Head of Platforms

Old Mutual Zimbabwe

Apr. 04, 2023

Job Description

The role of the Head of Platforms is to define, deliver and be accountable for the strategy, planning, design, development, delivery, quality, and optimization of all Information Technology Services, Platforms & Products for the Old Mutual business.

The role will ensure that the technologies employed across environments are correctly operated to provide a resilient, secure, and highly available platform for the business products and services to run on, and that the overall strategy for platform delivery is defined and implemented.

Duties and Responsibilities

Accountable for the definition of the target Old Mutual Information Technology Architecture and its realisation in line with the Group IT strategy.

Meet business targets with flexible and highly responsive solutions.
Contribute to and drive Old Mutual's overall IT strategy.
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 as per Safe Ways of Working across IT including delivery of results within agreed quality, budget, and time.
Achieve and maintain the best benchmark results when benchmarking the performance of development and delivery against organisations in Old Mutual and the broader industry.

Accountable for Acceptance , Integration, and Production Deployment

Deployment of new or changed Information Technology-Applications in acceptance test and (pre-) production environments (using DevOps practices)
Plan, perform and validate the software installation and migration of Information Technology-Applications in acceptance, test and (pre-) production
Minimize operational- and business impact
Implement strong Information Technology controls and ensure compliance with governance framework.

Accountable for the availability, performance, scalability and running cost of Information Technology Systems, accountable for high quality of Information Technology 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 Information Technology Operations’ strategic roadmap to ensure the availability, performance and scalability of the OM Fintech Information Technology Systems
Devise strategies to improve and expand Information Technology Operations’ capabilities; initiate projects and required system and applications development to that end.
Guarantee substantial quality/cost operations performance improvements.

Accountable for Information Technology partner management

Ensure strong governance structure to manage key partners and partner relationships
Identify new partner activities, initiate and expand long-term relationships with key Partners and third parties
Control and supervise the performance of the Partners including the mutual contractual obligations, SLAs and ensure appropriate action in case of problems to realize the business targets

Accountable for Old Mutual Information Technology strategy implementation

Develop vision, provide clarity of direction and accountability on implementation of the Old Mutual IT strategy.
Set annual plans in context of Old Mutual 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.