Group Technology Transformation Lead

• Department: Group Management
• Reports To: Chief Executive Officer
• Location: UAE / Regional
• Employment Type: Full-Time
• Job Level: Senior Management
• Scope: Group-wide – UAE, KSA and future international markets

Role Summary:

The Group Technology Transformation Lead is ultimately responsible for connecting business strategy, commercial requirements, operations and technology.

The Group is therefore seeking more than an ERP project manager or IT specialist. The successful candidate must be capable of understanding the business in depth, advising senior management on technology decisions, challenging vendors and implementation partners, and personally leading a complex multi-year transformation from strategy through successful implementation and adoption.

1. Role Purpose

The Group Technology Transformation Lead is responsible for defining, leading and delivering the Group's technology strategy and transformation roadmap across its businesses and international operations.

The role combines technology leadership, business partnership and transformation delivery. The successful candidate will work closely with the CEO and management team to understand the Group's commercial objectives, operational requirements and growth plans, and translate these into scalable technology solutions.

In the short term, the role will take ownership of the current technology landscape, systems, vendors, costs, integrations and immediate business requirements, while establishing stronger technology governance and supporting current technology decisions.

In the long term, the role will design and lead a long term Group-wide technology transformation covering ERP, CRM, contact centre, HR, booking/POS, inventory, e-commerce, data, integrations, automation and reporting.

This is not a traditional IT support or general project-management position. The role requires a senior, hands-on technology transformation professional with recent experience delivering complex enterprise systems implementations and the commercial and operational understanding required to make effective technology decisions for the business.

2. Key Responsibilities

A. Technology Strategy & Business Partnership

• Act as the principal technology business partner to the CEO and management team.
• Develop a detailed understanding of the Group's businesses, commercial models, operations, customers and growth strategy.
• Work closely with Finance, HR, Operations, Marketing, Sales, Contact Centre and other functions to understand business requirements and priorities.
• Translate commercial and operational requirements into technology strategy and solutions.
• Identify opportunities where technology can improve revenue, conversion, productivity, customer experience, controls and scalability.
• Evaluate technology decisions based on business value, cost, ROI, risk and scalability.
• Provide clear recommendations to management, including alternatives, costs, risks and implementation implications.
• Ensure technology supports business processes and strategy rather than unnecessarily dictating them.
• Maintain awareness of emerging technologies, automation and AI opportunities relevant to the Group.

B. Current Technology Environment & Short-Term Management

• Conduct a comprehensive review of the existing technology landscape across the Group.
• Maintain visibility over all systems, platforms, licences, subscriptions, integrations, vendors and technology-related contracts.
• Review current technology expenditure, utilisation and contractual commitments.
• Identify system duplication, gaps, inefficiencies, risks and manual workarounds.
• Establish clear system and business ownership.
• Take ownership of key technology vendor relationships and escalations.
• Support management with immediate system and technology decisions.
• Introduce appropriate governance for technology purchasing, system changes and vendor engagement.
• Identify and implement appropriate short-term improvements without compromising the future technology architecture.
• Ensure current business operations remain adequately supported throughout the transformation period.

C. Group Technology Architecture & Transformation Roadmap

• Define the Group's current-state and target-state technology architecture.
• Develop and maintain a structured 2–3 year technology transformation roadmap.
• Determine which systems and capabilities should operate at Group, business and country level.
• Establish implementation priorities, sequencing, dependencies and budgets.
• Ensure proposed architecture supports multi-company, multi-country and future international expansion.
• Establish technology standards and principles covering systems, integrations, data, security and governance.
• Develop business cases for significant technology investments.
• Present technology recommendations and investment requirements to the CEO and management team.

D. ERP Transformation

Lead the evaluation, selection and implementation of the Group's future ERP environment, with NetSuite currently under consideration.

Responsibilities include:

• Business requirements gathering.
• Current-state and future-state process mapping.
• Fit-gap analysis.
• ERP evaluation and selection.
• Solution design.
• Multi-entity and multi-country requirements.
• Finance and management reporting requirements.
• Procurement and inventory workflows.
• Approval workflows and controls.
• User roles and permissions.
• Data preparation and migration.
• System integrations.
• User Acceptance Testing (UAT).
• Training and implementation readiness.
• Cutover and go-live.
• Post-implementation stabilisation and optimisation.

