Dir, Project & Programme Management

Purpose of the job

This role carries two interconnected mandates: leading all project and programme management delivery across the organisation - a team of nearly 50 people executing Gold Medal, Collinson's flagship platform migration - and fundamentally raising the standard of how project and programme management is practised across the business.

Poor PM practices has been identified as a root cause of Gold Medal's delivery shortfall. This role exists to fix that comprehensively while driving delivery execution at pace. It requires both a hands-on delivery leader capable of running a large delivery organisation and a transformation professional who can rebuild a function from the inside.

Key Responsibilities

Delivery Execution

Lead 50 project and programme managers executing Gold Medal across four workstreams: client migrations, product & platform, consumer registration, and billing transformation

Hold the PM function accountable for delivery outcomes, not status reporting - drive a culture where PMs own results and escalate blockers proactively

Ensure agile ceremonies, sprint planning, and delivery cadences are running effectively across squads intervene where practice is poor

Partner with the Transformation Office to ensure project-level status feeds accurately into programme governance and the Transformation Board

Manage resource allocation across the team, balancing execution priorities with capacity and capability constraints

Methodology & Standards Improvement

Assess current PM methodology, controls, planning standards and tooling design and implement a measurable improvement plan

Define a new delivery standard- covering requirements intake, detailed planning, dependency and risk management - applicable across both agile and waterfall contexts

Strengthen agile practices across delivery teams: sprint hygiene, backlog management, velocity tracking, definition of done, and the link between sprint output and programme commitments

Work with Technology, Product and the Transformation Office to build an integrated end-to-end delivery process, eliminating handoff gaps that have contributed to failure

Mandate planning at the right level of detail evaluate and introduce AI and tooling to improve delivery management capability

People & Capability

Rapidly assess the team make decisive decisions on retention, development, redeployment or exit without disrupting delivery continuity

Restructure as required to align skills and seniority to Gold Medal demands build a high-performing function with strong professional standards and a culture of ownership

Define career development and progression frameworks attract and retain strong delivery talent

Cross-functional Leadership

Partner with Technology and Product leads to align PM practice to engineering and agile delivery realities

Bring senior leaders in Product and Technology on the journey - building understanding and buy-in for new ways of working, and creating a shared ownership of delivery outcomes across functions rather than siloed accountability

Communicate effectively at executive level - translating complex delivery realities into clear, honest narratives for C-suite and Programme Exec Owners, and influencing senior stakeholders who do not have a delivery background

Collaborate with the Director, Transformation Office on governance and reporting standards - the PM function must be a reliable source of accurate delivery intelligence

Provide the VP, Transformation Delivery and Programme Exec Owners with a direct and honest assessment of delivery health at all times

Knowledge, skills and experience required

Substantial experience leading large PM functions in complex, multi-programme technology or platform transformation environments

Proven track record of improving PM function quality - not just managing it, but raising the standard of how it operates

Deep expertise in agile methodologies (Scrum, SAFe, Kanban or equivalent) - able to assess whether agile practice is genuinely embedded or superficially adopted, and drive meaningful improvement at team and programme level

Strong grounding in waterfall and hybrid delivery able to design methodology and governance that works across both

Experience diagnosing delivery failure and implementing structural, process and people changes to recover programmes at pace

Uncompromising on planning rigour - the difference between a real plan and a schedule, and will not accept the latter masquerading as the former

Credibility and confidence to hold senior programme managers and stakeholders to account

Experience managing, restructuring and developing large delivery teams through significant change

Excellent communication - able to translate delivery complexity into clear, accurate status for senior leadership

Proven experience managing and influencing senior and executive-level stakeholders - able to engage confidently at C-suite level, navigate competing priorities, and land difficult messages with clarity and credibility

Programme or project management qualification (MSP, PgMP, SAFe or equivalent) desirable