Doherty Associates
Head of Managed Services
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About Doherty Associates
Doherty Associates has delivered technology solutions for over 30 years to international clients. We provide consulting and managed services, specialising in risk-focused sectors including private equity and legal, where service quality and security are critical.
We are a highly accredited Microsoft partner with five solution partner designations and operate a multi-geographic 24/7 support service. Our capabilities span cloud, modern workplace, data and AI, cybersecurity, governance and compliance.
Our customers rely on us to bring specialist expertise and innovation across cloud solutions, hybrid working, modern workplace, data and AI advisory, cyber security, governance and compliance. We have built a reputation as a company that keeps its promises and delivers quality.
About the role
Reporting to the COO the Head of Managed Service will lead the Managed Services function, with accountability spanning global Service Desks and Field engineering, NOC and SOC operations, and internal systems support. Bringing the function together under a clear, consistent and commercially focused operating model. The current function staffing is approximately 60 staff based in UK (London) and Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur).
As the Head of Managed Services, you will act as a senior operational partner to Account Management and Professional Services team. You will also act as an operational stakeholder for key clients, balancing day-to-day service performance with strategic service development and transformation.
Your key priority will be to build consistently high-quality managed services that can scale with the business and client demands. You will drive margin improvement by realising economies of scale, adopting the right AI and automation tooling, improving ways of working and making effective use of global delivery capability.
Responsibilities
Leadership and strategy
- Provide overall leadership for all Managed Services and Managed Security Services teams across the UK and Malaysia.
- Define and deliver the Managed Services strategy in support of the company’s growth plans.
- Create a unified, high-performing and customer-focused global service organisation.
- Lead benchmarking assessments of performance and customer experience against industry peers, ensuring the organisation remains competitive and aligned to market expectations
- Own the financial performance of the Managed Services function, establishing measures to monitor profitability and margin while driving improvements to achieve commercial targets.
- Establish clear accountability for teams, services, products, processes and performance.
- Develop the leadership capability, technical depth and organisational structure required to support growth.
- Deliver a cohesive and seamless global service, ensuring strong collaboration between UK and Malaysian teams.
- Represent Managed Services in Senior Management Team discussions.
- Provide clear reporting on service performance, customer experience, risk and commercial results.
People and capability
- Lead and develop the team of direct reports
- Build a culture centred on accountability, quality, commercial awareness and customer experience.
- Define clear roles, responsibilities and decision-making authority.
- Ensure effective leadership coverage across all locations and service hours.
- Develop workforce and capacity plans aligned with customer demand and business growth.
- Establish succession plans for key leadership and technical roles.
- Develop capability frameworks, career pathways and future skills across the function.
- Set measurable objectives linked to customer, operational and commercial outcomes.
- Maintain consistent performance management, coaching and employee development.
- Encourage collaboration and shared accountability across the UK and Kuala Lumpur.
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Service performance and customer experience
- Own the Managed Services operating model and overall service performance.
- Ensure services are secure, resilient and delivered in line with contractual commitments, regulatory requirements and agreed quality standards.
- Own the Managed Services operational risk framework, ensuring material service, security, capacity and resilience risks are identified, mitigated and escalated.
- Establish consistent governance, KPIs and management controls across all service areas.
- Drive continual service improvement using operational data, customer feedback and service trends.
- Maintain management oversight of SLA and contractual performance.
- Identify contracts where service commitments are operationally or commercially unsustainable and lead corrective action.
- Act as the senior operational escalation point for strategic and at-risk clients.
- Lead major service recovery and improvement programmes where required.
- Build trusted relationships with client executives and senior operational stakeholders.
- Partner with Account Management to support client satisfaction, retention, renewal and growth.
- Ensure customer commitments are achievable, appropriately resourced and commercially sustainable.
Commercial performance and scale
- Own the financial and commercial performance of Managed Services. Improve margin as the business expands by developing services that are: standardised, repeatable, automated, scalable and commercially sustainable
- Realise economies of scale across clients, teams, locations and technology platforms.
