P&OE Delivery Director

Location: This is a hybrid role, offering a combination of being able to work remotely and from our London and Corby offices – there will be significant travel involved across our global business.

The Opportunity

This is a unique opportunity to plan, develop and implement a strategic transformation program.

The role holder will lead the Process & Operational Excellence programme, a complex, multi-year business-led programme, incorporating projects relating to executing the Operational Excellence part of our strategy, to ensure we are driving standardisation and extracting value from the enablement of technologies including SAP 4/HANA plus many other enabling technologies.

This will also include change to our Trading Model and implementation of a Regional Entity approach to deliver significant benefits

What You Will Be Doing

You will have a significant track record in multinational businesses as a leader within strategic transformation and delivery.

Operating at a senior level, you will have an innate ability to lead through others.

Prepare RS for successful outcomes of Process & Operational Excellence:

• Design, implement, and evolve required project/change management capability
• Create effective cross functional workstreams/squads to deliver programme objectives
• Identify critical roles required for successful design, implementation and operationalisation of necessary systems, data and processes changes
• Develop and monitor the programme's budget, including risk allowance
• Manage the programme’s risks and control changes after approval
• Monitor and report on the progress of the portfolio of project milestones, health, and budget to ExCo members.  Ensure oversight of all Programme Directors and workstreams
• Provide strategic and tactical leadership to ensure optimal prioritisation and resource optimisation
• Troubleshoot issues and provide effective solutions.
• Ability to lead a programme for a £80m investment that delivers in excess of £40m benefits
• Own end-to-end delivery of the programme, from scoping and mobilisation through to execution, adoption and Regional acceptance of benefits realisation.
• Mobilise and manage a high-performing, cross-functional programme team of business and technical experts drawn from across the organisation and external partners.
• Set and communicate a clear programme roadmap and plan, managing key milestones, dependencies, risks, and benefits realisation.
• Oversee governance and programme management disciplines, including tracking timelines, budgets, resource allocation, and quality assurance.
• Manage programme risks and issues, acting as the primary escalation point; resolve risks, conflicts, or blockers through a solutions-focused and diplomatic approach.
• Ensure that third party suppliers and systems integrators deliver high-quality, value-driven outputs, setting clear contractual and performance expectations.
• Communicate progress, risks, and key decisions to stakeholders through regular reports, steering groups, and executive briefings.
• Ensure effective change management and user adoption strategies to realise transformation benefits and manage cultural impacts.
• Act as the bridge between Technology technical experts, 3rd parties and business stakeholders, ensuring that the programme will deliver on key requirements. 
• Collaborate effectively with interdependent in-flight programmes and projects to ensure that the firm’s strategic transformation objectives are realised.

What You’ll Bring

Key Behavioural Competencies:

• Champion change with a growth mindset to support maturing organizational business readiness and change management plans to successfully execute new initiatives.
• Effective at conveying a vision, energizing others, establishing goals and measures, holding others accountable and delivering results.
• Demonstrates strong leadership presence, influencing skills and sense of urgency.
• Highly advanced project management skills with significant experience delivering multiple complex projects, delegating responsibility between teams, overseeing multiple projects, managing others, and leading teams to prioritize among competing project/customer needs.
• Excellent communication skills with ability to interact at all levels of the organization.
• Resilient and robust – the intellect and strength of character to deal with a demanding leadership team and stakeholder group, challenge the status quo by offering alternative perspectives and innovative solutions in an appropriately framed way
• Actively promotes core values and consistently integrates innovation, associate fulfillment, teamwork, respect, excellence, integrity, service, and accountability into each aspect of their work
• Strong coach and motivator, with proven experience leading teams and developing high potential talent.
• Strategic thinker: Able to translate complex business objectives into actionable programme plans.
• Credible leader: Builds high performing teams and earns trust quickly with executive sponsors, team members, and partners; confident at board level.
• Excellent communicator: Articulate and persuasive, able to simplify complex messages for varied audiences.
• Influential negotiator: Comfortable managing suppliers, resolving disputes, and driving consensus.
• Decisive problem-solver: Handles ambiguity, quickly assesses issues, and drives timely resolution.
• Collaborative and inclusive: Promotes diversity of perspective and creates an environment of shared ownership.
• Highly resilient: Manages setbacks constructively and maintains momentum in the face of challenges.
• Adaptable: Responds positively to change, embraces innovation, and encourages continuous learning.

Skills and Experience:

• Have significant experience in leading complex Change / Transformation projects
• Have a strong understanding of Strategic Programme Management that is far reaching and covers e2e processes
• Have experience working with different project methodologies
• Experience of overseeing and leading large transformation programmes that deliver tangible benefits
• Ability to bring others on the change journey
• Have previous experience managing teams through a matrix structure
• Have excellent organisational, communication and interpersonal skills.
• Balance attention to detail as well as being able to see the big picture
• Cross functional experience highly desirable
• Professional certification in programme/project management (e.g., MSP, PRINCE2, PMI) strongly preferred.
• Proven track record (typically 15+ years) of leading major ERP transformation programmes in complex, global organisations.
• Demonstrable experience of managing cross-functional teams and third-party suppliers.
• Extensive experience of managing and influencing senior stakeholders up to board level including designing and operating programme governance.
• Deep understanding of ERP enabled business processes and how they enable transformational business outcomes.
• Knowledge and experience of change management methodologies, user adoption ideally gained in global professional services environments.
• Good knowledge of SAP S/4HANA and related SAP modules, able to converse with technical experts.
• Experience leading major programmes (£20m+ or global transformations)
• Leadership of blended SI, internal, contractor, and offshore teams
• Strong understanding of SAP Activate (or similar) delivery methodology
• Strong understanding of end-to-end business processes
• Excellent executive communication and governance skills

We Are RS

We’ve been solving industry problems for over 80 years. We turn the ‘what ifs’ into the ‘why nots’, the impossible into the possible.

Our purpose? Making amazing happen for a better world.

We offer service and product solutions to over 1.2 million customers globally, shipping a parcel every 2 seconds to over 130 countries. With over 800,000 stocked and 3 million unstocked products, we’re a trusted partner to the world’s leading industries.

We’re looking for curious, driven, and empathetic professionals to join our journey. People who think differently, act with purpose, and want to make a real impact. 

Rewards

Our Reward Strategy Philosophy is designed to offer market competitive base salaries and provide all of our people the opportunity to participate in a short-term incentive, enabling them to share in the success of the Company.

Our total reward package is more than just the cash; our recognition and benefit offering provide the opportunity for us to recognise, reward and enable the wellbeing of our people at all stages of their journey with RS. Our rewards and benefits vary by country, but include:

• Financial - pension/retirement; life assurance; salary finance (payroll deduction loan scheme)
• Wellbeing - medical plans; health screening; critical illness; disability insurance; holiday / paid time off; employee assistance programme; discounted gym/health club membership
• Lifestyle - transportation assistance schemes (e.g., cycle to work, travel loans, car leasing); onsite catering/lunch vouchers; retail discounts
• Spotlight – our global recognition programme provides a platform to highlight and recognise people role modelling our values

Ready to Make Amazing Happen?

Join c. 9,000 colleagues and help us shape the future of our industry. Whoever you are, wherever you are — it all starts here.

Apply now and make RS a part of your journey.

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