Associate Director - IT Cloud & Workplace Solutions

About Ooredoo Group

Ooredoo Group is a distinguished global communications company with operations across nine countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and Southeast Asia. The company aims to become the leading digital infrastructure provider in the region, guided by five strategic pillars:

• Value-Focused Portfolio: Enhancing asset returns through focus on telecommunications, towers, data centers, sea cable enterprises, and fintech.
• Strengthen the Core: Efficient capital usage and maintaining optimal cost structures.
• Evolve the Core: Monetizing new revenue streams through analytics, digital operations, and collaborations with digital service providers.
• People: Developing an engaged workforce through integrated learning, coaching, and mentoring programs.
• Excellence in Customer Experience: Ensuring superior customer experiences.

Joining Ooredoo offers opportunities for skill enhancement, career progression, and work-life balance, empowering personal and professional growth.

Role Overview

The Associate Director - Cloud Infrastructure & Workplace Solutions serves as a senior executive responsible for shaping and governing the global IT technology strategy across Ooredoo Group. This role aligns the strategic vision with execution at operating companies (OpCos), ensuring consistent adoption of modern, scalable, and secure infrastructure standards worldwide.

The director leads modernization initiatives for core infrastructure, hybrid and multi-cloud environments, and digital workplace solutions—aimed at boosting operational efficiency, optimizing cost synergies, and delivering a seamless digital experience for employees.

Collaboration with Technology Directors across OpCos and other technology leadership is key to driving world-class network and IT architecture aligned with capital-efficient plans.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and implement group-wide IT Cloud, Infrastructure, and Modern Workplace strategies, architectures, and engineering best practices aligned to overall vision.
• Establish architectural principles, technology standards, and governance processes adopted by all operating companies.
• Develop and lead the AI infrastructure and GPU accelerated computing strategy for the group and OpCos.
• Oversee infrastructure program execution at OpCos, conducting performance reviews and providing technical resolution for complex issues.
• Serve as the primary liaison to OpCo CTOs/CIOs promoting Agile delivery, DevOps, automation, and standardized planning methodologies.
• Architect and scale hybrid/multi-cloud environments including AWS, Azure, and GCP, managing data center consolidation, virtualization, and migrations from legacy to cloud.
• Lead digital workplace initiatives involving next-gen collaboration tools like UCaaS, productivity suites, and Identity Access Management to improve employee experience.
• Manage partnerships with strategic sourcing and vendors, including major cloud hyperscalers, to secure group-wide economies of scale.
• Handle group-level capital and operational budgets, employing effective FinOps to optimize cloud and infrastructure expenditures.
• Collaborate on security to embed zero-trust architecture, disaster recovery, and data privacy compliance (e.g., GDPR) across infrastructure.
• Partner across functions and business units to enable capital-efficient strategies, support commercial objectives, and lead M&A technology due diligence efforts.

Team and External Interaction

• Internally, work with various group departments and OpCos to evolve technology architecture and implement strategies.
• Externally, engage technology vendors, regulatory bodies, industry associations, telecom operators to advance Ooredoo's technology requirements and market positioning.

Candidate Profile and Experience

• At least 15 years of experience relevant to leadership in technology strategy and infrastructure.
• Proven ability to influence federated teams and vendors without direct authority.
• Previous senior-level technology leadership experience within mobile telecom operations or equivalent group IT roles, preferably in MENA with international experience.
• Extensive expertise in devising and executing cloud and infrastructure strategies.
• Deep knowledge of leading cloud providers and virtualization technologies.
• Up-to-date understanding of evolving technology standards and impacts on group and OpCo operations.
• Experienced in building strategic relationships and translating business needs into technical infrastructure impacts.
• Ability to communicate complex technological topics to non-technical stakeholders effectively.
• Certification from AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.
• Thorough familiarity with mobile telecom IT architecture, hardware, platforms, and software systems.
• Experienced in technology innovation management and trend analysis.
• Hands-on experience designing and operating GPU platforms for training and inference across cloud and/or on-premises environments with multi-tenant isolation and resource management.
• Accountable for M365 tenant architecture and governance.

Qualifications

• A degree in technology or related fields.
• International work experience, ideally across MENA and Southeast Asia.
• Fluency in English is mandatory, Arabic or French is advantageous.

Technical Skills Required

• Expertise as Technology Strategist
• Technology Performance Management
• Advanced Information Technology proficiency
• Strong analytical thinking skills
• Cloud technologies mastery
• Comprehensive IT infrastructure knowledge
• IT collaboration solutions
• GPU and High-Performance Computing technologies
• ITIL practices experience

Behavioral Competencies

• Collaborative networking and influencing skills
• Result-oriented with ownership mentality
• Customer value driven
• Experienced team leader
• Change management capability
• Strategic vision shaping