Head of IT Operations and Technology Services – contract

Role: Head of IT Operations and Technology Services – contract Locations: Dunstable We have a newly created opportunity to be the Head of Operations & Technology Services at Costa. You will be responsible for the IT Operations and Support across Costa Group and all Costa Brands This is an exciting opportunity to work for one of the world’s largest and fastest growing coffee businesses, the favourite on the UK high street with over 2000 stores and our self-service Costa Express machines circle the globe. Our parent company, Whitbread, is currently working to complete a sale that would see Costa join Coca-Cola whose global scale, production, and distribution capabilities perfectly aligns to our ambition of accelerated international growth. There has never been a more exciting time to join What you will be doing Lead the overall development, implementation and adoption of the Costa IT Operational Processes, as well as the Management and Tooling for Systems and Operations. Ensure all IT systems are maintained, supported and deliver appropriate production services to the Costa business now and in the future. Deliver sponsored initiatives to time and budget, ensuring future solutions are simple, easy to use and operating at the appropriate capacity. Ensure that Costa are operating legally and within regulations, with regard to data and management of licenses. Work with Vendors to ensure that systems and patched and up to date to maintain support and security from providers. Manage operational budgets in conjunction with the Finance department across the business. Support the overall strategy for and continuous improvement of the IT function within Costa. Bring knowledge and best practice around operations and support to bring and keep Costa in line with industry compliance, regulatory and standards guidelines as appropriate. Manage Costa data at rest and in transit ensuring that consumption and reuse is access securely and is auditable. Ensure suitable role based training is available for Operations and Support across Costa and maintaining line of sight to embedded maturity of process and policy. Ensure operations, run model and processes are in place and incident management is owned, clear and communicated. Maintain an up to date and published set of metrics and ensure measures and KPI’s are in place. Ensure comprehensive vendor management is in place and maintain with periodic reviews in place for key strategic suppliers. What we are looking for Experience of leading end to end IT Operations departments in complex environments Able to communicate effectively with people at all levels both inside and outside the company, particularly with strong written communication skills and adapting communications to the relevant audience Demonstrable experience of delivering technical projects and managing them throughout their operational life-cycle Previous experience managing & leading a team Proven experience in the effective management of third party suppliers Able to assess complex issues; and to apply originality in modifying existing approaches to solve problems