JOB SUMMARY
We are seeking a highly motivated and customer-focused Service Delivery Manager to lead a network project delivery organization supporting LAN, WAN, Operational Technology (OT), network security, and wireless projects. This individual will oversee two Project Delivery Leads and a team of approximately 40 members, with accountability for governance, resource management, and Quality, Cost, and Delivery (QCD) across the project portfolio. The role will serve as a key customer-facing leader, drive the evolution of a scalable service delivery model, and champion continuous improvement (Kaizen), team development, and operational excellence.
Key Responsibilities
• Manage and run network project delivery as a whole across LAN, WAN, OT (Operational Technology) networks, network security, and wireless, overseeing multiple concurrent projects through the Project Delivery Leads.
• Establish delivery governance, including standard processes, stage gates, quality reviews, change control, and reporting cadence.
• Plan and allocate resources across the team of approximately 40 members, balancing workload, skills, and priorities across projects.
• Monitor portfolio-level KPIs (schedule, cost, quality, utilization, customer satisfaction), identify risks early, and make timely decisions on corrective actions and escalations.
• Act as the customer's single point of contact together with the Project Delivery Leads, receiving, clarifying, and prioritizing customer requests and direction.
• Provide regular reporting to the customer (e.g., weekly status, monthly service reports, and periodic management reviews) on progress, KPIs, risks, and improvement actions.
• Handle management-level escalations, negotiate scope, priority, and resource trade-offs, and manage customer expectations.
• Build long-term, trusted relationships with customer stakeholders and identify opportunities to expand and improve the services provided.
• Lead, coach, and evaluate the two Project Delivery Leads, and oversee the development of approximately 40 team members, including hiring, onboarding, skills development, and succession planning.
• Foster a team culture of ownership, teamwork, and continuous learning that supports engagement and retention.
• When work is outsourced, select and manage partner companies, including contracts, deliverables, acceptance criteria, and partner QCD.
• Manage the delivery budget, cost, resource utilization, and inputs for billing and forecasting.
• Ensure delivery complies with customer security policies, change management processes, and safety requirements, including those of manufacturing / OT environments.
• Lead the transition from in-house delivery support to a standardized service offering, including defining service scope, service catalog, SLAs/KPIs, operating model, and delivery processes.
• Develop and maintain high-quality documentation, such as reports, proposals, process definitions, and templates.
• Drive Kaizen activities in delivery processes, tools, and quality standards based on our principles, and standardize lessons learned and best practices across projects.
Required Qualifications
• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 10+ years of progressive experience in IT infrastructure, network engineering, technical project management, or IT service delivery, including 5+ years in network project delivery.
• 5+ years of experience leading project management staff or technical delivery teams, including 3+ years leading leads/managers and teams of 20 or more members (direct or indirect).
• Working knowledge of network technologies sufficient to lead technical coordination and customer communication, including routing and switching, WAN technologies (MPLS, SD-WAN, VPN), LAN, wireless (Wi-Fi design and site surveys), network security (firewalls, NAC, segmentation, IDMZ), monitoring, and high-availability design.
• Solid project management knowledge and experience, including scope, schedule, cost, risk, and change management, with demonstrated success managing multiple concurrent projects or a project portfolio.
• Experience establishing capacity management, resource planning, or delivery metrics (e.g., effort tracking, utilization, forecasting).
• Experience in a manager-level customer-facing role, including executive reporting, escalation handling, and expectation management.
• Experience managing vendors or partner companies, or network integrators.
• Excellent communication, judgment, logical thinking, and documentation skills.
• Business-level proficiency in written and spoken English.
• Flexibility and openness to adapt to our culture and ways of working, and interest in Japan or our group.
Preferred Qualifications
• Experience building or launching managed services, or transitioning project-based work into a service offering (e.g., ITIL service design and transition).
• Experience with OT / industrial networks in manufacturing environments, such as plant networks, IT/OT segmentation (Purdue model), ISA/IEC 62443, and industrial protocols.
• Experience in the automotive or manufacturing industry, or with Japanese companies.
• Knowledge of Lean, or Kaizen methods.
• Familiarity with delivery and reporting tools such as ServiceNow, Jira, Microsoft Project, or Power BI.
Certifications
• PMP/PgMP
• ITIL 4
• CCNP/CCIE
• CISSP
