Assistant Manager, IT at Russelsmith

RusselSmith Nigeria Limited is an ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 45001:2018 certified company, delivering innovative solutions that enhance resilience and sustainable development across critical sectors in Africa.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Assistant Manager, IT

Location: Victoria Island, Lagos
Employment Type: Full-time

Job Summary

• Supports the Divisional Head in coordinating IT operations, infrastructure, security, user support, and compliance.
• This hands-on role combines technical depth with people and process leadership to ensure high service levels, resilient networks, secure systems, and effective IT governance. Maintains a quality-driven culture, values innovation, and is open to technology that improves performance and efficiency.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Lead day-to-day IT operations, set service expectations, and act as an escalation point for incidents and requests.
• Provide direction, mentorship, and task coordination for IT personnel to achieve service targets and project milestones.
• Oversee user support, onboarding, and IT training programmes that lift digital literacy and security awareness.
• Plan, configure, and maintain network infrastructure, including switches, access points, routing, VLANs, and site links over fibre and wireless.
• Administer and optimise Microsoft 365 services, identity, and security controls across endpoints and cloud workloads.
• Monitor infrastructure health and capacity, analyse trends, and implement preventive maintenance to minimise downtime.
• Maintain accurate documentation of configurations, changes, diagrams, standards, and operating procedures.
• Strengthen IT security through policy enforcement, patch and vulnerability management, access control, and continuous monitoring.
• Contribute to disaster recovery and business continuity planning, testing, and improvement.
• Ensure adherence to ISO standards and Quality Management Systems, and support internal and external audits.
• Manage software licensing, renewals, vendor relationships, and contracts to ensure value for money and compliance.
• Maintain an accurate IT asset inventory and lifecycle records covering endpoints, networking, servers, and software.
• Coordinate business process automation initiatives with stakeholders, working alongside developers while not building forms yourself.
• Support integrations with cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Zoho, and manage hybrid connectivity.
• Define and enforce acceptable use of AI tools across the organisation, covering data security, privacy, confidentiality, and auditability.
• Leverage AI features in Microsoft 365, ITSM and security platforms to improve service delivery, knowledge management, and reporting.
• Coordinate business process automation that may include AI components, working with developers to ensure secure and compliant implementations.
• Oversee secure remote access and ensure reliable remote support for field and distributed users.
• Track and report key service metrics, risks, and improvement actions.
• Unit Reports - Generate the required weekly, monthly, quarterly, bi-annual, and annual reports and presentations.
• Safety and Security - Actively promote and personally observe safety and security procedures and use equipment and materials properly.
• Hazard Identification - Promote risk-based thinking and eliminate identified hazards throughout the organisation.
• Reports - Generate and update required meeting notes for divisional and cross-functional meetings as required.
• Perform other duties as required or as assigned.

Role Criticality & Associated Risks:
Service Reliability and Uptime:

• Prolonged outages and slow recovery due to the weak coordination of incident response and preventive maintenance.
• Capacity shortfalls and performance bottlenecks from a lack of monitoring and trend analysis.

Security and Compliance:

• Increased exposure to cyber threats through inconsistent patching, weak access controls, and poor endpoint hygiene.
• Non-conformities against ISO and QMS requirements, failed audits, and regulatory penalties.

Continuity and Recovery:

• Incomplete disaster recovery plans, untested procedures, and delayed restoration of services after incidents.
• Data loss risks from inadequate backup governance and verification.

Governance and Documentation:

• Uncontrolled changes, configuration drift, and knowledge loss due to poor documentation and change practices.

Vendor and Cost Management:

• Sub-optimal contracts, licence non-compliance, and missed savings opportunities due to weak vendor oversight.

Scalability and Improvement:

• Systems that do not scale with business growth and missed opportunities to digitise and automate critical workflows.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, or a related field.
• Minimum of eight (8) years of relevant IT experience, including at least two (2) years in a supervisory or management role.
• Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) — mandatory.
• Microsoft 365 Certified: Enterprise Administrator Expert — mandatory.
• Demonstrated ability to configure and manage enterprise networking infrastructure and Wi-Fi.
• Hands-on experience with Microsoft 365 management, endpoint protection, identity, and hybrid environments.
• Practical exposure to cloud platforms such as Azure and AWS.
• Familiarity with ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 and related audit practices.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including policy and technical documentation.
• ITIL Foundation certification is desirable.
• Understanding of business process automation concepts and coordination.
• Awareness of emerging technologies, including modern IT automation and generative AI.
• Ability to evaluate AI vendors and features for risk, compliance, and value, and to document controls aligned to ISO and QMS.
• Familiarity with prompt design, result validation, and safe data minimisation when using AI assistants.

Organisational Relationship

• Reports directly to the Head, Digital Solutions Division. Collaborates with internal stakeholders, external vendors, and audit or compliance bodies as required.

Physical Demands:

• Regular use of the telephone, conferencing tools, and e-mail is essential.
• Sitting for extended periods is common.
• Hearing, vision, and speaking within normal ranges are essential for normal conversations and for preparing or inspecting documents.
• No heavy lifting is expected.
• Exertion of up to 10 lbs. of force occasionally may be required.
• Good manual dexterity is required for common office and network equipment.

Work Environment:

• The job is performed primarily indoors in a traditional office setting, with occasional work in comms rooms and field locations.
• Activities include extended periods of computer work and periods of higher pace during incident response or project cut-overs.
• This is a full-time onsite role from Monday to Friday. Availability outside regular working hours may be required based on operational needs.

Application Closing Date
20th January, 2026.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should send their CV to: Hr@russelsmithgroup.com using the Job Title as the subject of the mail.