Are you a seasoned IT operations leader who thrives at the intersection of vendor governance, operational discipline, and transformation? Do you get energised by turning complexity into clarity, and ambiguity into action? If you're ready to lead from the front in a fast-moving, high-impact environment — this role was built for you. <div> About the Role </div> As our IT Service Management Lead, you will be the operational heartbeat of our FITOPS organisation — the go-to leader who keeps our IT operations running smoothly, our vendor accountable, and our transformation agenda moving forward. You will own the governance of our strategic IT service management vendor, champion an AI-powered and automated operations future, and play a pivotal role in supporting the financial close cycle. This is a high-visibility role that blends strategic thinking with hands-on operational leadership, making a tangible difference every single day. <div> Key Responsibilities </div> <ul> <li>Lead vendor governance end-to-end — establish and maintain rigorous governance routines including service reviews, performance discussions, risk reviews, improvement planning, escalation management, and executive-level reporting.</li> <li>Drive accountability and transparency with our key IT service management vendor, ensuring strong operational discipline and adherence to agreed processes, standards, and controls across incident, problem, change, request, and service management activities.</li> <li>Act as the primary escalation point for vendor performance, service quality, delivery issues, and operational risks — resolving issues decisively and constructively.</li> <li>Support our financial close process with partnership with our Finance Close Management tea m through proactive and timely interventions/escalations to ensure closing relevant incidents and problems are well managed.</li> <li>Create a close relationship with the major incident team and act as the primary escalation point for major operational issues affecting the divisions we support.</li> <li>Partner with the Service Delivery Management team in India to ensure consistent execution of governance practices, operational controls, and service management expectations across geographies.</li> <li>Lead and support financial negotiations with the vendor, ensuring commercial discussions are aligned with service expectations, value delivery, and budget objectives; act as a key guardian for financial closing processes related to incident management, problem management, and operational service delivery.</li> <li>Help shape and drive operating model transformation with a focus on AI-powered operations, automation, predictive service management, self-healing capabilities, and improved user experience.</li> <li>Identify simplification and automation opportunities in partnership with the vendor and internal teams to reduce manual effort, improve service resilience, and increase operational efficiency.</li> <li>Support adoption of AI, analytics, and modern ITSM tooling to drive recurring issue elimination, faster resolution, knowledge management, and operational insight.</li> <li>Represent the division as operations lead in internal, enterprise-wide, and cross-functional forums — ensuring divisional requirements and operational realities are well represented.</li> <li>Build and sustain strong stakeholder relationships with technology leaders, service owners, process owners, key finance and group functions leaders, procurement, vendor management, and delivery teams.</li> <li>Communicate operational performance, risks, and transformation progress clearly and confidently to stakeholders at all levels of the organisation.</li> <li>Support vendor team stability and engagement — monitor attrition trends, key-person dependencies, capability gaps, and resource risks, ensuring mitigation plans are in place.</li> <li>Promote a collaborative partnership culture with the vendor while maintaining clear accountability for performance and outcomes.</li> <li>Champion continuous improvement — drive simplification, standardisation, and measurable service improvements aligned with business priorities and enterprise technology direction.</li> </ul> About the Team You will be joining the Finance Close Management & Operations team — a dynamic, cross-functional group that sits at the heart of how our organisation plans, executes, and governs its financial close and operational excellence agenda. Our team connects and bridges a broad stakeholder community to ensure closing plans are realistic, agreed, and well understood. During the close, we ensure stability, keep all stakeholders informed on status, and intervene and escalate issues where necessary to protect the integrity of the process. Beyond the close, we support and drive operational excellence across D&T Finance and D&T Group Functions — ensuring robust processes are in place to capture knowledge, operate efficiently, and deliver real value. We also play a key role in audit readiness and execution: driving improvements to the ICOFR control landscape, preparing stakeholders with high-quality documentation, and supporting both auditors and product areas throughout the audit process. This is a team that operates with purpose, precision, and a genuine commitment to making things better — and we're looking for someone who shares that mindset About You <ul> <li>You are a confident, credible operational leader who knows how to get things done in complex, matrixed environments. You bring a strong sense of ownership and accountability, communicate with clarity and impact, and are equally comfortable in a boardroom conversation and a detailed vendor performance review. You balance commercial sharpness with a collaborative spirit, and you're energised by the challenge of transforming how IT operations work — not just maintaining the status quo.