IT Service Desk Manager

About this role

SUMMARY

The IT Service Desk Manager is responsible for leading a geographically distributed service desk team— spanning Chicago, New York, and offshore team members — and ensuring the firm’s end users receive exceptional technical support across hardware, enterprise software, and an increasingly AI-powered technology stack. This is a hands-on, player-coach role requiring both strong technical depth and the ability to manage, coach, and develop a high-performing team.

The ideal candidate will bring a white-glove service mindset, a broad and current knowledge of enterprise technologies, and the flexibility to operate effectively across a wide range of situations — from complex infrastructure escalations to providing discreet, high-priority support for senior leadership and other VIP stakeholders. The IT Service Desk Manager will drive service quality, operational efficiency, and continuous improvement, and will serve as a key partner to other IT disciplines in the delivery of end user technology and automation initiatives.

This role reports to the Executive Director, IT Infrastructure & Support and as an onsite/hybrid employee, you are expected to be in the office on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursday.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Lead, manage, and develop a geographically distributed service desk team across Chicago, New York, and offshore team members, ensuring consistent service quality and team cohesion across all locations.

• Serve as the primary escalation point for complex technical issues, providing hands-on Tier 2/3 support and coaching team members through resolution of challenging problems.

• Deliver white-glove, high-touch IT support for executive leadership and other VIP stakeholders, maintaining discretion, urgency, and professionalism at all times.

• Monitor and manage the service desk queue to ensure issues and requests are appropriately triaged, prioritized, and resolved within established SLAs.

• Provide regular reporting and metrics on service desk performance, including ticket volume, resolution times, customer satisfaction, and SLA adherence; present findings and recommendations to IT leadership.

• Establish and maintain training plans for service desk team members, ensuring knowledge stays current across a rapidly evolving technology landscape including AI tools, cloud platforms, and endpoint technologies.

• Hire, onboard, and continuously develop service desk staff and third-party partners, including offshore and after-hours support resources.

• Maintain and expand the firm’s self-service knowledgebase for end users and internal knowledgebase for service desk staff, ensuring documentation is accurate, current, and actionable.

• Define, document, and continuously improve service desk processes; identify and implement automation and self-service solutions to improve efficiency and the end user experience.

• Support the rollout, adoption, and ongoing support of AI productivity tools (e.g., Fireflies AI, Claude, ChatGPT), coordinating training, troubleshooting, and user enablement across the firm.

• Assist in evaluating, selecting, and sourcing end user equipment and enterprise software, including participation in asset lifecycle management and technology refresh planning.

• Proactively identify the need for hardware and software upgrades, configuration changes, or new systems and escalate or act accordingly.

• Drive or contribute to projects related to service desk operations and end user technology, collaborating cross-functionally with Infrastructure, Security, and business stakeholders.

• Provide direct end user support for hardware and enterprise software as needed, maintaining hands-on technical fluency.

EDUCATION, SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENTS

• College coursework in pursuit of a B.A./B.S. degree with a concentration in Business, Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field preferred.

• Microsoft 365 suite administration (Exchange Online, Teams, SharePoint Online, OneDrive).

• Microsoft Intune / Endpoint Manager for device management and policy enforcement.

• Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) and Active Directory.

• Configuration/Infrastructure-As-Code experience (Simeon Cloud or similar software).

• Windows 11 and Server operating systems.

• Familiarity and working knowledge of Azure and AWS cloud environments.

• Virtualization platforms (VMware or equivalent).

• Networking fundamentals (DNS, DHCP, VPN, firewall concepts).

• Security tooling and endpoint protection platforms.

• Zscaler or equivalent cloud security platforms.

• Video conferencing platforms and AV systems (Zoom, Microsoft Teams).

• Jira Service Management and the broader Atlassian toolset (Jira, Confluence) for ITSM and knowledge management.

• Scripting for automation and task management (PowerShell strongly preferred; Python a plus).

• Dell and Apple laptop hardware and peripherals.

• Familiarity with AI productivity and collaboration tools such as Claude AI, ChatGPT, Glean, Fireflies AI, and Gemini.

• Ability and desire to experiment and build tools/agents using AI platforms to automate service desk operations which…