Section Head – IT Operations

About the role

The confidential Government Entity in Abu Dhabi is looking for an experienced Section Head to lead its IT Operations. You will be responsible for ensuring reliable, secure, and efficient delivery of technology services across on‑premise and cloud environments.

Key responsibilities

• Lead IT infrastructure and operations across on‑premise, AWS, Azure and OCI environments.
• Oversee IT Service Management, including service desk, incident, problem, change and request management.
• Ensure high availability, business continuity, disaster recovery and operational resilience.
• Direct day‑to‑day IT security operations in line with Abu Dhabi Government information security standards.
• Manage production application support, patching, upgrades and operational handovers.
• Administer vendor relationships, contracts, SLAs, licensing, assets and cloud cost governance.
• Monitor service performance, risks, KPIs and drive operational improvement initiatives.

Required profile

• Bachelor’s degree in IT, Computer Science, Engineering or related field; Master’s preferred.
• 8–12 years of experience in IT operations, infrastructure, cloud or service management.
• Proven leadership experience managing critical infrastructure, service desks, vendors and enterprise‑wide technology environments.
• Experience in government or large‑enterprise settings is highly desirable.
• Relevant certifications such as ITIL, PMP, AWS, Azure, OCI, CISSP or CISM are an advantage.

Required skills

• Cloud cost governance
• Production application support
• Disaster recovery
• Patching and upgrades
• Business continuity
• Operational resilience
• IT security operations
• Licensing and asset management
• Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
• ITIL framework
• AWS, Azure, OCI platforms
• CISSP, CISM certifications