VP, Windows & Private Cloud Operations, Technology Group

GIC is one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds. With over 2,000 employees across 11 locations around the world, we invest in more than 40 countries globally across asset classes and businesses. Working at GIC gives you exposure to an extraordinary network of the world’s industry leaders. As a leading global long-term investor, we Work at the Point of Impact for Singapore’s financial future, and the communities we invest in worldwide.

Technology Group
We experiment, design, and lead a 24×7 global business where we support core capabilities in asset management, trading, investment operations, and risk management. We deliver secure, reliable, and integrated solutions, and provide insights on new, and emerging technologies. 

Infrastructure & Cybersecurity Resilience (ICR)
We design, build, and secure the technology foundations that power GIC’s global investment operations. We aim to deliver resilient, scalable, and secure infrastructure that empowers our people and businesses to perform securely, efficiently, and effectively.

What impact can you make in this role?

We are looking for a VP Windows and Public/Private Cloud Operations, running our Windows, virtualization, storage and backup platforms as code-driven, measurably reliable services. This is a senior hands-on Level 3 role responsible for setting technical direction, driving platform reliability and modernization, and serving as the highest escalation point for the outsourced Level 2 operations team.

The role oversees core enterprise infrastructure including Windows Server, PKI, VMware and Nutanix private cloud, enterprise storage, backup and recovery, Citrix, and related technologies. Responsibilities include lifecycle management, major upgrades and migrations, infrastructure as code, site reliability engineering, operational governance, resilience, security, automation, and continuous service improvement within a regulated financial environment.

The position carries accountability for major incidents, on-call support, and after-hours maintenance oversight. We expect the successful candidate to learn new technologies quickly as our platform strategy evolves.

What will you do as a VP, Windows and Public/Private Cloud Operations? 

Platform ownership and strategy

• Drive Windows/Linux and Public/Private Cloud operations, defining technical standards, operational roadmaps, and platform strategy.

• Own enterprise platforms including Windows Server, PKI, SCCM/MECM, SCOM, VMware vSphere, Nutanix (AHV and Prism), vSAN, Citrix, Failover Clustering, and secure file transfer services with scope that can evolve.

• Shape the private cloud hypervisor strategy, including segmentation of the estate and execution of workload migrations between VMware and Nutanix based on total cost, risk, and capability.

• Manage Windows Server lifecycle management, upgrades, and migration programs, including next version of Windows Server adoption and hot patching where appropriate.

• Serve as the senior L3 escalation point for complex incidents and problem management, including performance troubleshooting across guest, hypervisor, fabric, and array.

Infrastructure as code, CI/CD, and immutable infrastructure

• Build and operate infrastructure as code for all server provisioning and configuration (Terraform or OpenTofu, Packer, Ansible, PowerShell DSC) on VMware and Nutanix.

• Run CI/CD pipelines for infrastructure: source control in Git, peer review, linting, security scanning, automated testing (Pester, Terraform tests), and promotion through environments.

• Adopt immutable infrastructure: hardened golden images built and tested by pipeline, servers rebuilt rather than repaired, and configuration drift detected and remediated automatically.

• Enforce policy as code for sizing, tagging, placement, and security baselines, with secrets held in a vault and never in code.

• Make CMDB records, monitoring, and backup policy automatic outputs of the provisioning pipeline.

Automation and coding

• Write, review, and set coding standards for automation in PowerShell and Python, including testing, versioning, and documentation.

• Measure operational toil from ITSM data and drive its reduction through automation and self-healing runbooks with defined guardrails.

• Convert L2 procedures into executable, version-controlled runbooks that the service provider triggers from ServiceNow.

• Evaluate and safely adopt AI-assisted operations for triage, alert correlation, and code assistance, with human approval for production changes.

Site reliability engineering and observability

• Define service level indicators and objectives for platform services (authentication, DNS, file services, provisioning) and manage error budgets that govern change pace.

• Build observability across metrics, logs, and synthetic checks, alerting on user-facing symptoms with an actionable runbook for every alert.

• Lead blameless post-incident reviews with tracked corrective actions, and report MTTD, MTTR, change failure rate, and deployment lead time.

• Carry accountability for major incidents, on-call support, and after-hours maintenance oversight.

Storage, backup, and recovery

• Own enterprise storage across SAN, NAS, hyperconverged, and object storage, including capacity planning, performance, data reduction, and cost per usable terabyte.

• Own backup and recovery services designed to agreed RPO and RTO, following the 3-2-1-1-0 principle with immutable and isolated copies.

• Separate the backup control plane from production identity, with MFA and dual approval for deletions and retention changes.

• Maintain ransomware recovery capability, including clean-room recovery, malware scanning of restore points, and a tested Active Directory forest recovery plan.

• Prove recoverability through automated restore testing and regular full disaster recovery exercises, reporting achieved RTO and RPO.

