ILRI : ICT infrastructure manager

Vacancy Number: IM/ ICT/10/12
Location: Nairobi, Kenya
Duration: 2-year contract renewable

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) works to enhance the roles livestock play in pathways out of poverty in developing countries. ILRI is a member of the CGIAR Consortium, a global research partnership of 15 centres working with many partners for a food-secure future. ILRI has two main campuses in East Africa and other hubs in East, West and southern Africa and South, Southeast and East Asia.www.ilri.org.

CGIAR is a global agricultural research partnership for a food-secure future. Its science is carried out by 15 research centres that are members of the CGIAR Consortium in collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations. www.cgiar.org.

ILRI seeks to recruit an ICT Infrastructure Manager to lead the ICT Infrastructure and “back office” functions for ILRI and World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF). This is to ensure that staffs of ILRI and ICRAF, hosted organisations and visitors receive the expected level of infrastructure services from the ICT Department so that they can work efficiently and effectively. The infrastructure includes internet and other external connections, the internal network, telecommunications systems, servers and the core applications and systems that they provide, storage, ICT security and disaster recovery. This position also takes on the role of ICT Security officer with responsibility to ensure that the networks, data and other resources of ILRI and ICRAF are secure and can be restored quickly after any disaster. The level of security needs to be balanced with the convenience of staff to be able to carry out their work effectively. The position holder will be expected to spend equal amounts of time at the ICRAF campus and the ILRI Kenya campus to provide the necessary leadership of staff at each location.

Key responsibilities

• Lead the ICT Infrastructure team at ILRI and ICRAF, principal responsibilities will be in Nairobi but they will also need to ensure that similar standards and configurations are implemented in Ethiopia and other regions;
• Manage the contracts and on-site technicians for services that are outsourced. These will include a contract for Server room equipment, telecommunications equipment and cabling service and maintenance and the internet services contract;
• Plan the work and budgets of the ICT Infrastructure team together with the Head of ICT, the ICT Applications manager and the ICT Customer Services manager and ensure that the linkages between the teams capture all the tasks that need to be carried out by the ICT Department;
• Develop and maintain the ICT replacement and investment plan for infrastructure resources used to create the ICT environment at ILRI and ICRAF;
• Coordinate the ICT Infrastructure requirements of the regional offices and ensure that the required hardware resources, software licenses and access to institutional information resources are available to all staff wherever they located;
• Carry out and regularly update risk assessment of the ICT environment at ILRI and ICRAF.
• Implement and monitor the ICT compliance requirements, security policies and procedures in ILRI, ICRAF and the CGIAR;
• Develop, implement, test and monitor the ICT disaster recovery plan (DRP) for ILRI and ICRAF and work with the Head of ICT to integrate the DRP into the ICT Business Continuity Plan (BCP);
• Carry out penetration and vulnerability tests on the network and systems at least twice a year;
• Ensure that identity management and systems management are well managed in terms of security and permissions that are assigned to staff that use the systems;
• Ensure that physical access to equipment is secure to minimise internal security risks;
• Identify important security risks and provide advice on how these can be prevented or minimised, through training and user awareness;
• Develop and improve ICT procedures and configurations required in the ICT Infrastructure team and monitor to ensure at these are correctly implemented within ILRI and ICRAF;
• Lead ICT and Security projects that are implemented by the ICT Infrastructure team;
• Be available on-call during evenings and weekends as per the agreed roster to provide Infrastructure support and to resolve urgent issues. This may involve providing remote support or returning to the office as required;
• Be available to work on infrastructure project implementation during evenings and weekends to minimise disruption to those working on the campus;
• Manage the campus firewalls that are the first level of security for the campus network;
• Maintain and monitor the change management documentation and the incident logs;
• Identify commonly recurring requests for assistance and provide advice on how these can be prevented or minimised, through training, user awareness, changes in configuration etc;
• Research into finding more effective ways of using and configuring applications that can then be rolled out across the campuses or posted to the intranet and communicated to staff for their use.
• Provide covering support to the work of the ICT Customer Services team when required;
• Provide guidance and mentoring to the ICT Infrastructure staff;
• Supervise students that are on attachment to the ICT Department;
• Set the performance indicators for the ICT Infrastructure team, ensure that the statistics required to monitor these indicators are being captured and are regularly analysed and posted to the intranet so that staff can follow the performance of the team;
• Carry out regular seminars, user awareness exercises and develop flyers and other informational documents to raise the awareness of staff at the Centres to new and more effective ways of working, ICT security issues and other useful ICT information;
• Provide input into the ICT Department’s information portal;
• Provide input into the ICT Liaison groups on the Nairobi campuses to receive feedback and disseminate ICT information to a group of ICT proficient staff;
• Keep up-to-date with changes and advancements in ICT Infrastructure and the type of applications that are supported and make suggestions for improvements to the services provided.

Requirements

• First Degree in Computer Science or equivalent;
• Up to date certification Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) and/or CISCO Certifications or ICT Security Certification or Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL);
• A minimum of 5 years’ experience in an ICT infrastructure and networked service environment;
• Customer service, supervisory and management training.

Other competencies

• Well organised to manage projects in several locations;
• Good communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to pass on information clearly to users and to grasp difficulties perceived by users;
• Strong customer service orientation that establishes a good working relationship with customers, with the attitude of wanting to assist people and pass-on their knowledge and experience to others;
• Good logical diagnostic skills and ability to exercise good judgement in the resolution of problems.
• Ability to multi-task in dealing with several different problems at a time;
• Ability to work under high pressure, meet deadlines, monitor and follow-up on pending matters under minimum supervision;
• Ability to communicate fluently in written and verbal English.

Terms of Appointment: This is a Nationally Recruited Staff (NRS) position based at ILRI’s Nairobi campus and ICRAF.  It is open to Kenyan nationals only.  The position is on a 2-year contract renewable subject to satisfactory performance and availability of funding.

Job level and salary: This position is job level 3B with a starting gross salary of KES 237, 417 per month. The benefits package includes pension, medical and other insurances for ILRI’s Nationally Recruited Staff.

Location: The position will be based at the ILRI campus and ICRAF in Nairobi, Kenya.

Applicants should send a cover letter and CV combined as one document addressed the Human Resources Director, explaining their interest in the position, what they can bring to the job and the names and addresses (including telephone and email) of three referees who are knowledgeable about the candidate’s professional qualifications and work experience by 31 October 2012.  Log on to: http://www.myjobsinkenya.com/ilri_jobs. The position title and reference numberREF: IM/ICT/10/12 should be clearly marked on the subject line. Only online applications will be considered, and only short listed candidates will be contacted.

To find more about ILRI, visit our Website at www.ilri.org

To find out more about working at ILRI visit our website athttp://www.ilri.org/ilricrowd/