Director of Operational Excellence

What part will you play? If you’re looking for a place where you can make a meaningful difference, you’ve found it. Because, at Markel, the work you do gives people the confidence to move forward and seize opportunities. Whether you’re wild about horses, bananas for boats or driven by data, you’ll find your fit amongst our global community of optimists and problem-solvers. We’re always pushing each other to go further because we believe that when we realize our potential, we can help others reach theirs.
Join us and play your part in something special!

The Director participates in all aspects of the Division’s information technology strategy and associated systems. This includes the direct management of dedicated delivery resources as well as oversight of all aspects of technology support and operations of the division applications. The Director will be responsible for supporting multiple locations within the US and/or the UK.

Director - Operational Excellence- IT Operations

This role will work closely with the Senior Director of IT operations to drive strategic change within IT Operations that is designed to significantly improve operational effectiveness, enhance service quality, and enable the introduction of new capabilities and technologies into IT Operations.

This role forms part of the IT Operations Leadership team reporting to the Senior Director of IT Operations and will partner with other IT Operations LT members and key stakeholders.

Responsibilities include:

• Leading IT Operations transformation programmed/ initiatives, providing direction, oversight and assurance to enable successful transition.
• Advocating for and enabling the adoption of new capabilities into Markel Technology to improve service and operational efficiency.
• Acting as a bridge between IT Operations and other stakeholder groups to ensure IT Operations programmed delivery and IT Operations services meet the changing needs of the business and its clients.
• Working closely with Procurement and IT Ops Service owners to build strong technology vendor governance and oversight to enable cross-team cohesion and consistency.
• Leading the development and implementation of IT operations policies, cross functional value streams, processes, and technologies to achieve operational excellence, including overseeing service design and transition.
• Establishing and embedding a continuous improvement capability for IT operations.
• Managing IT operations alignment to governance, risk and compliance and implementing frameworks that deliver requirements.
• Managing budgets for IT service transformation projects to ensure effective resource allocation and cost efficiency, with financial performance tracking mechanisms.
• Developing and managing the end-to-end IT Operations process, systems and data architecture including the management and integration of IT Operations systems and teams (ServiceNow, Jira, CMDB etc)
• Working closely with IT Operations process/ service owners to drive a holistic and cohesive approach within IT Operations.  
• Building and managing an IT Operations Analytics and Metrics capability.
• Working in partnership with IT operations leaders to drive holistic process and capability maturity across IT Operations.
• Driving remediation activities and/or replacement programmer for ServiceNow.

Experience & Skills

• An experienced technology professional with diverse experience of working at a technology operations leadership level in a global support context.
• Experienced in partnering and negotiating win-win outcomes with technology and business stakeholders. A focus on the service customer and business value is essential.
• Experienced in developing future operating model architecture to support strategy and leading subsequent implementations to improve operational delivery.
• Experienced in leading, managing, and coaching employees to develop cohesive teams.
• Experience with supplier / vendor performance management and partnering with vendor management teams to procure new services and improve existing 3rd party service provision.
• Solid experience of defining and implementing IT operations metrics to enhance service and operational performance.
• Experienced in technology governance and partnering with key stakeholders such as GRC and GSS.
• Experienced in developing strategy and roadmaps and implementing new functions into existing operations (e.g. service design & transition)
• Extensive practical experience in IT Service Management, including service / support management, service definition, process implementation and improvement.
• Leadership experience of organizational change and transition.
• Demonstrable project management experience with practical experie