Service Delivery Manager (ITIL Certified)

We are seeking an experienced ITIL Service Delivery Manager who has extensive hands-on experience with Freshservice to join our lean global, cloud-only organisation. In this critical role, you will be the bridge between our technical cloud operations and the business, ensuring that all IT services are delivered efficiently, consistently, and in alignment with agreed business expectations. Operating in a complex compliance and highly regulated, multi-cloud environment, you will balance the need for agility with rigorous governance. You will build, implement and own the ITIL processes, service automation, review cadence, manage escalations, and drive continuous improvement across our cloud service portfolio. By leveraging ITIL 4 best practices, you will ensure our cloud services provide maximum value, maintain high availability, and meet strict Service Level Agreements (SLAs). ABOUT THE ROLE What you'll do: Service Level & Performance Management: Define and Monitor SLAs: Establish, negotiate, and track Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Operational Level Agreements (OLAs) for all cloud and business services. Service Reviews: Prepare and lead regular service review meetings with key stakeholders and business units to present performance metrics, identify trends, and address service gaps. Reporting: Utilise ITSM platforms to generate comprehensive reports on service availability, response times, resolution times, and overall service health. Escalation Point: Act as the primary escalation point for major incidents, outages, or SLA breaches, ensuring timely communication to business stakeholders. Major Incident Coordination: Participate in and guide major incident bridges, ensuring swift restoration of cloud services.[AP2.1][MM2.2] Problem Management: Drive root-cause analysis (RCA) for recurring incidents, ensuring problem records are created and permanent fixes or workarounds are implemented across the cloud infrastructure. Multi-Cloud Oversight: Consolidate and monitor cloud consumption and billing across various Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) to ensure cost-efficiency without hindering agility. Vendor Coordination: Collaborate closely with third-party cloud vendors and internal engineering teams to ensure external services meet contractual obligations and performance standards. Compliance & Security: Ensure cloud services comply with organisational standards, security policies, and regulatory requirements (e.g., ISO 27001, CIS benchmarks). Continual Service Improvement (CSI). Identify Weaknesses: Proactively identify service process bottlenecks, recurring incidents, and areas for service enhancement. Drive Initiatives: Lead continual improvement initiatives to turn operational data into measurable service gains, optimising the delivery of cloud services. Change, Problem and Release Enablement: Assess the impact of proposed changes to the cloud environment, ensuring risks are mitigated during releases and infrastructure updates. You’ll bring: Minimum of 5+ years of experience in IT Service Management, with at least 2 years operating specifically as a Service Delivery Manager in a cloud-centric or cloud-only environment (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google Cloud). Certifications: Active ITIL 4 Foundation certification is mandatory. Advanced ITIL 4 certifications (such as ITIL 4 Specialist: Acquiring & Managing Cloud Services or Managing Professional) are highly desirable. Global Operations: Proven experience working in a global organisation, managing services across multiple time zones and diverse business units. Vendor Management: Strong background in managing third-party vendors, cloud service providers, and negotiating SLAs. Extensive hands-on build experience with freshservice. Key Skills & Competencies Strategic Communication: Exceptional ability to translate complex technical issues into clear business impacts for the CIO and COO. Analytical Thinking: Strong analytical skills to interpret performance data, identify trends, and drive data-backed improvements. Conflict Resolution: Adept at managing the tension between business agility and IT governance/control. ITSM Tools: Proficiency with enterprise ITSM platforms (e.g., FreshService) for tracking and reporting. Financial Acumen: Basic understanding of cloud billing models (FinOps) to assist in monitoring and optimising cloud spend. Extensive hands-on build experience with Freshservice. What Success Looks Like: In your first three months, success will be defined by: Establish high levels of automation and workflow capability across the ITSM platform. Establishing a predictable and transparent cadence for global service reviews of internal ITSM, Vendor and partners. Achieving a measurable reduction in incidents through the service portfolio and proactive problem management. Build new SLAs & OLAs and ensuring 90%+ compliance across SaaS and cloud services. Fostering strong, collaborative relationships with both internal ITOps teams and external cloud vendors. Build and implement the full suite of ITIL best practice workflows in Freshservice. ABOUT M&C SAATCHI WORLD SERVICES M&C Saatchi World Services is a specialist division of M+C Saatchi Group, the world’s largest independent communications network. Our specialists work in office hubs across six continents, grounding our global expertise in local nuance. We offer award-winning commercial communications capabilities, which are utilized by global organizations to address the world’s most complex problems across defence, development, diplomacy, homeland and national security, law and order, health, education, and the environment. We work with clients that want to help the hardest-to-reach, hardest-to-influence audiences. This includes a range of Western Government departments, such as DOS and USAID; partner governments, including the U.K. and Australia; and prominent IGOs/NGOs such as the U.N. We are a comms agency that works on behaviour change projects typically focused on issues related to Security, Defence and Stabilization. Whether it’s producing critically acclaimed feature films in Africa, to TV shows in the Middle East, to pop music videos in Asia, we have a record of leveraging creativity to access communities anywhere in the world. WHAT WE OFFER A competitive salary and benefits package that includes 27 days holiday per year, pension contributions, private healthcare, discounted dental insurance, enhanced maternity/parental leave, plus a whole host of others including: Cultural stimulation allowance - £250 per person per year Half days off before bank holidays Emergency care days for dependants Up to 5 days volunteering leave per year to work for a registered charity Up to 10 days special emergency leave per year Season Ticket loan Payroll Giving Scheme Thursday drinks to unwind and socialize An annual Summer and Christmas party Our commitment to Diversity and Inclusion sees us offer inclusive bank holidays We also offer learning opportunities around D&I, targeted mentoring programmes and the opportunity to participate in several active Employee Led Networks and associated events. Finally, this role will be supported with all the necessary personal development required to set someone up for success. M+C SAATCHI GROUP has pledged its commitment to create a company that values difference, with an inclusive culture. As part of this, M&C Saatchi Group continues to be an Equal Opportunity Employer which does not and shall not discriminate, celebrates diversity and bases all hiring and promotion decisions solely on merit, without regard for any personal characteristics. All employee and candidate information is kept confidential according to General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). #LI-BM1 #WS