Job Purpose:

As the IT Assurance Manager, you will play a crucial role in overseeing the overall Banking Technology risk and control environment. Your responsibilities will include managing IT assurance activities, developing and implementing risk and control directions, and ensuring compliance with regulatory standards. You will work closely with various stakeholders, including Audit, Information Risk Management, Control units and Banking Technology teams, to drive sustainable control improvements and maintain a high standard of IT assurance.

Main Duties & Responsibilities:

• Participate in the preparation of the IT department's strategic plan and action items.
• Preparing work plan in line with the general IT strategic objectives by setting clear roadmap, conducting periodic review of it, following up on deviations, if any, and developing appropriate solutions to correct them.
• Develop IT policies and procedures for IT departments in coordination with control units and ensure adherence to their implementation.
• Supervising employees administrative tasks such as evaluations, leaves, etc.
• Continuously train and develop staff members to enhance their skills and knowledge of banking products and services with coordination with HR.
• Strengthen the Information Technology control environment through education, collaboration, and oversight.
• Collaborate with Audit, Information Risk Management, control functions, and the Banking Technology teams to drive transparent, measurable, and sustainable control improvements.
• Attend meetings, workshops, conferences, and training as required to maintain proficiency.
• Act as a focal contact between IT and control units (Risk and Audit) managing their requests, responses, and needs relevant to IT.
• Follow-up on action items that are managed by IT department and requested by external control units (Risk, Compliance and Audit) and ensure proper remediation on time.
• Escalate to management issues related to incompliance with agreed on plans and action items.
• Act as focal contact managing internal and external audit assignments and participate in exit meetings and collecting responses.
• Follow-up on audit findings and ensure proper remediation as per agreed on expected correction dates.
• Directs, manages, plans, and administers the operational and administrative activities associated with the running of the IT Assurance Office.
• Proactively work with technology managers to identify potential issues and ensure effective remediation.
• Participate in implementing, managing, and enforcing IT control directives.
• Participate in managing IT policies, plans, and procedures in order to maintain confidentiality, integrity and availability of all information systems.
• Ensure that IT owned policies and standards are maintained and communicated appropriately.
• Perform regulatory assessments in coordination with Compliance department on IT related processes, procedures, and policies, providing recommendation for mitigation or remediation.
• Ensure ongoing compliance with local and global regulatory requirements.
• Participate in taking major decisions and actions to improve the quality of IT services and infrastructure.
• Receive, filter, and log all Requests for Change (RFC). Furthermore, assess CIs affected by the change and their status.
• Run change advisory board meetings, and issue/ update the change log and ensure its completeness and accuracy.
• Participate in accepting/rejecting RFCs based on their feasibility, and conduct Impact Assessment of changes.
• Issue/ update Schedule of Changes, and coordinate with all necessary parties on change building, testing and implementation, in accordance with schedules.
• Review all outstanding RFCs awaiting action; and all implemented changes to ensure that they have met their objectives.
• Trigger the appropriate Change Building Process and the Release & Deployment Management process, including post implementation review.
• Manage release package design, building, configuration, acceptance including business sign-off, testing to predefined acceptance criteria; signing off for implementation; and audit hardware and software before and after the implementation of release packages.
• Produce regular and accurate IT management reports relevant to change management.
• Participate in analyzing frequently requested normal changes and update the Standard Operational Tasks List.
• Coordinate between change management Staff to ensure that all parties are following the organizations’ established policies and procedures.

Skills & Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Engineering, IT Risk Management, Information Security, or any related field.
• Certificates: Professional certifications such as CISSP, CISM, CRISC, CISA, or COBIT.
• Minimum 10 years of experience in IT, at least 6 years in Information Security/IT Security/IT Assurance and Controls.
• Relevant team management skills & competencies building.