The role must have sufficient technical and functional expertise to independently assess and challenge recommendations made by vendors and implementation partners.

E. Systems Integration & Automation

• Design an integrated technology environment across the Group.
• Define integration requirements and data flows between core systems.
• Ensure appropriate use of APIs, middleware and other integration technologies.
• Establish systems of record and minimise unnecessary duplication of data.
• Identify and implement workflow and process automation opportunities.
• Ensure systems provide a consistent flow of information across relevant functions.

The technology landscape may include:

• ERP and Finance
• CRM
• Contact Centre and omnichannel communications
• Booking and POS
• HR and workforce management
• Inventory and procurement
• E-commerce
• Marketing technology
• Business intelligence and reporting
• AI and workflow automation

F. Data Architecture, Migration & Governance

• Develop the Group's data architecture and governance framework.
• Identify master data and establish clear data ownership.
• Assess the quality and integrity of existing data.
• Lead data cleansing, mapping, migration, reconciliation and validation.
• Establish system-of-record ownership for critical data.
• Implement appropriate controls over data access, quality and integrity.
• Ensure technology architecture supports accurate Group-wide reporting.
• Prepare the Group's data environment for future analytics, automation and AI capabilities.

G. Vendor & Implementation Partner Management

• Lead the evaluation and selection of technology vendors and implementation partners.
• Develop structured RFP/RFQ processes where appropriate.
• Evaluate proposals, demonstrations, architecture and implementation methodologies.
• Assess total cost of ownership and long-term commercial implications.
• Support contract and commercial negotiations.
• Define clear scopes, deliverables, milestones and acceptance criteria.
• Challenge vendor recommendations where appropriate.
• Monitor delivery against agreed scope, budget and timelines.
• Manage change requests and scope control.
• Hold vendors accountable for delivery and resolution of implementation issues.

The Group Technology Transformation Lead will represent the Group's interests and requirements, ensuring ownership of technology strategy remains internally with the business.

H. Programme & Project Governance

• Establish appropriate governance for the overall technology transformation programme.
• Develop project plans, workstreams, milestones and dependencies.
• Define business owners, system owners and project responsibilities.
• Maintain project budgets, risk registers, decision logs and issue trackers.
• Establish change-control processes.
• Define testing and implementation-readiness requirements.
• Establish clear go-live criteria.
• Identify and escalate risks appropriately.
• Provide concise, decision-focused progress reporting to the CEO and management team.

I. Change Management & User Adoption

• Assess the organisational impact of technology changes.
• Partner with HR and department heads to develop appropriate change-management plans.
• Identify key users and system champions.
• Coordinate user training and readiness.
• Ensure SOPs and workflows are updated to reflect new systems and processes.
• Monitor system adoption and identify capability or training gaps.
• Address operational issues following implementation.
• Ensure new systems replace legacy processes and unnecessary manual work rather than creating additional layers of administration.

J. Technology Governance & Continuous Improvement

• Establish sustainable Group technology governance.
• Define system, business, vendor and data ownership.
• Establish user-access and change-management controls.
• Maintain appropriate system and technical documentation.
• Review licence and subscription utilisation.
• Establish regular system and vendor performance reviews.
• Support business continuity and technology risk management.
• Continuously evaluate opportunities to improve the Group's technology environment after implementation.

3. Candidate RequirementsEssential Experience

• Significant senior-level experience in technology transformation, enterprise systems, ERP implementation or a related field.
• Demonstrable experience personally leading at least one significant Tier 1 ERP implementation within the last five years.
• Proven end-to-end implementation experience covering requirements gathering, solution design, data migration, integrations, UAT, cutover, go-live and stabilisation.
• Strong experience in enterprise systems integration and APIs.
• Significant practical experience in data architecture, migration and governance.
• Experience managing technology vendors and implementation partners.
• Experience working across multiple business functions and legal entities.
• Experience operating within multi-country or international environments.
• Strong programme and project governance experience.
• Demonstrated ability to develop technology business cases and evaluate ROI.
• Strong commercial and operational understanding.
• Experience working directly with senior executives and management teams.

Preferred Experience

• Recent hands-on NetSuite implementation experience and/or relevant NetSuite certification.
• Experience with CRM and customer-data platforms.
• Contact centre and omnichannel technology.
• Booking and POS systems.
• HRIS and workforce-management platforms.
• Inventory and procurement systems.
• E-commerce platforms.
• Business intelligence and analytics.
• AI and workflow automation.
• Multi-site customer-facing businesses such as beauty/wellness, healthcare, clinics, retail, hospitality or consumer services.
• UAE and KSA operating experience.

4. Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Information Systems, Business Technology, Engineering or a related discipline.
• Relevant postgraduate qualification is advantageous.
• ERP, NetSuite, enterprise architecture, programme/project management or technology transformation certifications are advantageous.
• Equivalent substantial professional experience may be considered.

5. Technical Competencies

The successful candidate should demonstrate strong working knowledge of:

• Enterprise architecture and ERP systems.
• Systems integration and APIs.
• Data architecture and migration.
• Master-data management.
• CRM and customer journeys.
• Finance and accounting workflows.
• HR systems.
• Contact-centre technology.
• Booking and POS systems.
• Inventory and procurement.
• E-commerce.
• Business intelligence and reporting.
• Workflow automation and AI.
• Technology governance and access controls.
• Vendor and implementation-partner management.

The role does not require the individual to be a software developer; however, they must have sufficient technical depth to independently evaluate architecture, challenge technical recommendations and make informed technology decisions.

6. Leadership & Behavioural CompetenciesBusiness Partner

Understands the commercial and operational requirements of the organisation and translates them into effective technology decisions.

Commercially Minded

Evaluates technology based on business value, ROI, scalability and total cost of ownership rather than functionality alone.

Hands-On

Comfortable working directly with data, requirements, processes, systems and vendors rather than operating solely at strategic level.

Operationally Focused

Invests time in understanding how departments and locations actually operate before recommending solutions.

Technically Credible

Able to challenge vendors, implementation partners and technical consultants from an informed position.

Strategic & Pragmatic

Can design a long-term technology architecture while recognising the Group's immediate operational and commercial requirements.

Accountable

Takes end-to-end ownership of outcomes from initial strategy through implementation and stabilisation.

Strong Communicator

Able to communicate complex technology matters clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Collaborative

Builds effective working relationships across countries, businesses and functions while maintaining clear accountability.

7. Key Performance Indicators

Performance will be measured against agreed annual objectives, which may include:

• Delivery of an approved Group technology strategy and roadmap.
• Achievement of agreed transformation milestones.
• Delivery of projects within approved budgets and timelines.
• Successful ERP implementation and stabilisation.
• Accuracy and completeness of migrated data.
• Successful integration of core business systems.
• Reduction in manual processes and system duplication.
• Improvement in management reporting and data visibility.
• System adoption and user readiness.
• System reliability and operational stability.
• Vendor performance and cost management.
• Measurable operational and commercial benefits from technology investments.
• Scalability of the technology environment to support Group expansion.

8. Initial Priorities – First 6 Months

The initial mandate will be to establish control, clarity and direction across the Group's technology environment.

Key priorities will include:

• Understand each business's strategy, commercial model and operational processes.
• Complete an audit of current systems, vendors, contracts, integrations and technology expenditure.
• Identify immediate technology risks, gaps and opportunities.
• Establish system ownership and technology governance.
• Support management with immediate technology and vendor decisions.
• Complete structured requirements gathering across key functions.
• Define the proposed future-state technology architecture.
• Evaluate major platform options, including NetSuite where appropriate.
• Develop a prioritised implementation roadmap, budget and business case.
• Present recommendations and implementation priorities to the CEO and management team.

9. Long-Term Mandate

Over the following 2–3 years, the Group Technology Transformation Lead will be accountable for delivering and embedding the Group's future technology environment.

This includes implementing the approved ERP and supporting platforms, integrating core systems, establishing reliable Group-wide data, improving automation and reporting, reducing manual processes and ensuring the architecture can support future businesses, locations and countries.

The role remains accountable beyond technical implementation. Success requires ensuring that systems are adopted, operationally stable and delivering measurable commercial and operational value.

Work Location: In person