Head of Release Management

Strategy & Governance

* Define the multi-year roadmap and develop and implement a Release Management strategy aligned with business objectives, technology roadmap, and regulatory requirements.

* Design, hire, and manage the structure of the team, leveraging both internal staff and external vendors, optimising the balance between cost-efficiency and delivery speed.

* Align with business objectives, regulatory requirements, and technology roadmaps.

* Establish governance frameworks, policies, and standards for release planning, environment lifecycle, and compliance.

* Define and maintain audit-ready controls for release management.

* Partner with other technology teams to drive DevOps adoption, automation, and continuous delivery practices.Release Management

* Own the release calendar, governance framework, and readiness checkpoints.

* Oversee planning, coordination, and execution of releases across multiple platforms.

* Establish Quality metrics (e.g DORA) and KPIs (e.g., release quality, deployment frequency, change success rate, MTTR) and monitor performance.

* Serve as the primary point of contact for internal and external auditors regarding the release management process, providing evidence of control adherence, automated audit trails, and policy enforcement.Environment Management

* Define and enforce environment lifecycle policies (provisioning, refresh, decommissioning).

* Ensure non-production environments are available, stable, and compliant with security and data privacy standards.

* Oversee data refresh and masking processes to meet GDPR and regulatory requirements.

* Prevent configuration drift and maintain parity with production where required.

* Governance & Compliance

* Ensure compliance with Digital Operational Resilience Act ICT change management, ISO 27001, and internal audit requirements.

* Maintain documentation and evidence for regulatory inspections and audits.

* Conduct risk assessments for releases and environment changes; implement mitigation plans.Stakeholder Engagement

* Act as the primary escalation point for release and environment issues.

* Engage with business leaders, product owners, and technology teams to align priorities and resolve conflicts.

* Manage relationships with third-party vendors and service providers for environment and release services.

* Team Leadership

* Build and lead a high-performing team of release managers, environment coordinators, and analysts.

* Foster a culture of collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement.

* Develop capability through training, mentoring, and succession planning.Miscellaneous

* Developing skills pertinent to role.

* Undertaking other reasonable tasks at the discretion of the Head of Section and Gro