Director, Cloud Engineering Ops

About FWD Group FWD Group (<1828.HK>) is a pan-Asian life and health insurance business that serves more than 38 million customers across 10 markets, including BRI Life in Indonesia. FWD’s customer-led and tech-enabled approach aims to deliver innovative propositions, easy-to-understand products and a simpler insurance experience. Established in 2013, the company operates in some of the fastest-growing insurance markets in the world with a vision of changing the way people feel about insurance. FWD Group is listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange under the stock code 1828. For more information, please visit PURPOSE Drive the One Infra Strategy mandate by consolidating cloud operations into the Group Office Shared Services function, delivering unified and standardized cloud operations support to all Business Units across the FWD footprint (HK, JP, TH, PH, ID, VN, MY, SG, KH). Lead and transform the infrastructure by following the Cloud Engineering Ops Blueprint — progressing through Operation as Code, DevOps Automation and Terraform Infrastructure-as-Code, enabled by APIs, MCP servers and AI Skills, to reach the next level of automation in the Agentic AI era to enhance scalability, agility, and cost-effectiveness. Lead the daily cloud operation of the Group Shared Services function under the Group Infrastructure team, supporting all Business Units in delivering quality cloud operation support with site resiliency, enhanced security and compliance, hyper automation, governance enforcement and unified monitoring. Champion the shift from human-executed to AI-assisted ways of working — embedding Agentic AI with Human-in-the-Loop, SkillHub@DCPCC and reusable Skills/MCP into BAU cloud operations to deliver measurable efficiency, quality and standardization gains. Ensure delivery of identified cloud projects and activities within agreed constraints of time and quality KEY ACCOUNTAIBILITIES Accountable for end-to-end cloud operations performance for all Business Units under the Group Office Shared Services model — covering incident, change, request, problem and capacity management across the multi-cloud estate. Establish service performance management by defining SLAs/OLAs, operating cadence, and performance review with BU stakeholders; drive continuous improvement based on data, risk and business impact Operationalize the Cloud Engineering Ops Blueprint by progressing the three levels of automation — Operation as Code, DevOps Automation, and Terraform Infrastructure-as-Code — supported by APIs, MCP servers and AI Skills. Drive Straight-Through Service Request fulfillment via ServiceNow integration with the DCPCC platform, eliminating manual hand-offs for high-frequency change, provisioning and DB self-service requests. Establish Agentic AI with Human-in-the-Loop as the new way of working for cloud engineers — embedding sub-agents into alert triage, BAU task execution and service request fulfillment with FWD-context guardrails. Be the core member to drive the consolidation of Business Unit cloud operations (including HK and oversea vendor-outsourced) into the Group Office Shared Services delivery model, ensuring smooth transition and operational continuity. Own BU onboarding and adoption outcomes per the agreed agree roadmap (HK / JP / TH / PH / ID / VN) through stage-gated delivery (Planning & Scoping → Consolidation → Stabilize & Full Operations). Partner with the local BU Infra SME / Technology functions under the hub-and-spoke model to align Shared Services delivery with local business priorities, language requirements and regulatory compliance; resolve cross-market conflicts and trade-offs to protect company outcomes Drive standardization and automation of complex operational processes — server patching, EKS upgrades, IaC provisioning, application monitoring onboarding — to operate the FWD cloud estate at scale. Manage cost-effective resourcing across geographies, supporting the One Infra economies-of-scale objectives and the Group FinOps cost governance framework for continuous cost optimization. Set the technical direction and platform choices for cloud operations (Terraform, Ansible, Kubernetes, ServiceNow, Azure DevOps, Agentic AI tooling, Elastic Cloud) in alignment with the 4-Platforms Strategy. Develop and mentor the cloud operations team — building agentic AI fluency, operations-as-code skills, FinOps discipline and ITSM excellence. Help and coordinate vendor processes and methods to approve vendors. Troubleshoot all vendor problems and present to management as required. Identify improvement areas internally as well as perform closely with all internal stakeholders to prepare solutions. Participate to formulate workflow processes, methods and policies for applying vendors. QUALIFICATIONS / EXPERIENCE 15+ years of experience in IT relevant experience which 6-8 years on Cloud projects Holder of professional qualification(s) preferred, e.g. Azure, AWS Certification Demonstrated track record of transforming traditional cloud / infrastructure operations into highly automated, platform centric operating models. Experience enabling Human‑in‑the‑Loop AI models in production operations, balancing automation with risk, accuracy, and governance. Experience in managing API driven operations, event driven automation, and workflow orchestration Experience in managing 7x24 service operations with internal teams and third-party services. Ability to manage all aspects of the project, including providing overall guidance and direction to the project and overseeing financial management activities Exceptional track record of on-time, on-budget and to-specification delivery of projects Experience in documenting and communicating the status of project progress against plans, taking corrective action as necessary Ability to manage the success of metrics defined by the project and the organization Ability to define, implement, and maintain project process guidance (e.g., project plan and subordinate plans), tailoring organizational processes as needed Aptitude to identify, clarify, and resolve issues and risks, escalating them as needed Negotiating changes to commitments/requirements Developing project team members (e.g., skills, career, etc.) and conduct performance reviews Reviewing project work products for completeness, quality, and compliance with established project standards Reviewing ongoing and proposed projects to identify opportunities for reuse and process improvement Possess extensive knowledge and expertise in the use of project management methodologies and tools KNOWLEDGE & TECHNICAL SKILLS Strong conceptual and applied understanding of AI enabled cloud operations, including proactive monitoring, anomaly detection, and predictive incident management, AI assisted troubleshooting, root cause analysis, and “next best action” recommendations Solid knowledge in CI/CD, container deployment, Kubernetes system, API Gateway, Client/Server, MVC , OOP, RDBMS, automated test and Internet/Intranet environment Proficient in Agile development approach Understand latest and emerging technologies and practice, such as DevOps, Cloud, Microservice and Mobile development Exemplify good interpersonal communication skills at all levels of business users, IT, partners and vendors Good command of spoken and written English