Head - Applications - Aviation Industry

Position brief:

A unique leadership role to enable and drive large Digital Transformation and Innovation in the Aviation Industry. Opportunity to help develop and build best in class Airport Core Architecture and AI/ML based innovative solutions for airports and other customers. This will involve all aspects of technology architecture, innovative software solutions (including cloud-based services), hardware, networks and the associated services.

The role would be liaising extensively with airport stakeholders and would be instrumental in taking key decisions for the growth of the organization. The role would be a key driver for company to achieve its objective of becoming an Industry leader and the preferred Airport IT Services provider. The candidate should understand digital industry trends transportation sector and possess proven expertise in designing and developing digital solutions.

The candidate is expected to collaborate closely with internal Commercial, Operations and Project Delivery teams to drive best in class solutions and enable the growth of the Company. The candidate will directly report to the COO and build and lead a team of domain architects (COEs, Products) and SMEs. Enable organisation build innovative service offerings.

Role & Responsibilities:

• Visualise the Digital Transformation of "Airport IT Services & Operations" through Innovation.
• Lead the development and architecture of the Core Airport IT (Airport ITaaS) digital airport Platform and associated application solutions.
• Adopt leading COEs, Products teams and systems Engineering, software development, integration, testing and QA methodologies to ensure that the evolution of the Airport IT Platform is achieved on time and within budget.
• Coordinate closely with the leadership team to ensure that the Airport IT Platform evolves to support the business plan and successive AOPs.
• Explore new and developing digital technologies and assess their value.
• Study the latest technologies and conceptualize the best use cases for Airports.
• Lead and Develop incubation labs to build products & services to create new value.
• Continuously assess airport digital business solutions as candidates for integration in the Platform.
• Create a team of solution integration SMEs to evolve the Airports IT Platform.
• Provide training / mentoring resources to the architecture, integration, and development teams.
• Closely interact with OEM's, solution providers and Clients to support the solution build and business development.
• Generate revenues with Digital Solutions and Product developments.
• Cost saving by implementing digital technologies/ automation for IT operations and services.
• Be an evangelist for digital transformation in the Airport IT Services & Operations and represent company in external forums.
• Be a thought leader in this space.

Required Soft Skills:

• Highest standard of integrity and ethics.
• Leadership with a wide perspective right from strategy to operations.
• Result orientation and proven execution capability.
• Excellent oral & written communication skills.
• Ability to guide and coach across levels in the team.
• Ability to take the team along and provide them encouragement, direction, and course correction inputs at all times.
• A proven track record of leadership and success in various facets like business planning, execution/delivery of technology solutions and/or managed services solution, customer relationship development, financial management and people, stakeholder management.

Working Experience and Qualification:

• The successful candidate will be educated to business/technology degree level or higher or other advanced degree or professional qualification in a relevant domain.
• 20+ years related work experience in product/platform/solutions development with 10 years in a leadership role in IT Services & Operations, Aviation and transport industries experience will be advantageous.
• Has demonstrated Thought Leadership.
• Has formed and led technology teams that have developed notable digital innovations.
• Understanding of IT Infrastructure, Applications, Database & Networks, and programming languages.
• Extensive experience in large scale systems integration and large systems architecture.
• Has worked in solutions development / integration with large complex, transactional, real-time systems environments.
• Successful team leader with proven leadership skills.
• Very familiar with IT Services & IT operations of complex and large-scale infrastructure environments.
• Articulate and good communication skills.
• Comfortable leading projects and programs and managing at a detailed level.
• Very familiar with digital innovation in IT operations.
• Very familiar with Predictive technologies, Incidence Avoidance etc.
• Should have work experience in implementing digital projects related to video analytics, IOT, Digital twin etc.
• Should have handled digital transformation of legacy applications.