SVP, Global Head of Service Desk, Technology Group

The Global Head of Service Desk is a senior technology leadership role responsible for defining, governing, and continuously evolving the end-user support capability across the organisation's 11 global locations. Operating at the intersection of in-house delivery and Managed Service Provider (MSP) execution, this role holds executive accountability for a globally consistent, analytically driven, and user-centric service desk function.
Reporting to the Head of IT Ops/Service Mgmt/Service Enablement  (ITOPSSM), the incumbent will architect and operationalise a Follow-the-Sun service model, ensuring seamless 24x7 coverage without seams or service degradation across time zones. This leader will work in close strategic partnership with the MSP to standardise tooling, processes, SLAs, SOPS and workforce practices — driving a single service identity regardless of location or delivery channel.
This is not a role for a steady-state manager. It demands a builder's mindset from someone who can simultaneously stabilise current operations, define target-state architecture, and accelerate transformation through data, governance, and partnership. The successful candidate will be equally comfortable in an executive briefing room and a war room, and will hold the organisation's service quality to a measurably higher standard year on year.

What will you do as SVP, Operational Service Delivery & Command Center Operations

Global Service Delivery Ownership

• Own end-to-end service delivery for on-site and remote service desk functions across all 11 global locations, ensuring SLA adherence and consistent user experience.
• Establish and govern a Follow-the-Sun operational model, eliminating handoff failures through standardised runbooks, escalation paths, and shift-transition protocols.
• Define location-specific capacity models that reflect business demand, headcount mix, and MSP resource deployment, reviewed on a quarterly basis.
• Maintain accountability for incident management processes, ensuring resolution timelines, communication protocols, and post-incident reviews meet executive expectations.

MSP Governance & Strategic Partnership

• Serve as the primary authority for the MSP over Service Desk, holding the partner accountable to contractual SLAs, quality benchmarks, and continuous improvement targets.
• Lead/Participate structured governance forums (weekly operational reviews, monthly SLA reviews, quarterly business reviews) with the MSP, producing executive-ready reporting packs.
• Drive MSP performance improvement through data-informed conversations — challenge assumptions, push back on complacency, and escalate where necessary to senior MSP leadership.
• Negotiate and refine SOW scope, service credits, and penalty structures in collaboration with Vendor Governance Office and Procurement and Legal to protect organisational interests.
• Co-develop transformation roadmaps with the MSP, including automation pipelines, self-service channel expansion, and AI-assisted triage capabilities.

Standardisation & Process Excellence

• Design and enforce globally consistent ITIL-aligned processes for Incident, Request, Problem, Change, and Knowledge Management — no location-specific carve-outs without formal exception approval.
• Own the global Service Desk process taxonomy, ensuring all runbooks, escalation matrices, and SOPs are maintained, version-controlled, and adopted uniformly.
• Lead the implementation and ongoing governance of the ITSM platform (e.g. ServiceNow), ensuring configuration reflects global process standards and drives measurable efficiency.
• Establish and chair a Global Service Desk Standards Board to review policy deviations, approve exceptions, and ratify process changes.

Analytics, Data & Continuous Improvement

• Define and own the global Service Desk KPI framework — spanning First Contact Resolution (FCR), Mean Time to Resolve (MTTR), ticket deflection rates, Customer Satisfaction (CSAT/NPS), and cost-per-ticket metrics.
• Build and maintain executive dashboards that provide real-time and trend-based visibility into service health across all locations and delivery channels.
• Conduct rigorous root cause analysis on chronic failure patterns, translating insights into actionable remediation programmes with measurable outcomes.
• Drive a culture of data-led decision making within the team — no initiative proceeds without a baseline metric, a target, and a measurement cadence.

User Experience & Stakeholder Management

• Champion the end-user experience as a non-negotiable delivery dimension — balance speed of resolution with quality of interaction, ensuring neither is sacrificed for the other.
• Establish a formal Voice of the Customer programme, incorporating structured satisfaction surveys, focus groups, and service improvement loops across all major business units.
• Develop executive stakeholder relationships across the business, providing transparent, honest, and data-backed reporting on service performance.
• Use automation and Agentic/AIOps to drive self service options and self-healing capabilities for standardized and speedy turnaround. Promote disciplined operational processes aligned with enterprise IT service management frameworks.

Team Leadership & Organisational Development

• Lead a globally distributed team of Regional Service Desk Leads and their teams, establishing a high-performance culture anchored in accountability, continuous learning, and inclusion.
• Define career pathways and succession plans for all senior service desk roles, reducing key-person dependency and building internal talent pipelines.
• Conduct regular performance calibration cycles, ensuring consistency in evaluation standards across geographies and delivery models.
• Champion workforce development initiatives, including technical certification programmes, ITIL training, and cross-regional capability sharing

Financial Stewardship

• Own the Global Service Desk operating budget, including MSP contract spend, internal headcount costs, tooling licences, and training investments.
• Deliver annual productivity improvements through automation, self-service adoption, and MSP efficiency.
• Provide transparent financial reporting to IPS leadership, including variance analysis, forecast updates, and ROI assessments for transformation investments.

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Business Administration, or a related discipline. Essential.
• Master's degree (MBA or MSc in Technology Management) strongly preferred.
• ITIL v4 Managing Professional or ITIL v4 Strategic Leader — non-negotiable for this role.
• HDI Senior Certified Professional (HDI-SCP) or equivalent service desk leadership credential.
• Project Management Professional (PMP) or Prince2 Practitioner.
• A minimum of 15 years of progressive experience in IT service management, with at least 5 years in a senior leadership role (Director level or above) with P&L or budget accountability.
• Proven experience governing a global service desk operation spanning multiple geographies, time zones, and cultural contexts — specifically with a Follow-the-Sun model in operation.
• Demonstrated experience managing Managed Service Provider relationships at a senior commercial and operational level, including contract negotiation, SLA governance, and performance improvement programmes.
• Hands-on experience implementing and governing ITSM platforms — ServiceNow strongly preferred; BMC Helix or Jira Service Management acceptable.
• Track record of building and executing analytics programmes that have demonstrably improved service quality metrics.
• Experience leading service desk transformation programmes, including self-service implementation, chatbot/AI-assisted triage, and knowledge management maturity uplift.
• Deep expertise in ITIL-aligned service management processes (Incident, Problem, Change, Request, Knowledge, Major Incident Management).
• Proficiency with ITSM platforms, reporting toolsets, and enterprise monitoring dashboards.
• Understanding of AI/ML applications in service desk contexts — intelligent routing, predictive analytics, automated resolution.