APAC Head of Change and Release Management Operations

About Northern Trust:

Northern Trust, a Fortune 500 company, is a globally recognized, award-winning financial institution that has been in continuous operation since 1889.

Northern Trust is proud to provide innovative financial services and guidance to the world’s most successful individuals, families, and institutions by remaining true to our enduring principles of service, expertise, and integrity. With more than 130 years of financial experience and over 22,000 partners, we serve the world’s most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.

Position : APAC Head of Change and Release Management Operations

Location : Bangalore

Role Overview

Northern Trust is seeking a senior Change and Release Management leader to own and continue to evolve the Management function, enabling safe, predictable, and efficient delivery of production changes across a complex, highly regulated technology environment.

This role is accountable for ensuring that change governance enables business outcomes, balancing velocity, stability, risk, and regulatory expectations at enterprise scale.

Key Responsibilities

Governance, CAB & Risk Decisioning

Lead the end‑to‑end Change Management process, ensuring compliance with IT controls, regulatory standards, and enterprise risk frameworks

Chair and actively participate in Change Advisory Board (CAB) forums, driving collaborative, well‑informed change decisions

Partner closely with Business Units (BUs), Technology, and Operations leaders to ensure risk‑based, outcome‑focused decisioning on changes

Promote and sustain a risk‑aware, decision‑driven change culture, with strong exception evaluation and mitigation strategies

Partner with Risk & Control, Audit, and other Lines of Defense to evidence control monitoring and ongoing compliance

Oversee internal and external change audits, ensuring timely execution, transparent issue management, and senior leadership visibility

Operational Excellence

Design and operate lean, scalable, and resilient change processes suitable for high‑volume production environments

Define, implement, and enforce SLAs across the full change lifecycle

Produce executive‑ready month‑end change reporting, highlighting throughput, risk trends, systemic issues, and improvement opportunities

Drive continuous improvement initiatives to improve production stability and operational maturity

Technology, Delivery & Tooling Enablement

Partner with the Change Management Product Owner to enable tooling modernization and workflow automation, including requirements, testing, and enterprise adoption

Leverage enterprise platforms such as ServiceNow, Azure DevOps, Clarity, and other PPM / ITSM tools

Apply a strong understanding of application delivery models, release practices, and testing readiness when assessing change risk and deployment confidence

Integrate cybersecurity considerations and control dependencies into CAB discussions and change approval decisions

Leadership & Stakeholder Partnership

Lead, coach, and develop a high‑performing Change Management team

Act as a trusted partner to Engineering, Application Development, Infrastructure, Operations, and Business stakeholders

Communicate clearly and credibly with senior management, enabling informed and timely decision‑making

Experience & Qualifications

Required

Minimum 20 years of experience in the IT industry, with senior leadership accountability

Minimum 6 years of experience leading Change and/or Release Management functions within large, complex environments

Strong prior‑career experience in software development or engineering, enabling deep understanding of application lifecycles, deployment risk, and delivery constraints

Prior exposure to testing disciplines minimum 5 years (system, integration, or user acceptance testing) strongly preferred

Minimum 8 years of experience working within development‑ or engineering‑led organizations

Strong understanding of Custody, Trade, and Payments Operations within financial services environments

Demonstrated experience in financial services or other highly regulated industries

Proven expertise with ITSM controls, ITGCs, and audit frameworks

Hands‑on experience working with SMO (Service Management Operations) platform and internally developed, proprietary application platforms

Bachelor’s degree required

Certifications (Preferred, Not Mandatory)

ITIL (Foundation or higher)

SAFe Agilist / Agile Leadership certifications

PMP or equivalent project / delivery certification

Working with Us:

As a Northern Trust partner, greater achievements await. You will be part of a flexible and collaborative work culture in an organization where financial strength and stability is an asset that emboldens us to explore new ideas.

Movement within the organization is encouraged, senior leaders are accessible, and you can take pride in working for a company committed to assisting the communities we serve! Join a workplace with a greater purpose.

We’d love to learn more about how your interests and experience could be a fit with one of the world’s most admired and sustainable companies! Build your career with us and apply today. #MadeForGreater

Reasonable accommodation

Northern Trust is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please email our HR Service Center at MyHRHelp@ntrs.com.

We hope you’re excited about the role and the opportunity to work with us. We value an inclusive workplace and understand flexibility means different things to different people.

Apply today and talk to us about your flexible working requirements and together we can achieve greater.

About Our Bangalore Office

The Northern Trust Bangalore office, established in 2005, is home to over 5,600 employees. In this stunning office, space, we offer fantastic amenities which include our Arrival Hub – Jungle, the GameZone, and the Employee Experience Zone that appeal to both clients and employees. Learn more.