Senior IT Manager

The Senior IT Manager leads BridgeTower Media’s IT function and sets its direction through an outsourced delivery model. The company does not run a large in-house IT staff. Instead, this position owns the IT roadmap, the partner portfolio, and the standards and accountability for the managed service provider (MSP) and other technology partners. Those partners deliver help desk, infrastructure, cloud, security operations, and website hosting and development services to roughly 265 employees across more than 30 brands. The role also manages connectivity and office equipment, including printer leases, for BTM’s physical offices.

The Senior IT Manager is the company’s single internal owner for IT and its senior technology voice with executives, vendors, acquirers, and investors. Partners help develop plans and are responsible for carrying out and monitoring the day-to-day work. The Senior IT Manager shapes the IT strategy and sourcing model, agrees plans with partners and approves them, sets the standards partners must meet, and holds them accountable through SLAs, KPIs, and regular reporting. The role also leads major vendor negotiations, manages the IT budget, and represents IT in acquisitions and integrations.

Duties + Responsibilities:

The following are the fundamental duties of this position. An individual must be able to perform each, with or without reasonable accommodation.

IT strategy, planning, and governance

• Own the IT strategy and multi-year technology roadmap, developed with the company’s IT partners and approved by the VP Digital Product. Set priorities, make the case for investments, and present tradeoffs and risks to executive leadership.

• Own the IT sourcing and operating model. Assess annually whether the current mix of managed and specialist partners is delivering the right cost, risk, and service outcomes, and recommend changes such as consolidation, re-sourcing, or adding internal capacity.

• Serve as the company’s senior point of accountability for IT. Partner with department leaders to translate business goals into clear requirements and service standards for partners to deliver against.

• Run the IT governance cadence: a weekly IT status update, a monthly IT review, and a defined KPI scorecard covering service delivery, security, assets, and licensing, based on partner reporting.

• Build and manage the annual IT budget, including managed services, licensing, hardware refresh, and projects. Track actual spend and renewals against plan, explain variances, and deliver savings through consolidation and renegotiation.

Managed service provider (MSP) and vendor accountability

• Own the company’s relationship with its managed service provider (MSP). The MSP performs day-to-day service desk, endpoint, server, network, security operations, Microsoft 365, cloud, and backup work. This role sets expectations, reviews performance, and escalates when standards are not met.

• Define and negotiate formal service level agreements (SLAs) and KPIs with each IT partner. Review performance against them every month, require corrective action plans when targets are missed, and confirm that contracted deliverables are received, including monthly executive reports, quarterly business reviews (QBRs), and annual technology reviews.

• Review MSP and vendor invoices each month against contracts, asset inventory, and license counts, and resolve discrepancies.

• Lead negotiations for major IT agreements, including MSP renewals, with Legal and Finance. Manage the full contract lifecycle: scope, statements of work, change orders, renewals and notice windows, RFPs, vendor evaluations, and transitions.

• Maintain a single vendor responsibility map (RACI) across the MSP, the web development partner, hosting providers, telecom and internet carriers, printer lease vendors, and other technology vendors, so every system and process has a clear owner and escalation path.

• Hold partners to ITIL-aligned processes for incident, problem, change, and service request management, and approve significant changes before they are made.

Cybersecurity, risk, and compliance

• Partner with the MSP on the company’s cybersecurity plan, covering endpoint detection and response, identity protection, multi-factor authentication, zero-trust access, email security, patching, vulnerability management, and backup. The MSP develops the plan and is responsible for implementing and monitoring it. This role approves the plan, sets the standards, and holds the MSP accountable to them through regular reporting.

• Review security reporting from the MSP and its 24×7 security operations (SOC) service, including detections, patch compliance, vulnerability remediation, and backup success. Escalate gaps and confirm remediation is completed on time.

• Ensure the incident response plan and playbooks are kept current and tested through tabletop exercises with partners. Serve as the company’s decision-maker and point of communication with…