- Develop visibility of cost to serve across customers and services.
- Improve resource utilisation, capacity planning and the balance between UK and Malaysia delivery.
- Identify and address margin leakage, excessive manual effort and inefficient working practices.
- Work with Finance, Sales and Account Management to ensure services are appropriately scoped, priced and resourced.
- Develop business cases for tooling, automation, AI and operational investment.
- Track the commercial and operational benefits delivered by transformation initiatives.
- Protect service quality and customer experience while improving efficiency and margin.
Standardisation, automation and tooling
- Develop a consistent operating model across the UK and Malaysia.
- Standardise service definitions, processes, documentation and delivery methods.
- Establish clear ownership and roadmaps for managed services and enabling technologies.
- Design new services for repeatable and scalable delivery.
- Reduce dependency on individual knowledge, bespoke processes and manual intervention.
- Define and deliver the Managed Services technology, automation and AI roadmap.
- Adopt tooling that improves productivity, service quality, visibility and operational control.
- Prioritise high-volume, repetitive and error-prone activities for automation.
- Apply AI to practical use cases such as service triage, knowledge management, reporting and operational insight.
- Set measurable benefits for technology investment and ensure tools are fully adopted.
- Maintain appropriate security and governance controls for automation and AI.
Service portfolio and transition
- Own the Managed Services portfolio strategy, ensuring services remain competitive, profitable and aligned to customer and market requirements.
- Drive service innovation and continual improvement, balancing customer outcomes, operational scalability and commercial performance.
- Lead the transition of strategic capabilities into managed service offerings, working collaboratively across the business to maximise recurring revenue opportunities.
- Provide executive oversight of service lifecycle governance, ensuring services are introduced, evolved and retired in line with business objectives.
- Build strong alignment between Managed Services and Professional Services teams to deliver an integrated customer experience.
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Qualifications, skills & experience
Essential
- Senior leadership experience within an MSP or comparable IT services organisation. Delivering to a reoccurring revenue model.
- Experience leading a substantial, multi-site Managed Services operation.
- Experience operating global enterprise and 24/7 service models.
- Experience leading Managed IT and Managed Security Services.
- Proven leadership of onshore and offshore delivery teams.
- Evidence of building high-performing, customer-focused service organisations.
- Strong knowledge of ITIL-aligned service management and continual improvement.
- Experience leading Service Desk, infrastructure, cloud, applications or security operations.
- Strong commercial experience, including: budget ownership, margin improvement, cost-to-serve management, Resource and capacity planning
- Evidence of standardising and scaling services as a business grows.
- Experience improving productivity through tooling, automation, AI and new ways of working.
- Strong client-facing capability, including executive stakeholder and escalation management.
- Proven people leadership and organisational change experience.
- Strong analytical, commercial and decision-making skills.
Desirable
- ITIL 4 or an equivalent service-management qualification.
- Experience supporting private equity, legal, financial services or other regulated clients.
- Knowledge of Microsoft cloud, modern workplace and security technologies.
- Experience developing managed-service portfolios and standard service offerings.
- Experience leading Security Operations or managed security services.
- Experience delivering a Managed Services Target Operating Model or major transformation.
- Knowledge of ISO 9001, ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials Plus.
About you
- A visible and credible leader across service, technical and security teams.
- Commercially focused, with a strong understanding of service economics.
- Customer-centric and confident engaging at board and C-suite level.
- Data-led, decisive and comfortable holding others accountable.
- Experienced in simplifying, standardising and scaling complex operations.
- Able to balance immediate service priorities with long-term transformation.
- Passionate about automation, tooling and efficient ways of working.
- Calm under pressure, pragmatic and focused on measurable outcomes.
What we offer in return
- Basic salary plus performance bonus
- 34 days of annual leave (incl. 8 UK bank holidays and a day off on your birthday)
- Enhanced family-friendly benefit schemes including company sick pay
- Sponsored training and development and where applicable to the role, a technical exams incentive scheme
- Private medical insurance and Employee Assistance Programme
- Income protection and life insurance
- Company Pension scheme
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