ServiceNow Platform Owner, Director

Job Description

We are looking for a visionary, technically deep, and engineering-led ServiceNow Platform Owner to lead BlackRock's enterprise ServiceNow capabilities. This is a senior leadership role at the intersection of platform engineering, AI-enabled automation, and enterprise service management — sitting at the heart of how BlackRock delivers operational resilience, service excellence, and technology transformation at scale.

As Director and Platform Owner, you will bring expert-level technical fluency in ServiceNow and a hands-on engineering mindset to define how the platform is architected, evolved, and scaled. You will lead a large, globally distributed internal team — setting the technical bar, embedding AI-first thinking into every layer of the platform, and ensuring delivery is grounded in engineering rigour, scalable design, and measurable business outcomes.

Business Overview

The Service Platform & Observability (SPO) team supports and manages production environments across BlackRock, including subsidiaries and clients of BlackRock Solutions. Our scope spans key ServiceNow modules, batch orchestrators, data transfer services, and observability tooling that are critical to business operations and regulatory compliance. The ServiceNow platform is a foundational capability enabling ITSM, ITOM, ITAM, HRSD, and enterprise workflow automation across the firm. This role owns that capability end-to-end.

Role Responsibility

• Own and drive the enterprise ServiceNow platform technical strategy, including multi-year roadmap development, module prioritization, and architectural direction — ensuring alignment with BlackRock's broader technology and operational resilience goals.

• Lead, develop, and grow the ServiceNow Platform team, including engineers, developers, business analysts, and contingent workers, fostering a culture of technical excellence, accountability, and continuous improvement.

• Own the technical architecture and engineering standards for the ServiceNow platform — establishing scalable design patterns, scripting standards, integration frameworks, and platform governance that enable high-quality, consistent delivery at enterprise scale.

• Drive the integration of AI and intelligent automation capabilities into the ServiceNow platform, including Now Assist, generative AI workflows, agentic automation, and predictive analytics — ensuring BlackRock remains at the leading edge of enterprise service management.

• Define and embed AI-first engineering practices across the team — from prompt-driven workflow design and ML-assisted triage to intelligent observability integrations — making AI a core capability of how the platform operates rather than an add-on.

• Establish and enforce platform governance, including change control standards, CMDB integrity, CSDM alignment, release management practices, and compliance with regulatory frameworks including DORA and internal audit requirements.

• Collaborate with senior business and technology leaders across the firm to translate strategic objectives into platform capabilities, ensuring ServiceNow investments deliver measurable operational and financial value.

• Oversee and mature integrations between ServiceNow and critical enterprise systems including Splunk, Grafana, PagerDuty, Azure DevOps, Snowflake, and third-party development partners.

• Drive cost transparency and value tracking across all ServiceNow enhancements, owning the platform's financial posture and ensuring return on investment is clearly articulated to leadership.

• Champion platform modernisation, including the retirement of legacy tools and processes, migration to cloud-native ServiceNow capabilities, and adoption of hub-and-spoke operating models for scalable governance.

• Represent the ServiceNow platform in firm-wide technology forums and vendor governance meetings, including managing BlackRock's relationship with ServiceNow as a strategic partner.

Additional Responsibilities

• Maintain visibility into platform availability, performance, and incident trends, with accountability for Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR) and SLA compliance across all ServiceNow-supported services.

• Ensure the platform's operational health through structured capacity planning, proactive risk identification, and robust business continuity practices.

• Lead regular platform reviews with senior stakeholders, providing structured reporting on roadmap progress, delivery metrics, risks, and strategic outcomes.

• Oversee the full ServiceNow instance administration posture — including delegation of groups, workflow governance, ACL management, CMDB standards, and catalogue integrity — ensuring adherence to best practices at scale.

• Drive talent strategy for the ServiceNow team, including hiring, performance management, career development, and succession planning for key engineering and delivery roles.

• Partner with internal audit, risk, and compliance teams to ensure the platform meets all regulatory and operational resilience requirements, including evidence generation for audit readiness.

Skills / Experience Required

• 15+ years of technology experience, with a minimum of 10 years of deep, hands-on ServiceNow expertise spanning architecture, development, and platform ownership across multiple modules including ITSM, ITOM, ITAM, HRSD, and CSM.

• Expert-level technical proficiency in ServiceNow architecture, scripting (JavaScript, GlideRecord, REST/SOAP integrations), workflow design, CMDB/CSDM, and platform security and access control.

• Hands-on experience with AI and automation capabilities on the ServiceNow platform, including Now Assist, machine learning integrations, agentic workflows, and intelligent alerting — with a forward-looking, practitioner-level perspective on enterprise AI adoption.

• Demonstrated ability to architect and deliver AI-first platform solutions — including the design of automated triage, intelligent routing, generative AI-assisted self-service, and ML-driven operational insights within ServiceNow.

• Demonstrated experience leading and managing large, geographically distributed teams of engineers, developers, and analysts — with a track record of building high-performing, inclusive technology organisations.

• Proven ability to define and execute enterprise platform strategy, including roadmap ownership, governance design, and senior stakeholder engagement in a complex, regulated environment.

• Deep understanding of ITIL processes and their application at enterprise scale, including Incident, Problem, Change, Request, Knowledge Management, and Service Catalog governance.

• Experience integrating ServiceNow with enterprise observability and DevOps tooling such as Splunk, Grafana, PagerDuty, Azure DevOps, Prometheus, and Snowflake.

• Financial acumen and experience managing platform budgets, vendor relationships, and cost optimisationprogrammes — including demonstrable outcomes in spend reduction or value delivery.

• Strong communication and presentation skills, with the ability to translate complex technical concepts into business-relevant narratives for senior leadership audiences.

• Experience operating within regulated financial services or enterprise environments, with familiarity with frameworks such as DORA, SOX, or equivalent operational resilience standards.

• ServiceNow Certified System Administrator (CSA)required; Certified Implementation Specialist (CIS) in one or more modules strongly preferred; Certified Technical Architect (CTA) or Certified Master Architect (CMA) is a significant differentiator.

Preferred Experience

• Experience driving ServiceNow platform transformation programmes, including legacy tool retirement, large-scale migrations, or hub-and-spoke governance model implementations.

• Familiarity with Agile delivery frameworks and experience leading cross-functional product teams using tools such as Jira, Azure DevOps, or ServiceNow's native Agile capabilities.

• Prior experience in a financial services or investment management environment, with an understanding of the operational complexity and regulatory expectations of firms of BlackRock's scale.

• Demonstrated experience evaluating and onboarding third-party development partners and managing vendor performance against contractual and quality standards.

• Experience with Python or Core Java in the context of ServiceNow integrations and automation pipeline development.

• Working knowledge of DevOps tooling including Git, Maven, Jenkins, and Azure DevOps in the context of ServiceNow development lifecycle management.

Why Join Us

You will lead one of BlackRock's most strategically important technology platforms — one that underpins how the firm manages operations, responds to incidents, automates workflows, and delivers service across a global organisation. This is a rare opportunity for a deeply technical platform leader to shape the future of enterprise service management at scale, embed AI-driven engineering into the heart of firm operations, and build a team and culture that sets the standard for platform excellence. You will work alongside world-class technologists, business leaders, and risk professionals in an environment that values curiosity, technical rigour, accountability, and continuous innovation.