</li> <li>We are looking for candidates who meet these requirements:</li> <li>Strong, proven experience in IT service management, IT operations, or service delivery leadership — with a track record of managing strategic vendors or outsourced IT service providers.</li> <li>Good working knowledge of ITIL practices — particularly incident management, problem management, change management, service reporting, and continual service improvement.</li> <li>Solid financial and commercial acumen — including hands-on experience with vendor negotiations, cost management, invoice validation, budget tracking, or commercial governance in an IT context.</li> <li>Experience leading or participating in operational transformation initiatives — including process improvement, automation, or service management simplification.</li> <li>Demonstrated ability to manage and influence geographically distributed teams — including offshore or nearshore delivery models.</li> </ul> These are additional nice to haves: <ul> <li>Experience with AI-powered operations, AIOps, predictive monitoring, or digital operations transformation.</li> <li>Familiarity with ServiceNow or similar enterprise ITSM platforms.</li> <li>Experience in large, complex, matrixed enterprise environments.</li> <li>Knowledge of managed services contracts, SLAs, operational performance metrics, and vendor scorecards.</li> <li>ITIL certification or equivalent formal service management qualification.</li> <li>Comfort navigating financial closing cycles and supporting finance-related operational governance.</li> <li>Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to turn data into actionable operational insight.</li> </ul> For Slovakia the base salary range for this position is between EUR 3,200 and EUR 5,300 per month (for a full-time role). The specific salary offered considers: <ul type="disc"> <li>the requirements, scope, complexity and responsibilities of the role, </li> <li>the applicant’s own profile including education/qualifications, expertise, specialisation, skills and experience.</li> </ul> In addition to your base salary, Swiss Re offers an attractive performance-based variable compensation component, designed to recognise your achievements. Further you will enjoy a variety of global and location specific benefits. Eligibility may vary depending on the terms of Swiss Re policies and your employment contract.<div class="swissre_jobtemplate"> About Swiss Re <div class="swissre_jobtemplate"> Swiss Re is one of the world’s leading providers of reinsurance, insurance and other forms of insurance-based risk transfer, working to make the world more resilient. We anticipate and manage a wide variety of risks, from natural catastrophes and climate change to cybercrime. Combining experience with creative thinking and cutting-edge expertise, we create new opportunities and solutions for our clients. This is possible thanks to the collaboration of more than 15,000 employees across the world. Our success depends on our ability to build an inclusive culture encouraging fresh perspectives and innovative thinking. We embrace a workplace where everyone has equal opportunities to thrive and develop professionally regardless of their age, gender, race, ethnicity, gender identity and/or expression, sexual orientation, physical or mental ability, skillset, thought or other characteristics. In our inclusive and flexible environment everyone can bring their authentic selves to work and their passion for sustainability. If you are an experienced professional returning to the workforce after a career break, we encourage you to apply for open positions that match your skills and experience. We may use AI-powered tools to support the review and evaluation of applications for this position. These tools provide additional insights to our recruitment teams, but all hiring decisions are carefully reviewed and made by people. To learn more about how we use AI in recruitment and how we handle your personal data, please review our Data Privacy Statement before applying. </div> </div> <style type="text/css"> .swissre_footer { position: relative; margin-top: -50px; height: 30px; clear: both; margin-bottom: 20px; background: #EEE none repeat scroll 0% 0%; line-height: 30px; padding: 0px 10px; color: #AAA; font-family: "Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif"; } .swissre_jobtemplate { width: 970px; max-width: 100%; height: auto; } .jobDisplay .job { font-family: "Arial" !important; font-size: 12px !important; } .joqReqDescription { max-width: 100%; height: auto; align: center; } .joqReqDescription ul { width: 787px; max-width: 100%; } .joqReqDescription p { width: 827px; max-width: 100%; } </style> <div class="swissre_jobtemplate">Keywords: Reference Code: 138544 </div>

IT Service Management Lead (Bratislava, SK) @ Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd.

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