Security and resilience

• Define identity, privileged access, and Windows security standards in partnership with Cybersecurity and Audit teams, including tiered administration, just-in-time privilege, LAPS, and managed service accounts.

• Drive patching through automated rings with health gates, vulnerability remediation, disaster recovery, and platform resilience, measured as SLOs.

Process, standards, and governance

• Govern ITSM processes, change management, operational KPIs, and service performance in ServiceNow.

• Integrate automation with change management: pipeline-delivered changes approved as standard changes, with evidence attached automatically and segregation of duties enforced through peer review.

• Maintain build and security standards (CIS, NIST, Microsoft baselines) as code, with continuous compliance measurement and an exceptions register with owners and expiry dates.

• Align controls and evidence with regulatory expectations such as MAS Technology Risk Management Guidelines.

• Direct the outsourced L2 service provider by establishing operational standards, runbooks, knowledge transfer, and outcome-based service measures.

Leadership and learning

• Mentor and develop the team, building engineering skills in code, automation, and reliability practice.

• Learn and apply new technologies quickly as platform strategy evolves, and contribute to infrastructure strategy.

• Collaborate with application, network, security, and infrastructure stakeholders.

What qualifications or skills should you possess in this role?

Must have

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or equivalent.

• 10+ years' experience in enterprise Windows Server infrastructure with significant leadership responsibilities, including large-scale upgrade and migration programmes.

• Windows and identity: deep expertise in Windows Server, Active Directory, Entra ID, PKI, and Failover Clustering, including tiered administration and AD forest recovery.

• Virtualisation: hands-on experience operating both VMware vSphere and Nutanix at enterprise scale, including performance troubleshooting, capacity management, and cross-platform migration.

• Infrastructure as code: practical experience with Terraform, Packer, and Ansible or PowerShell DSC, including state management and drift control.

• CI/CD: building and running infrastructure pipelines with Git, peer review, automated testing, and policy as code.

• Immutable infrastructure: experience delivering golden-image builds and rebuild-not-repair operating models for Windows estates.

• Coding and automation: strong PowerShell, working Python, and a track record of measurable toil reduction and self-healing automation.

• SRE: defining SLIs and SLOs, managing error budgets, building observability and actionable alerting, and leading blameless post-incident reviews.

• Storage: enterprise SAN, NAS, hyperconverged, and object storage design and performance troubleshooting.

• Backup and recovery: backup platform design, immutable and isolated copies, ransomware recovery, and evidenced restore and DR testing against RPO and RTO.

• Process and standards: ITSM, ServiceNow, change governance, and standards-as-code, with experience integrating automation into change and CMDB controls.

• Service providers: managing outsourced or managed service providers and acting as the senior technical escalation point.

• Learning agility: demonstrated ability to learn and apply new technologies quickly, evidenced by recent production outcomes.

Advantageous

• Citrix, SCCM/MECM, and SCOM, together with modern alternatives such as Intune, Azure Arc, or OpenTelemetry-based monitoring.

• Experience executing a hypervisor migration or consolidation programme.

• Public cloud (AWS/Azure) and hybrid infrastructure management.

• CIS and NIST security frameworks, and regulatory expectations such as MAS Technology Risk Management Guidelines.

• Experience applying AI tools to operations, with appropriate controls.

Preferred Certifications

Certifications are preferred, not required; demonstrated delivery outweighs them.

• Microsoft Certified: Windows Server Hybrid Administrator Associate

• Microsoft Certified: Identity and Access Administrator Associate

• VMware Certified Professional (VCP-DCV)

• Nutanix Certified Professional, Multicloud Infrastructure (NCP-MCI)

• HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate

• A backup platform certification (for example Veeam VMCE or Commvault)

• Citrix Certified Associate, Virtualization

• ITIL 4 Foundation

Work at the Point of Impact
We need to be forward-looking to attract the right people to help us become the Leading Global Long-term Investor. Join our ambitious, agile, and diverse teams - be empowered to push boundaries and pursue innovative ideas, share your views, and be heard. Be anchored on our PRIME Values: Prudence, Respect, Integrity, Merit and Excellence, which guides us in how we make our day-to-day decisions. We strive to inspire. To make an impact. 

GIC is a Great Place to Work

At GIC, our offices are vibrant hubs for ideation, professional growth, and interpersonal connection.  At the same time, we believe that flexibility allows us to do our best work and be our best selves.  Thus, our teams come into the office four days per week to harness the benefits of in-person collaboration, but have the flexibility to choose which days they work from home and adjust this arrangement as situational needs arise. This role will be in our Tampines Office. 

GIC is an equal opportunity employer 
As an employer, we passionately believe every individual brings with them unique diversity of thought and perspectives to meaningfully enrich perspectives of GIC teams to drive competitive performance. An inclusive environment yields exceptional contribution.

Learn more about our Technology Group here: