Head of Networks

Your Role: Head of Networks

This is a senior leadership role responsible for the strategy, performance and continual improvement of Global’s IP network estate. You’ll lead a small team of highly skilled specialists, ensuring the networks supporting Global’s live and always-on services are resilient, secure, scalable and aligned to business needs. Global operates a geographically distributed, high-availability network with characteristics similar to a service provider, supporting live broadcast and a nationwide outdoor estate.

As Head of Networks at Global, you will provide the clarity, direction and environment for the team to do their best work, while owning network services that underpin business continuity and future transformation.

Key Responsibilities

• Network Strategy, Service Ownership & Delivery (40%): Define and lead the roadmap for Global’s network services and infrastructure, ensuring they support resilient, secure and high-performing services across live and business-critical environments. Oversee design, delivery and lifecycle management of core network services, balancing operational stability with future growth and change.

• Team Leadership & Capability Development (30%): Lead, support and develop a small team of network specialists. Set clear priorities, create a high-trust, high-accountability culture, remove blockers and enable deep technical experts to focus on the most important work.

• Operational Resilience, Governance & Continuous Improvement (20%): Own network service performance, availability, incident management, escalation readiness, change governance, capacity planning, documentation and service improvement. Ensure standards, processes and controls are in place to support stable, secure and well-managed network operations.

• Stakeholder, Vendor & Partner Management (10%): Work closely with Technology, Cyber Security, Broadcast Engineering, Product and business stakeholders, as well as external providers and carriers, to align priorities, manage risk and deliver reliable network services. Act as the senior escalation point and lead strategic supplier relationships.

What You’ll Love About This Role

Think Big: Shape the direction of Global’s network capability and enable resilient, future-ready technology across the business.

Own It: Take accountability for a critical technology domain that underpins live broadcast, outdoor operations and business continuity.

Keep it Simple: Bring structure, clarity and prioritisation to a technically complex environment, helping specialists focus on the highest-value work.

Better Together: Partner with highly capable engineers, technical leads, suppliers and stakeholders across the organisation to solve important problems and deliver dependable outcomes.

What Success Looks Like

In your first few months, you’ll have:

• Built a strong understanding of Global’s network estate, service model, risks, dependencies and key priorities.

• Established credibility with the networks team by providing clear leadership, sound judgement and effective support.

• Brought clarity to priorities, ownership, ways of working and delivery expectations across the team.

• Strengthened operational oversight of incidents, changes, resilience, documentation and service performance for critical services.

• Built strong working relationships with internal stakeholders, strategic suppliers and service partners.

• Identified opportunities to improve reliability, scalability, governance and team effectiveness across the network function.

What You’ll Need

• Network Leadership Experience: Significant experience in network infrastructure roles, including leading or managing high-performing technical teams in complex enterprise environments.

• Strong Networking Knowledge: Solid understanding of core IP networking concepts and technologies, including routing and switching, WAN/LAN, firewalls, VPNs, wireless networking, resilience and performance management.

• Technical Credibility: Confidence engaging with specialists on topics such as OSPF, BGP, peering, routing policy, network segmentation, security controls and carrier connectivity, while recognising and empowering deeper expertise in the team.

• People Leadership: Proven ability to lead, coach and develop technically strong individuals, creating clarity, accountability and an inclusive, supportive culture.

• Critical Service Awareness: Experience in environments where network services underpin live, high-availability or business-critical operations, with a strong focus on resilience, continuity, controlled change and effective incident management.

• Operational Management: Experience overseeing service performance, incident management, change control, capacity planning, disaster recovery, support models and continual improvement.

• Stakeholder & Vendor Management: Ability to collaborate effectively across Technology, Security, Engineering and business teams, and to manage network suppliers, carriers and partners with strong judgement on risk, value and delivery.

• Documentation & Governance: Appreciation for standards, documentation, lifecycle management, supportability and operational rigour.

• Communication & Mindset: Clear communication with both technical and non-technical audiences, combined with a calm, pragmatic, people-focused and outcome-oriented approach.