Head of Portfolio Delivery in Chester House, Epsom Ave, Handforth, Cheadle, Greater Manchester, SK9 3DF Office based working from our Handforth Support Office for 2 days a week

Pets at Home Group Plc is the UK’s leading pet care business; our commitment is to make sure pets and their owners get the very best advice, products and care. We have over 450 stores, over 310 Groom Rooms and 440 First Opinion Vet Practices. Our business is fast-paced, innovative and fun and it's our people that make the real difference. This is a fantastic opportunity to come and work for an award-winning company who put people at the very heart of everything they do.

About the role

​​The Head of Portfolio Delivery will head up, oversee and control the Project Delivery function within the Change directorate. Reporting into the Director of Change, the role will comprises of:

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Delivery Leadership: Owning the portfolio of project delivery from mobilisation through to close, providing strong leadership of a delivery focused team of Project, Programme and Portfolio Management professionals.  Instilling a strong delivery mindset into project teams that is maintained throughout the delivery lifecycle ensuring focus on value, pace, flexibility and adaptability, quality and cost effectiveness of project delivery. Mobilise high performing delivery teams, establishing the appropriate delivery approach and methodology for new and existing projects focussing on delivering value by landing change brilliantly and releasing benefits as early as possible.

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Strategy and budget Management: Have a good understanding of the Group IT Strategy Plan and subsequent Financial Year Business Plan that outlines the budgets assigned to projects, ensuring project budgets are understood, tracked and managed in line with the Business Case and Business Plan, with any deviations being managed through financial governance processes.  Play an active role in the annual strategy and business planning cycle, feeding in learnings, insights and gaps identified from the previous Financial Year.

​Resourcing: Ensure there is a prioritisation approach for project acceleration or new resource requirements being responded to swiftly and appropriately for inflight projects leveraging 3rd party resourcing models that are cost effective, scalable and flexible where appropriate

​Stakeholder Management: Ensure strong stakeholder engagement, instilling trust and confidence throughout delivery.  Ensures clear and consistent outputs from the project teams in language that is simple, relatable and can be understood by stakeholders.  Is confident in presenting at an Executive level and able to constructively challenge where appropriate at all leadership levels.

​Quality Assurance and continuous improvement: Oversee the quality assurance on projects right through their lifecycle constantly taking lessons learned from projects to feed a continuous cycle of improvement.  Work with the PMO Manager to ensure the project governance framework is in place that sets and controls the boundaries and assurance under which projects should operate.  Ensuring project teams operate as expected within this framework and apply the appropriate assurance standards

​Reporting: Work in partnership with the Head of Portfolio Shaping and Planning and PMO Manager to provide systemised reporting on the performance of the change portfolio both within the function and to wider business leaders

​Benefit enablement: Ensure benefits are enabled within the portfolio of projects and focus is maintained on the primary objective of the change, driving business value throughout the delivery lifecycle and transitioning this into business as usual operations leaving a successful sustainable change.

​Leadership, team development and engagement: Leading a medium sized team of project, programme, portfolio management professionals. Builds a strong team ethos with regular and effective levels of engagement and communication across the project management teams. 

Continually mature the project management capabilities, exploring and implementing new and innovative ways to deliver projects more effectively.  Work hand in hand with the Head of Portfolio Shaping and Planning and be a key leader within the directorate to support the Director of Change and other Leaders in successful delivery of projects across the organisation​​

Experience Required.

• ​​Proven senior leadership capability within a group function, responsible for delivering projects, programmes, and portfolios of work across an organisation
• ​Brings a depth of experience of interpreting business strategy and drivers for change and mobilising the right team to execute the change using the right delivery approach, with the right skills and capabilities.
• ​Has a thorough understanding of technology and its application to business issues.
• ​Ability to spot trends, risks and dependencies across portfolio areas and manage them at a portfolio level
• ​Strong ability to problem solve with the right people to remove blockers that are getting in the way of delivery.
• ​Proven experience of development of Delivery Plans, blending between waterfall and agile change and across technology and non-technology change
• ​Experience of structuring governance forums and overseeing their execution for the benefit of landing change in an organisation
• ​Demonstrable success across both project and business change delivery
• ​Brings a depth of experience blending change strategy and change delivery and across core change capabilities​

There will be an expectation to regularly visit and base self at other locations across the business e.g. Petcare Centres, Distribution Centres, etc. to aid knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the landscape in which change is delivered.

Location: Office based working from our Handforth Support Office for 2 days a week

About our purpose

Far more than a retailer, Pets at Home Group is the UK’s leading pet care specialist, fulfilling every possible pet and owner need, from food and accessories to grooming and vet services. Since 1991, we’ve been building a business around pets and their owners and we’ve set our sights on becoming the best pet care business in the world. Join us now and you can be part of that journey, developing your future as we develop ours. This is a place where you can take pride and passion in your work within an inspiring, professional team that’s focused on supporting pets and their owners to live happier lives together.

We’re driven by the wellbeing of pets and we make sure we look after our people too. We depend on your commitment and innovation, and reward it with competitive pay and comprehensive benefits. Together we’ll create the future of pet care.

Pets just see people. They aren’t biased and they don’t discriminate. We take our inspiration from pets and we value and respect difference in all its forms. Our aim is to reflect the diversity of the communities we operate in and every colleague can help us achieve this. We encourage our people to be themselves so even if your skills and experience don’t perfectly align, if you think you can make a unique contribution through your values and behaviours we want to hear from you.