IT Operations Manager
Team Leadership & People Management
Direct and coordinate the activities of IT Operations staff, including the Help Desk team and midrange systems administrator(s); manage remote team members across multiple locations.
Establish direction, standards, and best practices for the function; provide technical leadership and escalation guidance.
Hire, develop, evaluate, and coach staff; complete performance evaluations and recommend salary adjustments, performance improvement plans, or disciplinary actions as appropriate.
Hold recurring 1:1 and team meetings with the Help Desk Manager and other direct reports; participate in weekly cross-functional meetings, including security.
Review and refine documentation and procedures produced by the team; promote knowledge sharing and continuous improvement.
Service Delivery & Operations
Develop and maintain policies, procedures, and runbooks for IT Operations, including incident, problem, and change management practices.
Review daily logs, monitoring data, and reports to detect recurring slowdowns, errors, or capacity issues; drive root-cause analysis and remediation.
Meet with internal users and business stakeholders to evaluate service quality, gather requirements, and identify present and future needs.
Coordinate with internal departments and peer IT service groups to assess the impact of hardware, software, or platform changes on operations and end-user service.
Vendor, Financial & Contract Management
Lead annual budget planning and ongoing budget tracking for IT Operations, including a renewal portfolio of 100+ recurring items.
Negotiate, review, and approve IT contracts, quotes, and vendor proposals; coordinate vendor setup, onboarding, and offboarding.
Own the IT software licensing program, including enterprise productivity suite licensing, license audits, true-ups, and right-sizing.
Coordinate accounts payable activities for IT, including invoice review, approval, filing, and documentation.
Serve as the primary escalation point for vendor performance issues; lead vendor calls, meetings, and written communications.
Network & Circuit Management
Manage the lifecycle of network circuits across the enterprise, including new installs, upgrades, renewals, and ongoing support, in partnership with the Network team and on-site staff.
Coordinate contractor labor for circuit-related work, including identification, sourcing, scheduling, and oversight.
Enterprise Platform Administration & Initiatives
Provide oversight and hands-on support for enterprise platforms used across the organization, including (but not limited to): unified endpoint management, secure web gateway / SSE, data classification and DLP, MFA / identity verification, conferencing/meeting room systems, and the enterprise productivity suite.
Manage platform policies, configurations, and standards — including patch management policies, elevated-access settings, IP allow-listing, AI access reviews, DLP rule modifications, encryption rules, file review and exception handling, and policy promotions across environments.
Generate and review platform reports for stakeholders (e.g., authentication and access logs for HR investigations).
Lead and support enterprise IT initiatives, including domain consolidation, audit and security compliance projects, policy and procedure development, and enterprise technical documentation.
Manage internal IT communications and corporate announcements related to IT systems and changes.
Audit, Compliance & Risk
Prepare for and respond to internal and external audits, including PCI, SOC 1, NYDFS, and other regulatory or contractual reviews.
Partner with external audit firms to provide evidence, coordinate walkthroughs, and remediate findings.
Integrate new business lines and enterprise initiatives into existing audit and control frameworks.
Participate in weekly security meetings and partner with the Security team to enforce policy, address findings, and support compliance objectives.
Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery
Produce and maintain annual Business Continuity Plan (BCP), Business Impact Analysis (BIA), and workspace/site recovery documentation.
Provide technical support and project management for annual workspace recovery and DR exercises, including backup and recovery testing.
Site & Facility Technology Setup
Lead IT setup for new office locations and major site reconfigurations, including conferencing/meeting room build-outs and circuit orders and installations.
Source and direct contractors for site build work; manage vendor approvals, purchase orders, invoice processing, and payment coordination.
AI Adoption & IT Modernization
Evaluate and selectively adopt AI-enabled IT operations capabilities (e.g., intelligent alerting, automated triage and remediation, log and event summarization, AI-assisted service desk, knowledge-base generation) to improve service quality and team productivity.
Review AI features introduced by existing vendor platforms before they are enabled; coordinate access reviews, data-handling reviews, and DLP rule adjustments with the Security team.
Help define and enforce internal guidance for the use of AI tools within IT Operations, including acceptable use, data handling, and human review of AI-generated output.
Identify automation and scripting opportunities (with or without AI assistance) to reduce repetitive operational work and improve consistency.