VP, Infrastructure at Appzone Limited

AppZone is a response to the growing need in emerging markets for financial services accessibility to the masses. The company was formed with a genuine belief in Africa’s latent ability to support the home grown production and delivery of world class IT Software for the enhancement of key sectors of the budding economy. AppZone started off primarily as a developer of custom e-Banking and payment software for leading commercial Banks in Nigeria. In less than 3 years, AppZone had accumulated a remarkable asset-base of e-payment software products and intellectual property. In a bid to extend existing payment solutions to smaller scale Financial institutions, AppZone observed the absolute dearth of basic IT infrastructure and commenced a 2 year project to develop a world class yet affordable core Banking platform for Microfinance Banks (MFBs) and other small scale retail financial institutions. The culmination of this project saw AppZone in full ownership of an entire integrated suite of IT infrastructure required for the effective functioning of any modern retail Bank. Today AppZone has consolidated these platforms into a shared and entirely managed Banking and payment automation IT infrastructure under the brand BankOne. AppZone was incorporated in July 2006 as Price and Networks Limited and commenced full operations in June 2008 with a knife edged focus on creating a world class organization and defacto provider of IT software for the financial services industry. The young, dynamic and driven co-founders of AppZone decided to bring together their wealth of technical, administrative and entrepreneurial experience as well as key leadership competences to create a winning team comprising the best in brains and character. The end point being to transform the financial services industry in Africa and emerging markets around the globe thereby creating immense value for the respective economies and facilitating their overall growth and development.

Job Description

• Refine strategy for adoption of internal applications and cloud/on-premise infrastructure
• Manage engagements with all technology vendors and service providers. 
• Design/implement Infrastructure architectures to meet expectations on performance, efficiency and security. 
• Oversee root cause analysis and remediation activities for technology issues within stipulated TATs. 
• Oversee implementation and enforcement of infrastructure management standards & certifications. 
• Formulate and implement disaster recovery and business continuity plans across the group. 
• Ensure the security of the group's infrastructure in partnership with the Information Security team.
• Provide technical leadership to manage operations related to cloud and on premise IT infrastructures - server, storage, network, security, cloud services, server virtualization and business continuity & disaster recovery
• Manage requests from business divisions on provision of IT services and ensure seamless implementation & delivery
• Manage change initiatives to ensure availability, performance and reliability of the systems impacted by change
• Manage security, backup and recovery of IT infrastructure
• Formulate and implement policies and procedures to ensure a stable and secure infrastructure
• Ensure that company's cloud and local infrastructures run seamlessly, perform within agreed targets, and provide a secure platform for the company's business operations

Requirements

• BSc/BEng in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science or other related Physical Sciences disciplines.
• 10+ years experience, with 2-5 years of leadership experience. 
• Cloud Infrastructure Competence: Azure, AWS, VMWare, Windows, Linux, Hybrid Architecture 
• Network Infrastructure Competence: Cisco, Fortigate. 
• Information Systems: Internal Systems & Productivity tools 
• Project Management, Technical operations & Support: ITIL methodology, Solarwinds (or other NPM), Datadog (or other APM) 
• Azure Architecture Expert Certification, Cisco Certification: CCNP, CCIE. CCDE Fortigate NSE 4 - 7 
• PMP, PRINCE 2 COBIT, ITIL Manager or Expert. 
• DevOps methodology knowledge, fintech industry experience and information systems experience

Method of Application