Head of IT Operations | Head of IT Services
- Location: 's-Hertogenbosch, North Brabant, hybrid work - 2 days a week in the office
- Contract type: ZZP freelance contract
- Contract duration: 1 year + possible extension
Ensuring that millions of customers can rely on secure, stable, and always‐available IT in a rapidly changing environment — that’s where your leadership makes the difference.
Organization
We work every day to serve millions of customers. This is only possible with an IT landscape that is always available and secure. Our IT department forms the digital foundation of the organization: from applications to workplaces and from infrastructure to cybersecurity.
We are building the organization into a technology-driven company. This requires IT that is not only stable, but also moves with a rapidly changing market, regulations (such as NIS2) and increasing digital dependency. Reliability is not a precondition for us, it's the business.
Head of IT Operations | Head of IT Services
Purpose
The Manager IT is accountable for stable, secure, and cost‐efficient IT services across applications, infrastructure, and modern workplace. The role ensures operational continuity, service quality, and compliance within agreed budgets, while balancing reliability with change.
Key Accountabilities
1. IT Service Integration & Operations
- Leads end‐to‐end service integration across applications, infrastructure, workplace, and vendors
- Responsible for Incident, problem and changemanagement
- Owns operational performance, continuous improvement, and compliance with SLAs/OLAs
- Ensures services meet business needs and cost targets
2. Service Performance Management
- Owns the service map and all SLAs/OLAs
- Decides on escalation paths and enforces contractual remedies
3. Major Incident & Problem Management
- Declares and leads major incidents
- Mobilizes internal teams and vendors
- Authorizes executive communications, RCA actions, and change freezes to protect stability
4. Modern Workplace & Service Desk
- Accountable for endpoint, Microsoft 365, and identity basics
- Sets tooling, service catalogue, and knowledge‐base standards
- Oversees external service desk performance and vendor selection within budget guardrails
5. Network & Core Infrastructure Reliability
- Ensures availability, capacity, patching, and disaster recovery for LAN/WAN, firewalls, and core infrastructure
- Authorizes risk‐assessed maintenance windows and changes
- Works with SRE/operations to prioritize reliability improvements
6. Functional Application Management (FAM)
- Safeguards continuity and minor releases for business applications
- Approves release plans and service windows
- Prioritizes lifecycle and small‐change backlogs in alignment with Product and UAT/go‐live activities
7. Configuration & Asset Management (LeanIX / CMDB)
- Owns CI and data quality in LeanIX/CMDB
- Ensures service‐to‐asset mapping and compliance evidence
- Gates changes on CI completeness and defines standards for discovery, tagging, and license tracking
8. People & Vendor Management
- Member of IT MT and manager of a team of managers
- Responsible for hiring, coaching, performance management, and capacity allocation
- Approves SOWs and time‐and‐materials agreements
Required Profile
- Experience: minimum of 7 years in IT service management/delivery, including at least 3 years in people management
- Education: Bachelor’s degree (IT or Business IT); Master’s preferred
- Certifications: ITIL 4 Foundation (Managing Professional a plus), SIAM, and relevant technical certifications (e.g., Microsoft 365, Azure, Cisco)
- Languages: Fluent in Dutch and English
Key Competencies
- Strong people leadership and coaching skills
- Able to explain complex IT topics to non‐technical stakeholders
- Broad understanding of infrastructure, applications, and workplace tooling
- Balances stability, risk, and change while meeting agreed KPIs
- Builds effective relationships across IT, business, and vendors
The perfect candidate for this role excels in operational excellence and knows how to effectively manage both internal and external parties.
