landscape and keeping IT-operational demands and business requirements in balance with costs. 

Your responsibilities will include:

• Accountable for the definition of the target IT Architecture (in conjunction with Group IT Architecture) and its realisation in accordance with stakeholders in Business and IT. 
• Accountable for the design and delivery of IT-Solutions
• Contribute to and drive Vodacom overall IT strategy; including  implementation of Tech2025 (‘IT2025’)
• Design significant strategic initiatives, in particular for business synergies
• Drive the translation of business requirements into IT-specifications and the design of business processes and IT Solutions, ensure the development and maintenance of IT-based services and applications in the area of Business Support Systems in order to deliver IT-solutions at optimal cost, in quality and on time, considering the architectural targets
• Ensure efficient Agile delivery of initiatives (including Signature Programmes) as per the PI Demand process across IT including delivery of results within agreed quality, budget and time
• Achieve and maintain best benchmark results when benchmarking the performance of development and delivery against similar organisations across Vodacom Africa Region and Vodafone Group and other operators

Accountable for Acceptance, Integration, and Production Deployment

• Deployment of new or changed IT-Applications in acceptance test and (pre-) production environments using DevSecOps practices.
• Plan, perform and validate the software installation and migration of IT-Applications in acceptance, test and (pre-) production
• Minimize operational- and business impact
• Implement strong IT controls and ensure that we are SOX complaint. Evaluate, select and initiate implementation of Identify Management System

Accountable for the availability, performance, scalability and running cost of IT Systems, accountable for high quality of IT services according to Service Levels.
    

• Engage and drive Service Partnership with Partners to deliver superior products (Operational metrics and costs) and strategic improvement initiatives to benefit business.  
• Achieve Availability and MTTR targets per portfolio.
• Guide and supervise IT Operations’ strategic roadmap to ensure the availability, performance and scalability of the IT Systems
• Devise strategies to improve and expand IT Operations’ capabilities; initiate projects and required system and applications development to that end
• Guarantee substantial quality/cost operations performance improvements (SmartIT)

Accountable for IT partner management

• Ensure strong governance structure to manage SI/key partners and other partner relationship (Microsoft, Oracle, Wipro, Tata Communication etc). 
• Identify new partner activities, initiate and expand long-term relationships with key Partners and third parties together with Local and Group SCM 
• Control and supervise the performance of the Partners including the mutual contractual obligations and ensure appropriate action in case of problems to realize the business targets
• Leverage Vodafone Group know-how and Strategy to enhance South Africa business
• Fully engage with the – VF Group IT strategy process. 
• Develop vision, provide clarity of direction and accountability to whole IT team.
• Set annual plans in context of LRP strategic plan.
• Set goals, motivate and performance manage team (set objectives, keep up frequent updates and review meetings, communicate, assess and address performance issues)
• Identify and develop the appropriate resources to deliver the department’s objectives; recruit, manage, motivate, coach and develop own staff, ensure alignment of activities and objectives across employees and virtual teams 
• Manage a geographically distributed organization

The ideal candidate for this role will have:

• Essential role-related knowledge, technical skills, qualifications, and experience
• An advanced Telecommunications or Information Technology or similar degree is essential 
• An MBA will be advantageous

Minimum 15 years’ experience working in preferably Telecommunications and IT, including:

• Excellent understanding of the telecommunications and IT market
• Exposure to other industries advantageous
• Substantial technological background, gained in global, multi-cultural organisations 
• Substantial knowledge of business processes and their integration
• Distinct analytical and systematic thinking
• Building modern IT Teams and Agile/DevSecOps practices
• Minimum 10 years management and leadership experience in IT Operations & Development, including:
• Ability to communicate complex technical dependencies comprehensively on Executive Management Level
• Highly enabled to manage decentralized and geographically distributed organizations
• Strong experience in leading and pushing forward change processes
• Substantial experience in leading large high performing teams 
• Partner CTO and Group CIO in Business strategy & plans

People Interfaces

Member of Technology leadership team, South Africa

• Direct Reports: Managing Executives / Executive Heads
• Close working relationships with:
• Business Units, Customer Management, Admin.
• Partners
• Group IT Team
• Network Engineering and Operations
• Technology Enterprise Team
• International business
• CIO Peers Vodacom International Opcos 
• CIO peers within Vodafone.