Director, Cloud & Platform Management

About the CompanyA global financial services organisation with a significant presence in Japan. Technology plays a central role in its operations, with continued investment in cloud infrastructure, platform modernisation, security, automation, and resilient technology services.About the RoleThis Director-level role owns the stability, security, performance, and future direction of Microsoft Azure and on-premises application hosting platforms. Alongside day-to-day operations, the position leads platform modernisation, automation, financial governance, and a sizeable engineering team, including a major cloud migration programme and the introduction of AI-enabled operations.Key ResponsibilitiesOwn project delivery and BAU operations across Microsoft Azure and on-premises application hosting platforms.Lead platform strategy, modernisation, and migration initiatives, with a focus on security, resilience, and technology currency.Manage the team's operating budget, capacity planning, forecasting, vendor/licence spend, and cost optimisation.Standardise and automate platform lifecycle activities, including provisioning, configuration, deployments, patching, restarts, and decommissioning.Lead a technical team of engineers, covering hiring, performance management, coaching, career development, and resource planning.Ensure 24/7 L2/L3 operational support, working with L1 teams on incident management and escalation.Define operational standards, runbooks, and automation controls to improve consistency, reliability, and security.Partner with application, security, and enterprise architecture teams on platform capabilities and infrastructure roadmaps.Report platform health, project progress, budgets, risks, and key decisions to senior IT leadership.Drive the use of AI and automation to support Infrastructure as Code, quality assurance, incident resolution, and root-cause analysis.Qualifications10+ years of IT infrastructure experience across Microsoft Azure and on-premises environments, including Windows Server and/or Linux/RHEL.Proven experience managing a technical team of 10+ engineers, including hiring, performance management, and career development.Experience overseeing project delivery, BAU operations, and team or departmental budgets within a large organisation.