Mission/ Core purpose of the Job:
The Senior Manager Information Systems Security Architect’s mission is to architect and govern secure, resilient, compliant enterprise information systems, including ERP, OSS/BSS, enterprise applications, data platforms, and cross-system integrations both on premise and in the cloud. This role ensures that the company’s multi-market enterprise application estate, internal platforms, and data and AI environments (including agentic AI) are secured in line with privacy, sovereignty, and enterprise security standards.
IT service architecture review and solution designs are key deliverables in order to assure “security by design” and “security by default” in IT projects
Context Global influences, environmental / industry demands, organisational mission
The company’s strategy toward 2030, focuses on transitioning from a traditional telecom company into a platform-based technology business. The “Beyond 2025” strategy aims to establish the company as a holding company managing three core platforms—Connectivity, Fintech, and Digital Infrastructure—with a strong emphasis on sustainability, AI, and Pan-African growth
Architecture design and the end to end security of the platforms and services are key to guarantee the success of the company’s digital transformation. The role must therefore ensure the successful delivery in context of
• The rapid scale of digital channels and consumer/enterprise digital services
• API marketplace expansion, resilience, scalability and platform engineering
• Rise of digital identity, privacy and data protection, fraud intelligence, and trust frameworks
• Multi-market harmonisation of digital architectures across 19+ OpCos (including in security: ZTNA, SDP, micro-segmentation)
• A dynamic regulatory environment regarding data privacy and consumer protection
• Ongoing digital ecosystem partnerships leveraging hyperscale’s and external developers
• Sustainable, autonomous, green tech
• Cyber resilience & trust as a differentiator
• AI capability and relate guardrails
• An expertise-based multicultural federated organisation
• A dynamic and evolving field of information security
• Revolutionary workforce practices which are bringing together global labour markets
• Evolving industry sector constantly presenting new challenges, opportunities and threats to the core businesses
Values (Their culture):
Our client is a purpose and value-led organization. At the company they believe that understanding their people’s needs and aspirations is key to creating experiences that delight you at work, everyday. The company is committed to fostering an environment where every member of their family is heard, understood and empowered to live an inspired life.
The company’s values keep us grounded and moving in the right direction. Most importantly, they keep us honest. It is not something the company claims to be. It is in the company’s DNA.
As an organisation, the company considers it their mission to create an exciting and rewarding place to work, where their people can be themselves, thrive in positivity and ignite their full potential. A workplace that boosts creativity and innovation, improves productivity, and ultimately drives meaningful results. A workplace that is built on relationships and achieving a purpose that is bigger than us.
The company’s commitments go beyond an organisational promise. It is in the companies leadership and managerial ethos to meaningfully partner with their employees, customers and stakeholders with a vision to realise the company’s shared goals.
The company
• Lead with Care
• Can-do with Integrity
• Collaborate with Agility
• Serve with Respect
• Act with Inclusion
Key Performance Areas: Core, essential responsibilities / outputs of the position (KPA’s)
The Senior Manager Information Systems Security Architect is responsible for the following Key Performance Areas:
Enterprise Security Architecture Governance:
• Establish secure-by-design principles for ERP, CRM, OSS/BSS, and enterprise application ecosystems both on premise and in the cloud.
• Oversee architecture for middleware, integration layers, internal APIs, and data flows.
Data Security, Sovereignty & Privacy-by-Design:
• Architect privacy-by-design solutions across multi-country environments.
• Implement data classification, tokenisation, anonymisation, and confidential compute.
• Ensure cross-border data exchange compliance.
Hybrid & Cloud-Integrated Enterprise Systems:
• Govern security of hybrid IT (on-prem + cloud) for enterprise workloads.
• Define secure migration models from legacy to cloud-native systems.
• Promote AI guardrails for all Genova project with impact on digital platforms
Enterprise Identity & Access Governance:
• Define enterprise IAM, PAM, SSO, and authentication architectures.
• Define micro-segmentation architectures
• Define governance and guardrails for agentic identities
Multi-Market Standardisation:
• Develop reusable enterprise system architecture blueprints across OpCos
Job Requirements (Education, Experience and Competencies):
Minimum Qualifications:
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science/Information Systems/Engineering (or equivalent).
• Post-grad preferred (e.g., MSc, MBA) or equivalent experience.
Experience:
• 8–12+ years total IT/security experience; 5-7+ years in security architecture within large, complex enterprises.
• Experience securing large enterprise systems, ERP/CRM/OSS/BSS
• Demonstrable delivery across cloud, API, data/AI, mobile/web apps, Security for AI and AI for security and telco/network environments.
• Experience operating in multi-market/Group-OpCo models and regulated domains (POPIA/GDPR; PCI/FS for fintech).
Certifications (Preferred):
• Architecture: SABSA, TOGAF.
• Security: CISSP, CCSP, CISM (or equivalent).
• Cloud: Azure/AWS/GCP security certifications.
• DevSecOps/IaC: Kubernetes, Terraform, or equivalent product certs.
• Compliance: ISO 27001 Lead Implementer/Auditor, PCI ISA (if fintech).
• AI: security for AI certifications
Technical Competencies:
• Enterprise architecture frameworks
• Data protection technologies (both on premise and in cloud)
• IAM/PAM & identity governance
• Micro-segmentation
• Integration security (APIs, middleware)
• Hybrid IT and Cloud security governance
• Security for AI
• Security incident management
• Project Management
Behavioural Competencies:
• Governance orientation
• Analytical problem solving
• Stakeholder influence
• Risk and compliance mindset
Other:
• Regional and international travel may be required
Collaboration (Formal and Informal Relationships):
• Responsibility towards:
• Group Information Security, IT, Data Platforms, Internal Audit, Compliance
• OpCo CIOs and IT architecture teams
• Cloud CoE and enterprise application owners
• AI COE – AI Center of Excellence
• S2 COE- Software Solution Center of Excellence
• External enterprise solution vendors