Head of IT (GM) Japanese Finance Firm Mandaluyong

This is a newly created, General Manager-grade position. The Head of IT sets the company's IT direction: owns company-wide IT architecture, prepares and owns the annual IT investment plan, and presents both directly to the Board of Directors and to the IT division of our parent company in Japan.
The role connects the business and IT. It decides what gets built and in what order, and is accountable for the pipeline from request to production. It is not hands-on with coding or infrastructure: it assesses whether application design and security posture are sound, leads a small in-house team, and brings in vendors as needed.

Key Responsibilities
1. IT strategy and architecture
Own the company-wide IT architecture and the standards that applications and infrastructure must meet
Decide build, buy or vendor options, and make sure audit trail, segregation of duties, data retention and disaster recovery are designed in from the start
Set the multi-year IT roadmap in line with business priorities

2. IT investment plan and budget
Prepare the annual IT investment plan and IT budget, and prioritise spending against business value and risk
Own the plan once approved: track delivery, cost and benefits, and report variances (approval above set thresholds rests with the CEO and Board)

3. Board and parent-company reporting
Present the IT plan, architecture decisions and progress directly to the Board of Directors and to the parent company's IT division in Japan
Explain technical choices in business terms, and answer for them without the CEO in the room

4. Business requirements and prioritisation
Gather requirements from operations, credit, collections, accounting and legal, and turn them into clear, prioritised work
Decide what gets built and in what order; say no, in writing and with a reason, when a request does not fit
Own the pipeline from request to production, including testing, release and post-release support

5. Team leadership
Lead, coach and set priorities for the application developers and the infrastructure & network engineer
Review design and code quality at a judgement level, and build the team's capability as the function grows

6. Vendors, systems and access
Select and manage IT vendors and service providers, including contracts, SLAs and performance
Own system administration rights and access control across company systems

7. Security and resilience
Oversee information security, backup and disaster recovery, including planning and carrying out DR tests
Assess the security posture of new and existing systems, and make sure risks are identified and addressed

Not part of this role
Compliance, licensing, regulatory filings and consumer protection
Hands-on coding, or hands-on hardware and infrastructure work (the team and vendors do this)

Title/grade: Head of IT, General Manager grade, reporting to the CEO

Scope: owns company-wide IT architecture and the annual IT investment plan, and presents both to the Board and to our parent company's IT division; leads two application developers and one infrastructure & network engineer, plus vendors

Start: as soon as possible

Profile
Experience with a core banking, lending, credit, or insurance system is a strong advantage, but not required
This is not a hands-on role: the person does not code or do hardware work
Compliance, licensing, and regulatory filings are outside this role, so IT governance or IT compliance specialist profiles are not the right fit

Candidates above the range
If you find a particularly strong candidate whose expected salary is above PHP 200,000, please still send them to us and clearly flag the expectation. Please do not rule them out yourself.

Required
Senior IT leadership experience owning IT strategy or architecture, and an IT budget, for a company or business unit
Experience presenting IT plans and decisions to senior management or a board
Project manager or solutions architect experience on business system implementations, working directly with business departments to define requirements and make decisions
A track record of designing systems with audit trail, segregation of duties, data retention and disaster recovery built in
Judgement-level experience across both applications and infrastructure
Experience managing IT vendors
Comfortable being the person who says no, in writing, with a reason

Preferred
Experience with a core banking, lending, credit or insurance system (a strong advantage, not a requirement)
Experience in financial services, such as retail finance, leasing or insurance
Experience leading a core system replacement or major system implementation
Microsoft Power Platform, Dataverse and Azure
Use of AI tools in day-to-day work
Experience in an organisation of under 100 people
Experience reporting to a foreign parent company

Not a fit for
Vendor-side project managers who have only written specifications against other people's decisions
Candidates whose track record depends on a large organisation's brand, budget or infrastructure
Hands-on developers looking for a senior engineering role
IT governance or IT compliance specialists

Benefits:
SL/VL, HMO after probationary period
13th month pay
HMO
Note: the client will discuss benefit details during the job offer

Work schedule:
Monday‐Friday (once a week wfh) 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Work arrangement: hybrid – 3 days on-site, 2 days work from home

Interview process:
CV screening → Confidentiality Undertaking signed by the candidate → interview with our CEO → reference check with two former direct supervisors → offer.
First Interview F2F; then If there will be a second, it will be online.