Director - IT Operation Products - Shipping/Logistics

Role Summary

Designation: Director IT Operation Products

Location: Chennai

Company Overview (Confidential)

A leading global container liner shipping and terminal organization with more than 175 years of legacy, operating with a fleet of 260+ modern ships, connecting 600+ ports worldwide, and employing over 14,000 professionals across 140 countries.

The company has recently established Chennai as a global IT development hub as part of its digital transformation journey. This role is positioned to play a key part in steering modernization of ERP platforms and building scalable technology solutions for global operations.

Role Overview

As Director IT Operation Products, the incumbent will:

- Lead IT operations domain product development in the Chennai Technology Center.

- Drive modernization of ERP products including a core global Freight Information System.

- Collaborate with global leaders on strategy, prioritization, and product acceleration.

- Lead and mentor Product Managers and IT professionals to deliver high-quality solutions.

Key Responsibilities

- Oversee development & implementation of IT Operation products.

- Deliver program objectives on-time, within budget, and aligned with business goals.

- Collaborate with stakeholders globally on scope and execution.

- Steer commercial products with product & cluster managers.

- Identify risks, build mitigation strategies, and resolve issues proactively.

- Define & execute cloud strategies to improve scalability and reliability.

- Mentor and provide strategic direction to product managers.

- Drive process improvements to reduce time-to-market.

Qualifications

- Leadership Skills ability to inspire, guide and scale teams.

- Strong ERP development/migration/implementation expertise.

- Minimum 15 years experience in managing large ERP environments.

- Strong understanding of software development & technology trends.

- Proficiency in Agile/Scrum/SAFe & PMP/Prince2 frameworks.

- Strong strategic & operational mindset with hands-on execution.

- Excellent communication, interpersonal & negotiation skills.

- Experience driving transformation from legacy to modern cloud-based architectures.

Technical Skills

- Java J2EE

- Kafka

- SQL Server / Oracle / MySQL

- Domain Driven Design

- Agile / Scrum / SAFe

- PMP / Prince 2

- AWS Cloud

- Microservices Architecture

Preferred Skills

- Domain expertise in Shipping / Logistics.

- ERP product transformation from Legacy (Mainframe) to Cloud.

- Strong exposure to Microservices and Cloud ERP products.