IT Change & Transition Specialist

The IT Change & Transition Specialist is responsible for governing, planning, coordinating, and overseeing all IT service transitions, change activities, release deployments, and operational readiness initiatives across a complex technology and integrations landscape. The role ensures that new systems, technology changes, upgrades, integrations, and project deliverables are introduced into production in a controlled, compliant, well-communicated, and risk-managed manner while minimizing disruption to business operations and users.

The position acts as the central coordination point between Tech Operations, Service Delivery, Cyber Security, Infrastructure, Applications, Delivery Management, Vendors, and Business Stakeholders to ensure successful delivery, hypercare, adoption, support handover, and lifecycle management of technology services.

Key Accountabilities

IT Change Management

• Own and govern the enterprise Technology Change Management / Change Enablement process.
• Facilitate Change Advisory Board (CAB) meetings, including agenda preparation, risk review, approvals, and follow-up actions.
• Review, assess, approve, reject, or escalate change requests based on technical risk, business impact, user impact, compliance requirements, and operational readiness.
• Maintain the enterprise change calendar and coordinate scheduling to avoid conflicts with critical business periods, peak operational windows, financial activities, and change freeze periods.
• Ensure all changes are properly documented, tested, approved, communicated, and supported by rollback or contingency plans.
• Define and maintain change categories, including Standard, Normal, Major, Emergency, and Retrospective changes.
• Monitor failed changes, emergency changes, unauthorized changes, and change-related incidents to drive continuous improvement.

Service Transition & Operational Readiness

• Lead end-to-end transition activities for new technology services moving from project delivery into live production support.
• Develop and maintain service transition frameworks, go-live readiness checklists, acceptance criteria, and operational handover templates.
• Ensure service ownership, support model, escalation paths, monitoring requirements, service desk scripts, knowledge articles, SOPs, and training materials are completed before go-live.
• Coordinate knowledge transfer from Delivery teams, vendors, and implementation partners to internal Tech support teams.
• Assess operational readiness for new systems, upgrades, integrations, and technology platforms before production deployment.
• Ensure post-go-live support/hypercare plans are defined, communicated, and resourced appropriately.

Release & Deployment Management

• Coordinate enterprise release schedules across applications, infrastructure, cloud services, network, security platforms and business systems.
• Ensure release plans include deployment steps, validation activities, communication plans, business sign-off, rollback procedures and contingency measures.
• Oversee production implementation windows and major technology cutovers in coordination with vendors, internal Tech teams and business stakeholders.
• Conduct post-implementation reviews to identify lessons learned, recurring issues and improvement opportunities.
• Maintain consistent governance for releases, patches, upgrades and production deployments.

Stakeholder & Vendor Coordination

• Act as the primary Tech liaison for change, release, and service transition activities.
• Partner with Tech Infrastructure, Data & Automation, Applications, Cyber Security, Service Delivery, Delivery, Digital Transformation, Finance, Procurement, Human Resources and all business units.
• Coordinate third-party vendors and implementation partners to ensure delivery standards, support documentation, testing evidence, and handover requirements are met.
• Provide clear and timely updates to Asnad Tech leadership and business stakeholders regarding major changes, risks, readiness gaps, and deployment outcomes.
• Support a culture of strong communication, accountability, planning discipline, and service excellence.

Risk, Compliance & Governance

• Identify technical, operational, cyber security, data privacy, service continuity, user-impact, and business risks associated with proposed changes.
• Ensure change and transition activities comply with internal IT governance, audit expectations, cyber security controls, vendor obligations, and applicable regulatory requirements.
• Coordinate risk mitigation plans, change windows, contingency plans, rollback plans, and business communications for high-impact changes.
• Participate in audit reviews and provide evidence for change approvals, testing, implementation, and post-change validation.
• Escalate material risks, delayed readiness items, or unmanaged dependencies to Asnad Tech leadership.

Documentation, Reporting & Continuous Improvement

• Maintain accurate change records, CAB minutes, transition plans, release schedules, risk logs, readiness assessments, and post-implementation review documentation.
• Develop and track KPIs including change success rate, failed change percentage, emergency change volume, deployment success rate, transition readiness outcomes, and post-go-live incident trends.
• Identify recurring service transition gaps and implement process improvements to increase service stability and operational maturity.
• Support enhancement of ITSM tools, workflows, dashboards, approvals, templates, and automation opportunities.
• Promote ITIL-aligned best practices across IT and business teams.

Qualifications & Experience

Education

• Bachelor’s Degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, Business Information Systems, or a related discipline required.
• ITILv4 Create, Deliver & Support preferred
• ITILv4 Practice Manager e.g., Monitor Support and Fulfil (MSF), Plan Implement and Control (PIC), or Collaborate, Assure and Improve (CAI) preferred
• PMP, Prince2, Agile, Scrum, Lean Six Signa, COBIT or related certifications required .

Technical Knowledge & Systems Exposure

• Strong knowledge of ITIL practices, particularly Change Enablement, Service Transition, Release Management, Incident Management, Problem Management, Knowledge Management, Service Request Management, and Configuration Management / CMDB.
• Understanding of infrastructure, network, cloud, cyber security, business applications, integrations management, identity access management, service desk operations, business continuity, disaster recovery, monitoring, and operational support models.
• Hands-on experience with ServiceNow, and Azure Devops Release management is required.
• Exposure to Microsoft 365, Microsoft Azure, Active Directory / Entra ID, endpoint management, enterprise applications, or related operational platforms is preferred.

Experience

• Minimum 5 years of progressive experience in implementing and driving adoption of IT Service Management, IT Operations, Change Management, Service Transition, Release Management, Devops Release Management.
• Minimum 3-5 years Technology Project Delivery.
• Minimum 3-5 years in a dedicated Change, Transition, Release, or ITSM leadership role.
• Experience in large enterprise environments, complex multi-site operations, or 24/7 mission-critical operations is strongly preferred.
• Proven experience managing enterprise-scale technology deployments, business-critical cutovers, stakeholder communication, vendor-led implementations, and production support transitions.

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