IT Operations Manager [Infrastructure & Network]

JOB DESCRIPTION

IT Operations Manager

Konkola / Chingola / Nkana Sites

Role Purpose

The IT Operations Manager will be responsible for the end-to-end coordination and operational governance of IT services across the Konkola, Chingola and Nkana sites.

The role will act as the primary operational interface between site stakeholders, IT leadership, field engineers and centralized technical teams, ensuring that infrastructure and end-user services remain stable, secure, available and aligned with business requirements.

The position requires a strong hands-on understanding of enterprise IT operations combined with service management, stakeholder management, incident leadership, infrastructure governance and cybersecurity awareness.

Key Responsibilities

1. Site IT Operations Ownership

• Own day-to-day IT operational coordination across Konkola, Chingola and Nkana sites.

• Maintain visibility of infrastructure health, recurring issues, service risks and operational priorities.

• Coordinate resolution activities between site engineers and centralized technical teams.

• Ensure operational issues are assigned to the correct technical tower and actively driven through to closure.

• Conduct regular operational reviews covering incidents, service requests, changes, problems, risks and infrastructure health.

• Maintain clear ownership and accountability for outstanding site IT activities.

2. Infrastructure and Datacenter Operations

• Provide operational oversight and coordination across Windows Servers and Active Directory, Linux, VMware and virtualization, storage, backup and recovery, datacenter infrastructure, file servers, Microsoft 365, Exchange and messaging, databases, network, endpoint management and monitoring platforms.

• Ensure infrastructure dependencies are understood and appropriate technical teams are engaged during incidents, changes and maintenance activities.

3. Network and Site Connectivity

• Coordinate operational support for LAN, WAN, Wi-Fi and site connectivity.

• Work closely with Network teams and field engineers to troubleshoot connectivity issues.

• Coordinate investigation of network outages, performance degradation and wireless coverage issues.

• Ensure critical site connectivity issues receive appropriate prioritization and escalation.

• Maintain visibility of network-related risks affecting business-critical areas and systems.

4. Incident and Major Incident Management

• Take operational ownership of high-impact site incidents.

• Coordinate multiple technical teams during major incidents.

• Ensure appropriate business and technical stakeholders are engaged.

• Drive technical troubleshooting, escalation and service restoration.

• Maintain clear incident communication with stakeholders.

• Ensure significant or recurring incidents are reviewed for root cause and appropriate Problem Management follow-up.

• Track corrective and preventive actions through to closure.

5. Change and Service Governance

• Ensure infrastructure changes affecting the sites follow the established Change Management and CAB governance process.

• Review operational readiness, dependencies, implementation planning, rollback requirements and business impact.

• Coordinate planned maintenance activities with technical teams and site stakeholders.

• Ensure changes are properly communicated and executed with minimum disruption to site operations.

• Challenge uncontrolled or insufficiently assessed infrastructure changes.

6. Cybersecurity and Compliance

• Work closely with Security and infrastructure teams to improve endpoint security, antivirus compliance, patch compliance, Active Directory hygiene, privileged access, MFA and identity security, backup and restore security, vulnerability remediation, security monitoring, network security and legacy infrastructure risk management.

• Track security findings and remediation activities to closure and escalate overdue or high-risk items.

7. Backup, Recovery and Business Continuity

• Monitor operational risks relating to backups and recovery.

• Ensure backup failures and restore issues are appropriately investigated.

• Coordinate periodic restore validation with relevant technical teams.

• Maintain awareness of backup coverage for critical systems.

• Support disaster recovery and business continuity planning for site IT services.

• Escalate recovery, capacity or resilience risks that could affect critical business services.

8. Endpoint and Workplace Technology

• Monitor the health and compliance of desktops, laptops and other workplace technology.

• Coordinate endpoint remediation covering patching, antivirus, encryption and device-management compliance.

• Support Windows modernization and endpoint-management initiatives where applicable.

• Coordinate support for meeting rooms, collaboration facilities and other site technology.

9. Capacity and Availability Management

• Maintain operational visibility of server utilization, storage consumption and growth, backup capacity, Exchange and messaging capacity, network utilization, virtual infrastructure capacity and endpoint estate health.

• Identify emerging capacity or availability risks before they result in service degradation or outages and ensure remediation plans are established.

10. Field Support Coordination

• Coordinate activities of onsite IT engineers across the supported locations.

• Ensure appropriate prioritization of business-critical incidents and requests.

• Bridge onsite teams with centralized SMEs where remote intervention is required.

• Ensure field teams provide sufficient technical evidence, documentation and status updates for escalated cases.

• Track dependencies requiring physical intervention at site.

11. Stakeholder and Business Management

• Act as a key IT operational contact for site management and business stakeholders.

• Understand operational priorities and translate them into IT priorities.

• Provide clear updates during service interruptions and major technical activities.

• Manage expectations regarding restoration, remediation and planned infrastructure work.

• Escalate risks requiring management intervention.

12. Service Performance and Reporting

• Maintain and present operational metrics covering incident volumes and trends, severity and business impact, SLA and resolution performance, repeated incidents, Problem Management actions, change success, security remediation, patch and endpoint compliance, backup health, infrastructure availability, capacity risks and ageing tickets.

• Convert operational metrics into management-level insights highlighting risk, improvement and required actions.

13. Vendor and Third-Party Coordination

• Coordinate external OEMs, vendors and service providers where required.

• Ensure vendor dependencies do not unnecessarily delay restoration or remediation.

• Track vendor cases and actions through closure.

• Escalate persistent vendor performance or support issues.

Operational Governance

The IT Operations Manager should establish a disciplined operating rhythm across the supported sites.

Cadence

Mandatory Review Areas

Daily

• Critical incidents and outages

• Priority tickets and site-impacting issues

• Infrastructure alerts and security concerns

• Critical backup failures

Weekly

• Incident and Problem Management review

• Change review and upcoming maintenance

• Security remediation and infrastructure health

• Capacity risks, ageing tickets/actions and site priorities

Monthly

• Service performance and infrastructure availability

• Capacity trends and security/compliance

• Problem trends and major incident actions

• Improvement initiatives and key operational risks

Required Technical Knowledge

The candidate should have strong working knowledge across several of the following areas:

• Windows Server and Active Directory / Entra ID

• Microsoft 365 and Exchange

• VMware and enterprise virtualization

• Enterprise storage and backup technologies

• LAN, WAN, Wi-Fi, firewalls and network security concepts

• Endpoint management using Microsoft Intune / SCCM

• Endpoint security and vulnerability remediation

• Monitoring platforms such as SolarWinds

• Database infrastructure fundamentals

• ITIL-based Incident, Problem and Change Management

Role positioning: The role does not need to be the deepest technical SME in every technology. The manager must understand infrastructure dependencies sufficiently to challenge technical teams, identify operational risks and coordinate multidisciplinary troubleshooting.

Skills and Experience

• Strong experience managing enterprise IT infrastructure and operations.

• Experience supporting multi-site or distributed environments.

• Strong incident and major incident management capability.

• Experience coordinating infrastructure, network, security and workplace teams.

• Strong understanding of ITIL service-management practices.

• Ability to translate technical issues into business impact.

• Strong stakeholder, vendor and escalation management.

• Strong analytical and operational reporting capability.

• Experience in mining, manufacturing, utilities or another industrial environment is advantageous.

• Ability to operate effectively in high-availability and business-critical environments.

Preferred Certifications

• ITIL 4 Foundation or higher

• Microsoft Azure / Microsoft 365 certification

• VMware certification

• Networking certification such as CCNA or CCNP

• Security certification such as CompTIA Security+, CISSP or equivalent

• Project or service management certification such as PMP, PRINCE2 or equivalent

Key Success Measures

• Improved availability and stability of site IT services.

• Reduction in recurring incidents and ageing operational actions.

• Faster restoration of business-critical services and improved SLA adherence.

• Improved infrastructure, endpoint and cybersecurity compliance.

• Timely closure of vulnerabilities, risks and major incident actions.

• Improved backup and recovery reliability.

• Better capacity forecasting and proactive identification of risks.

• Controlled execution of production changes.

• Effective coordination between onsite and centralized IT teams.

• Clear communication and improved stakeholder confidence in IT operations.

Role Outcome

The IT Operations Manager should provide KCM with clear ownership of IT operations across Konkola, Chingola and Nkana, ensuring that local business requirements and site issues are effectively connected to the appropriate infrastructure, network, cybersecurity and service-management teams.

The role should progressively shift site IT operations from reactive issue resolution toward proactive service management, risk reduction, infrastructure stability, security compliance and continuous operational improvement.