The Director of IT Services is the most senior IT support leader at Soho House & Co, with global accountability for the technology experience across our 45+ Houses, Soho Works, Retail, Ned Club, and IHDB brands. This is fundamentally an operational IT role — making sure our IT is up and running, all the time, everywhere. The Director leads a global support team, but the mindset is 24/7: senior leadership combined with hands‑on ownership where it matters, owning operations, support, and incident management end‑to‑end, and answering for service performance across every site, every day.
It is a high‑visibility role that depends on strong collaboration across Operations, Finance, HR, and the wider business. Reporting to the Chief Digital & Technology Officer, the Director sits within the Digital leadership team alongside the leads for AI, Data, Engineering, Product, and Security — a department that drives cutting‑edge work across AI, Data, Digital, and IT. The business continues to use modern technology, including automation, generative AI, and agentic AI, to improve operations and enhance both member experience and operational efficiency, and this role plays a critical part in supporting that business and technology transformation.
Key Accountabilities..
- Lead, develop, and manage the technology operations team, including employees and contractors, setting clear objectives, driving performance, and building a member‑first service culture.
- Own the Managed Service Provider relationship, including SLAs, regular service reviews, and continuous improvement across all support tiers.
- Drive continuous improvement in global technology support quality, BAU service performance, and stakeholder satisfaction.
- Lead and coordinate small projects, service enhancements, and tactical technology improvements across existing physical sites.
- Support technology readiness for new House openings and refurbishments by coordinating requirements with Infrastructure, IHDB, and other stakeholders.
- Partner with HR and the Group CDTO to attract, assess, and onboard technology talent globally.
- Own PCI‑DSS operational compliance across relevant systems and locations, including annual assessments, QSA relationships, remediation programmes, and ongoing controls governance.
- Own the full technology estate, including front‑office systems such as PMS, POS, F&B reservations, access control, and guest WiFi, and back‑office systems including HCM, Finance, and ERP Fusion.
- Own operational support and incident management for the whole estate, and drive BAU delivery of enhancements for all Hospitality, HR, and Finance systems. (Major programme delivery sits with the Special Programmes Delivery team.)
- Manage all technology vendor relationships and commercial agreements, critically evaluate AI‑embedded vendor roadmaps, and ensure effective licensing and cost control.
- Ensure all systems comply with internal policies, including cybersecurity, GDPR, SOC monitoring, incident response, PCI‑DSS, and ISO 27001 across all global locations.
- Own and manage the IT budget, including software licensing, MSP costs, project spend, and team resource.
- Full ownership of the IT Services budget, including software licensing, MSP costs, project spend, and team resource.
- Responsible for annual budget planning, monthly reforecasting, and presenting investment cases to the Group CDTO and ExCo.
- Expected to drive cost efficiency through rigorous vendor negotiation and technology rationalisation.
Challenges and Priorities for this role..
- Evolving the IT operating model from reactive support to proactive strategic delivery, aligning technology investment with Soho House’s growth ambitions.
- Managing global complexity across 45+ locations with diverse regulatory requirements (GDPR, PCI‑DSS, US/UK/EU data privacy, local telecoms regulations).
- Critically evaluating and governing AI‑embedded capabilities within vendor platforms (PMS, POS, F&B systems) to ensure genuine ROI and responsible deployment.
- Delivering new House openings on time and to standard while maintaining BAU service levels across the existing estate.
- Maturing the MSP relationship towards more proactive, value‑add support, reducing reliance on reactive incident management.
- Building IT talent capability and capacity to support new brands, geographies, and technology platforms.
- Balancing cybersecurity rigour (PCI‑DSS, GDPR, ISO 27001) with the need to move quickly on strategic technology initiatives.
What We Are Looking For..
- 10+ years in IT leadership, with at least 3 years at IT Service Delivery Director level in hospitality, luxury retail, or multi‑site lifestyle brands.
- Proven experience managing Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and holding them to SLAs.
- Experience with automation (as it applies to hospitality) and AI, with familiarity across the modern tech stack.
- Track record of delivering end‑to‑end IT projects, including global new‑site buildouts.
- Knowledge of hospitality systems: PMS (Opera, Apaleo, or equivalent), POS (Simphony, Tevalis, Lightspeed), F&B reservations (SevenRooms, OpenTable).
- Ability to critically evaluate AI/ML capabilities in vendor SaaS platforms — model quality, data pipelines, integration patterns, and vendor lock‑in risk.
- ERP and back‑office fluency: finance, HR/HCM, and procurement systems (ideally Oracle suite and Dayforce).
- Experience recruiting and developing distributed IT teams across multiple geographies.
- Strong commercial acumen — owning IT Service Delivery OPEX/CAPEX budgets and presents investment cases to senior leadership.
- Excellent stakeholder management across operational, commercial, and technology functions.
Soho House offers competitive compensation packages that feature global benefits and perks. Whether you’re seeking entry‑level employment or a new opportunity to expand your profession, we offer training to develop the technical and managerial skills necessary to grow your career.
- Annual Every House Membership
- 50% off Food & Drink, 7 days a week
- Staff Room Rates
- Private Health and Dental Care
- Weekly Pay
- Life Assurance
- Up to 50% Staff Discount on Cowshed & Soho Home
- In Office Dog Policy on Fridays
- Season Ticket Loan
- Christmas Office Closure
- In conjunction with Soho Impact, take 2 days paid a year to support a charity of your choice.
- Free Counselling Sessions
- Cookhouse & House Tonic: Our Cookhouse & House Tonic programmes offer unique food and drink trainings, events and opportunities to inspire and educate.
- Continuous training to develop yourself personally and professionally
- Exclusive access to our benefits platform with hundreds of discounts on shopping, gym memberships, holidays, insurance and much more
- Team Events: From fitness sessions to cinema screenings and art classes, each month we hold a series of fun events which you can sign up to.
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