Applications Support Group Manager - Senior Vice President

The Global Financial Messaging / Payments Technology SVP (C14) is a senior Application Manager is responsible for end-to-end ownership of Global Financial Messaging (GFM) / Payments applications within the Production Support and Services organization. This role combines strategic leadership, deep technical expertise, and operational excellence to ensure high availability, resiliency, and performance of mission-critical, franchise payment platforms.

The role operates at a global level, driving stability, modernization, and transformation initiatives while partnering with business, product, and engineering teams. The SVP acts as a delegate to global leadership and is accountable for delivering best-in-class production support services and continuous improvement across the payments ecosystem

Key Responsibilities :

1. Strategic & Regional Leadership

• Define and execute the strategy for GFM / Payments Production Support, aligned with global payments technology objectives

• Build and lead high-performing global teams, including onshore, offshore, and vendor resources

• Act as a senior escalation point and decision-maker for critical production and business-impacting issues

• Partner with senior business stakeholders to align technology services with enterprise priorities

2. Production Support & Operational Excellence

• Ensure 24x7 stability and availability of Global Financial Messaging and Payments applications

• Oversee incident, problem, and change management processes aligned with ITIL best practices

• Drive improvements in: Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR)

• Incident reduction and root cause elimination

• Service level adherence and operational KPIs

• Lead release management and production deployments, ensuring minimal business disruption

3. Technical Leadership & Engineering Excellence

• Provide hands-on technical leadership across: Observability (monitoring, logging, tracing)

• Automation and self-healing capabilities

• Resiliency, disaster recovery, and failover strategies

• Champion modern engineering practices including: Infrastructure-as-Code

• CI/CD pipelines

• Automation and scripting (Python, Shell, etc.)

• Guide teams on application stability, scalability, and performance optimization

4. Architecture & Platform Governance

• Collaborate with architecture and engineering teams to embed: Supportability standards

• Resilient system design principles

• Define onboarding standards and governance for new applications into production

• Influence platform modernization across messaging and payment systems

5. Stakeholder & Business Engagement

• Engage with senior leadership, product partners, and clients to communicate: Platform health

• Operational risks

• Strategic initiatives

• Translate technical capabilities into business value, ensuring alignment with customer expectations

• Support audit, regulatory, and compliance engagements

6. Risk, Control & Compliance

• Ensure all activities adhere to Citi risk and control frameworks

• Proactively identify, escalate, and resolve operational and regulatory risks

• Maintain strong governance over: Change management, Production controls, Application lifecycle management

7. Financial & Vendor Management

• Manage budgets, resource planning, and cost optimization initiatives

• Drive efficiencies through: Automation, Process improvements, Vendor optimization

• Oversee third-party and managed service providers, ensuring SLA adherence

8. Talent & Organization Development

• Lead, coach, and develop diverse global teams

• Build strong succession pipelines and technical leadership bench strength

• Foster a culture of: Accountability, Continuous improvement, Operational excellence, Qualifications & Experience

Core Experience :

• Rxperience in Production Support / Payments Technology / Financial Messaging

• Proven leadership experience managing large global teams in mission-critical environments

• Strong domain expertise in: Payments systems (SWIFT, real-time payments, financial messaging)

• High-volume, low-latency transaction systems

• Technical Expertise

• Strong experience with: Distributed systems, middleware (MQ, Kafka), and APIs

• Databases (Oracle, MongoDB)

• Linux/Unix environments

• Hands-on knowledge of: Monitoring tools (AppDynamics, ELK, Geneos)

• CI/CD pipelines and automation tools

• Cloud/container platforms (OpenShift, Kubernetes – preferred)

Leadership & Behavioral Skills:

• Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills across all levels

• Ability to operate under high-pressure, high-visibility environments

• Strong problem-solving, decision-making, and prioritization capability

• Strategic mindset with the ability to translate vision into execution

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field required

• Master’s degree preferred

Success Metrics:

• Application uptime and stability metrics

• Incident reduction and faster resolution times

• Successful delivery of production releases and transformations

• Improved operational efficiency and cost optimization

• Strong stakeholder and client satisfaction

Summary:

This role represents a high-impact leadership position within GFM / Payments Technology, combining:

• Deep technical expertise

• Global operational responsibility

• Strategic influence

What we’ll provide you:

By joining Citi, you will not only be part of a business casual workplace with a hybrid working model (up to 2 days working at home per week), but also receive a competitive base salary (which is annually reviewed), and enjoy a whole host of additional benefits such as:

• 27 days annual leave (plus bank holidays)

• A discretional annual performance related bonus

• Private Medical Care & Life Insurance

• Employee Assistance Program

• Pension Plan

• Paid Parental Leave

• Special discounts for employees, family, and friends

• Access to an array of learning and development resources

Alongside these benefits Citi is committed to ensuring our workplace is where everyone feels comfortable coming to work as their whole self, every day. We want the best talent around the world to be energized to join us, motivated to stay and empowered to thrive.
 

#LI-BH1

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