Director, Transformation Director, Transformation

This Director role is a pivotal leadership role responsible for the successful delivery of large-scale and complex transformation programmes within Plexal's customer portfolio. Alongside owning and evolving the delivery approaches, processes, skills, and technology requirements that underpin the transformation capability, this role will provide strategic direction and execution ability that helps our customers transition and de-risk complex programmes and managed services, adapting and reinventing the way that they go about onward innovation and growth. The role ensures delivery excellence, fosters innovation, and drives continuous improvement across the portfolio. You will lead project teams and capability delivery with public sector clients, leading transformation projects focused on supporting the design and turnkey growth and innovation propositions and systems, transitioning customers away from legacy operating models and incumbent delivery approaches, and supporting their establishment of business-as-usual operations and governance. To support our customers in transforming large-scale delivery programmes, it is envigsaged that this role will also provide strategic advisory support to help co-design new propositions and strategies which achieve customer objectives. You will sit alongside the other delivery and enablement directors (Advisory Services, Start-Up Services and Innovation Operations) and report into the COO. Outside of core delivery requirements, you will work alongside the COO to transform the Plexal business. We are a rapidly growing team and are actively looking to recruit exceptional individuals who want to work in an adaptive, fast moving, collaborative environment., * Define and maintain the strategic direction for the innovation services transformation capability, ensuring its scope, value proposition, and alignment with customer objectives.

• Lead and evolve the delivery methodology, customer propositions, tools, and quality standards specific to the demands and requirements of customers across all sectors for the transformation portfolio.
• Own new proposition development, designing and testing new services with customers, using live projects as a proving ground for proposition development and scaling across the broader customer portfolio
• Lead and support strategic pursuits and business development, growing Plexal's footprint in multi-year, transformation programme delivery
• Champion the transformation capability internally, ensuring its significance and potential are clearly understood and effectively utilised across the business.

Transformation Programme Delivery

• Owning the full lifecycle delivery of multi-year, strategically important programmes and services, including work for the Accelerated Capabilities Environment (ACE) for the Home Office.
• Provide strategic direction and leadership over delivery in complex stakeholder environments, coordinating client, internal, and consortium partner relationships to ensure alignment, clarity of roles, and effective outcomes.
• Oversee the quality and outcomes of projects within the portfolio, ensuring all deliverables meet client and sector expectations and strategic objectives.
• Provide robust delivery assurance and oversight, with a particular focus on risk management, resource planning, and stakeholder engagement relevant to the security and defence environment.
• Facilitate the mobilisation of new projects in the consulting domain, ensuring seamless transition from business development to project delivery.

Governance, Risk and Quality

• Critically set standards and drive portfolio outcomes across margin, growth, and quality.
• Conduct regular reviews and retrospectives to identify critical lessons learned and embed best practices relevant to the competency.
• Maintaining executive-level visibility and control across scope, risk, dependencies and performance.
• Establish and maintain governance frameworks suited to transformation, ensuring consistent, transparent, and accountable delivery practices for the scale and complexity of the delivery
• Implement a best practice governance framework that provides confidence to government customers and delivery partners, with clear responsibilities, approvals and reporting mechanisms
• Track and report on portfolio performance, including KPIs, delivery health, risks, and dependencies, with an emphasis on security and compliance requirements.
• Provide regular updates to senior leadership and stakeholders, offering insights and recommendations to support strategic decision-making in the consulting portfolio.

People & Skills Development

• Line manage and mentor team members aligned to consulting, supporting their professional growth and expertise in the sector.
• Identify skills gaps unique to transformation and lead initiatives to build capability maturity.
• Mobilising the right capabilities at the right time across delivery, innovation, operations and partner teams.
• Support the onboarding and development of new joiners within the capability, ensuring they are equipped to meet delivery needs.

Collaboration & Influence

• Work closely with Competency Directors, relevant Senior Leads and Account Leads to ensure integrated delivery across the consulting portfolio.
• Leading senior programme managers and functional leads to operate as a cohesive transformation unit.
• Engage across all areas of our Innovation Services team including shaping strategy, supporting GTM, and working on new proposition development.
• Represent the capability in internal forums and at external engagements
• Contribute to thought leadership and drive innovation within the consulting domain.
• Creating alignment across internal teams, clients and ecosystem partners.
• Building a high-performance culture rooted in ownership, accountability and collaboration.

