Programme Director

Job Title: Programme Director

Contract Type: Permanent

Location: Edinburgh

Working style: Office based around 4 days per week

Closing date: 5th May 2024

As the Programme Director for a significant Change initiative, you will be responsible for delivering material, complex and multi-year strategic programmes of work at Royal London.

You will have ultimate responsibility for the execution and delivery of the programme across a number of supporting internal functions and external third parties. You will represent the interests of the Group Executive Committee and Accountable Executive for all programme related matters, acting as a single point of contact within the programme and all delivery teams internally and externally supporting the programme delivery.

As a result of the size and complexity of the programme of work, there will be significant focus on risk, issue and dependency management, supported through extensive governance and reporting at all levels. You will be accountable for managing programme budgets, monitoring financial performance and optimizing resource allocation.

About the role

• Overall responsibility for ongoing management of the programme to ensure that desired programme outcomes and objectives are delivered in alignment with the business strategy, within agreed budget and timescales.
• Set programme strategies, clear goals and objectives and establishing key performance indicators to measure success.
• Define and agree required level of programme resource needed for successful project delivery.
• Discover and demonstrate ways to enhance efficiency and productivity of procedures and people.
• Management of all key Programme controls e.g. status reporting, dashboards, finance tracking and risk management.
• Be a visible change leader, leading all impacted areas of the business through the change process, ensuring high levels of engagement and buy-in are sustained throughout.
• Supervise all colleagues involved to provide feedback, resolve complex problems and coach / develop the team.

About you

• Proven experience as Programme Director across large scale strategic and technical programmes ideally within a Pensions and Insurance environment.
• Expert understanding of project/programme management techniques and methods both agile and waterfall.
• Extensive working with 3rd parties in a delivery and systems integration capacity, holding 3rd parties to account and negotiation on changes to requirements.
• Ability to quickly build relationships and trust with all parties will be a key capability.
• Extensive experience of delivering change with direct exposure to C-suite stakeholders, including providing effective reporting at all organisational levels.
• Expert knowledge of data analysis in the context of systems integration and data migrations.
• Proven experience of working with third parties to deliver quality artefacts within an agreed budget and timescales.
• Expert in all areas of risk management, specifically identifying, measuring and reporting risks early and actioning appropriate mitigation.
• Expert level planning and scheduling skills, ensuring the complex activities of interrelated project and BAU teams are foreseen and managed in a controlled way.
• Strong leadership, organisational, delegation and team building skills for the effective management across multi-function teams and the programme.
• Strong commercial and financial understanding is essential for delivering business outcomes and lasting benefits.

About Royal London

We’re the UK’s largest mutual life, pensions and investment company, offering protection, long-term savings and asset management products and services.   

Our People Promise to our colleagues is that we will all work somewhere inclusive, responsible, enjoyable and fulfilling. This is underpinned by our Spirit of Royal London values; Empowered, Trustworthy, Collaborate, Achieve. 

We've always been proud to reward employees by offering great workplace benefits such as 28 days annual leave in addition to bank holidays, an up to 14% employer matching pension scheme and private medical insurance. You can see all our benefits here - Our Benefits

Inclusion, diversity and belonging 

We’re an Inclusive employer. We celebrate and value different backgrounds and cultures across Royal London. Our diverse people and perspectives give us a range of skills which are recognised and respected – whatever their background.