Service Governance Specialist (UAE National)

About the role

A client of Black Pearl Consult is looking for an experienced Service Governance Specialist (UAE National) to establish, enforce and mature the IT Service Governance Framework across the organisation. Working at the intersection of IT operations and corporate governance, the role uses ITIL 4 and ISO 20000 standards to govern the end-to-end lifecycle of IT services, acting as the main authority over service performance and moving operations from reactive to proactive. The position is based in Abu Dhabi.

Key responsibilities

• Design, implement and maintain the internal IT Service Governance framework aligned with ITIL 4, COBIT and ISO 20000.
• Govern the IT Service Catalog and CMDB so they reflect live dependencies, business criticality and service ownership.
• Define SOPs across the four dimensions of service management and set up standardised operating procedures.
• Define, govern and monitor KPIs, SLAs and OLAs for internal and external IT services.
• Monitor ITSM dashboards and queues to spot bottlenecks, workload imbalances and SLA breach trends.
• Produce executive governance reports, SLA breach analyses and performance scorecards for the COO and senior leadership.
• Govern commercial relationships with third-party providers against contractual SLAs.
• Drive continual improvement through mandatory Service Review Meetings and post-incident reviews.
• Enforce QA on documentation, including valid Root Cause Analysis in incident and problem records.
• Mandate Knowledge Management so Level 1 and 2 teams have up-to-date knowledge base articles.
• Act as the main contact for ITSM audits and ensure compliance with IT General Controls (ITGC).
• Record operational service risks in the central Risk Register and manage risk acceptance.

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Business Administration or a related field.
• Minimum 8+ years of progressive experience in ITSM, Service Governance or IT GRC in a complex enterprise or MSP environment.
• Must be a UAE National with a valid Emirates ID and Family Book.
• Experience tracking service performance, managing complex SLAs and preparing technical documentation for internal and external IT audits.

Required skills

• ITIL 4 Foundation (ITIL 4 Managing Professional or Strategic Leader highly preferred).
• ISO/IEC 20000 Lead Implementer or Lead Auditor certification.
• Familiarity with COBIT 2019, ISO 27001 and ISO 22301.
• Certifications in data analytics or experience building executive dashboards in ITSM tools such as ServiceNow, ManageEngine or Freshworks.