Commercial & Growth Enablement

• Safeguarding margin and ensuring financial discipline across programme delivery.
• Introduce governance that links delivery performance directly to commercial performance
• Identifying and shaping growth opportunities within existing contracts.
• Supporting new business activity, bids and complex deal structuring from a delivery perspective.
• Building a network of potential clients who are likely to need transformation services
• Acting as a trusted advisor to clients at executive level.

• Ability to work proactively - planning and organising your own work with reference to appropriate strategies, policies, processes and protocols
• An aptitude for building relationships, nurturing opportunities and structuring mutually beneficial business partnerships
• Startegic thinking and the ability to ambiguity
• Commercially disciplined - able to manage project profitability through margin tracking, cost control and financial forecasting.
• Excellent listening, facilitating and influencing skills, including influencing senior leaders and external stakeholders and negotiating to achieve desired outcomes
• Strong performance management mindset; able to set clear KPIs, monitor delivery and identify issues early using data led insight.
• Comfortable working within structured governance frameworks, balancing delivery speed, risk and commercial impact.
• Systems thinker; able to see across interconnected work streams and spot systemic risk., * Extensive experience leading large, complex and multi-stakeholder transformation programmes.
• Proven track record of taking ownership of high-value contracts and delivering to time, cost, quality and outcome.
• Experience operating in fast-paced, innovation-led or growth-focused environments.
• Strong commercial acumen with experience managing budgets, margin and contractual risk.
• Demonstrated ability to lead senior, cross-functional teams and external partners.
• Experience establishing governance frameworks and assurance models for complex delivery environments.
• Significant exposure to executive-level stakeholder management, including conflict resolution and negotiation.
• Experience supporting bids, RFP responses and mobilisation of new major contracts.
• Innovation, startup, research or technology background, with a passion about emerging technology and some domain expertise or interest in technology policy
• Evidence of building trust-based relationships with a wide range of senior internal and external stakeholders such as startups and corporate clients as well as understanding the practicalities of working in a small and growing company
• Higher Education degree, or equivalent knowledge gained via work experience. (Essential)
• Programme or project management certification (e.g. PRINCE2, MSP, PMP or equivalent) (Desireable)
• Ability to qualify for and attain SC or DV clearance. (Pre-existing SC or DV clearance highly desirable, with a preference on DV)., * Decisive leader who can direct interventions without disrupting momentum.
• Comfortable operating with ambiguity and bringing structure to complexity.
• Strong influencing and communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences.
• High resilience and judgement in pressured environments.
• A passion for and understanding of emerging, deep and advanced technologies and the innovative startups that exist in this space
• Flexible when it comes to working within a matrix structure with changing organisational and operational requirements.
• Personal resilience and the ability to remain focused on the overall objective, responding to challenges in a calm and measured manner
• This role may require some national or international travel for delivery of projects
• Travel to all Plexal sites will be required
• Due to the nature of this position, our work, and our client engagements, you must be willing and eligible to achieve a minimum of SC clearance and ideally already hold this clearance. To qualify for SC clearance, you must be a British Citizen or have resided in the UK for the last 5 years with no extensive periods outside of the UK. For more information about clearance eligibility, please see https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/united-kingdom-security-vetting

Mission: We inherit the mission of UK government and deliver it in an agile and creative fashion. Collaboration: We believe in the power of working together. Equality: We strengthen ourselves as a team by embracing the different. Care: People are at the heart of what we do; we care about our customers, members and colleagues.

As a start-up, we thrive in a dynamic and fast-paced work environment dedicated to empowering innovators. We embrace individuals who leverage technology and creativity to tackle our greatest challenges head-on. We strongly advocate for maintaining a harmonious work-life balance, our goal is to ensure every member of our team can authentically be themselves and live their best lives. We firmly believe that innovation and creativity flourish when we cultivate a diverse workforce, comprising highly skilled individuals with a wide range of perspectives to contribute.

In return we will offer you:

• Salary: competitive and reflective of experience
• Annual bonus scheme
• A generous pension scheme (with a company contribution of up to 10%)
• Private healthcare, life assurance and critical illness cover
• 25 days holiday plus bank holidays
• Volunteering day

Plexal is an equal opportunities employer and we actively encourage applicants from individuals from all backgrounds. We are a Disability Committed employer and are willing to make reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process.