Group Head of IT

About the Company

Relocate to Papua New Guinea and take on a genuinely broader executive technology leadership role. Our client is a well-established, diversified financial services group operating across Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, with interests spanning consumer lending, finance and professional services. With multiple businesses across three countries, the Group is entering an important next phase of growth, technology modernisation and cyber transformation.

Based in Port Moresby, this newly created executive position reports directly to the Group CEO, with Board exposure and Group-wide accountability. You’ll have the opportunity to move beyond leading technology for a single organisation and take ownership across an entire Group, shaping technology strategy, strengthening cyber and resilience, modernising the environment and building capability for the future.

About the Role

Reporting directly to the Group CEO and sitting on the Executive Management Team, you will be the Group's most senior technology executive, accountable for:

• Strategy & governance: build the Group Technology Strategy, roadmap and governance framework from the ground up, across three countries and five companies
• Cyber security & resilience: lead a board-backed uplift in cyber maturity: group-wide multi-factor authentication and modern identity, privileged access management, defence-in-depth security architecture, security monitoring and detection, and resilient, well-tested backup and recovery capability
• Disaster recovery & business continuity: own recovery objectives, recovery environments and an exercised DR/BCP capability that Executive Management and the Boards can rely on
• Digital channels & workforce technology: own the Group's digital strategy end to end: the external-facing channels our customers use to find, apply and transact with us, and the internal enterprise applications our people rely on every day, from core lending and finance systems to collaboration and workforce platforms
• Infrastructure & enterprise systems: modernise core platforms, cloud, networks and end-user technology; segment critical systems and eliminate single points of failure
• People leadership: lead a multi-country technology team spanning Group Technology personnel, country technology managers and outsourced partners; build a high-performing, self-sustaining function through capability development, succession planning and knowledge sharing, a team that runs well because of how you've built it, not only when you're in the room
• Vendors & outsourcing: take command of a multi-country vendor and outsourced services landscape, with full authority to reshape it
• Executive advisory: act as the trusted technology adviser to the CEO and Boards, with real influence over investment and direction

This is a hands-on executive role: strategic enough to present to Boards, practical enough to walk our branch network and know exactly what needs fixing.

About You

• Proven technology leadership, you may be a Head of IT or senior IT/technology manager at a medium-sized organisation, ready to step up into your first true group executive seat; financial services or regulated-industry experience is an advantage, not a prerequisite
• Demonstrated cyber security and operational resilience credentials, you've built or materially uplifted a security program, not just inherited one
• Real incident response and recovery experience, you've led or been deep inside a serious outage, security incident or recovery, and you know what good looks like under pressure
• Hands-on depth in the fundamentals that matter: multi-factor authentication and identity/access management at enterprise scale, privileged access, network segmentation, endpoint protection, SIEM/monitoring, patch and vulnerability management, and backup/restore architecture you'd stake your reputation on
• Experience governing outsourced providers, software and cloud providers and multi-site infrastructure, including holding vendors to measurable security and recovery obligations
• Board-level communication skills and sound commercial judgement, you can translate technical risk into decisions Boards can make. You understand the total cost of ownership for technology and are able to make sound risk based decisions backed by sounds financial acumen
• A track record of building and developing teams, you grow local capability, create succession depth, and leave every function stronger and more self-sufficient than you found it
• Resilience, cultural intelligence and a genuine appetite for the Pacific, experience in emerging markets is a strong advantage, but not essential

The Benefits

• A career leap, not a career step: the role you'd wait ten years for in Australia, available now: the relocation is the trade, and the acceleration is the return
• A true executive seat: direct CEO reporting line, Board exposure across multiple entities
• A mandate, not a maintenance job: The Board has committed to serious investment in technology and cyber resilience; you'll define how it's spent
• Regional scope: multi-country, multi-entity, multi-regulator complexity that most domestic roles can't offer
• Impact you can see: technology decisions here directly affect financial access for communities across the Pacific
• A competitive expatriate package: including accommodation, vehicle, travel and relocation assistance (details on application)

Based in Port Moresby with regular travel throughout PNG and periodic travel to Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Applications from Australia, New Zealand and internationally are welcome - relocation is supported.

Please submit your current resume to apply. If you'd like a confidential discussion about the role, please contact Raffaelle Brancatella on raffaelle.brancatella@davidsonwp.com, quoting reference JN -102026-44488. To learn more about Davidson, visit davidsonwp.com.