Company Overview
Khazna launched in 2020 with a mission to improve the financial well-being of the underbanked, who have little access to formal financial services by providing access to convenient, effective and secure smartphone-based financial services. Khazna has received the Central Bank of Egypt's first prepaid card license and aims to become the go-to neobank for underbanked consumers across the Middle East. In the next phase of its journey, Khazna is looking to continue scaling up its operations in Egypt and to launch its operations in Saudi Arabia.
This is a fun stage in the company's lifecycle as the core foundation has been but it is still early enough to assume a ton of ownership
Role Purpose
The Head of IT – KSA is responsible for establishing and maintaining a secure, compliant, and resilient IT foundation to support the company's growth in the Kingdom.
As the primary SAMA interface for all technology, cybersecurity, and data matters, you will lead regulatory engagement, licensing, and audits. You will own the local IT roadmap, ensuring the KSA HQ office infrastructure is highly available, scalable, and audit-ready, while overseeing Khaznaa's hosting environments in full compliance with SAMA's data residency, security, and hosting requirements.
Key Responsibilities
Hosting Environments Oversight
- Manage Khaznaa's hosting infrastructure within KSA.
- Ensure full compliance with SAMA data residency, security controls, and approved hosting standards.
- Oversee hosting vendors and service providers to maintain security, performance, scalability, and regulatory alignment.
HQ Office IT Operations
- Own and manage the KSA headquarters IT infrastructure, including networks (LAN, WAN, VPN, firewalls, switches), servers, systems, and hardware.
- Ensure high availability, performance, and resilience of office IT services.
- Implement and enforce IT security policies, monitor threats, and respond to security incidents.
- Safeguard data protection and maintain audit-ready SAMA compliant IT environments.
- SAMA Regulatory & Compliance Management
- Act as the main point of contact with SAMA for all technology , cybersecurity and data-related matters.
- Lead and support SAMA licensing processes, including documentation, submissions and follow-ups.
- Ensure continuous compliance with SAMA regulations, frameworks and cybersecurity requirements.
- Manage and coordinate SAMA audits, including preparation, walkthroughs and response handling.
- Oversee compliance of infrastructure, cloud services, and hosting providers with SAMA regulations, ensuring proper approvals and alignment with regulatory expectations.
- Stakeholder & Vendor Management
- Act as the key liaison between SAMA, KSA leadership, Group teams, and external vendors.
- Manage IT vendors and contracts, ensuring they meet SAMA and internal security requirements.
Qualifications & Experience
- Minimum 5+ years of relevant experience in technology, compliance or IT governance roles.
- Must be a Saudi National based in KSA
- Proven experience working with SAMA regulations and frameworks.
- Hands-on experience with SAMA licensing processes and regulatory audits.
- Strong communication and stakeholder management skills especially in cross-border environments.
- Experience managing vendors and third-party providers.
