About the job

Summary

Building a strong Commercial Function in Government, and with it the right commercial capability, is at the heart of a far-reaching programme of Civil Service reform.

We are building a cadre of commercial talent in all Government departments; people who can manage our commercial portfolios, who can lead our most complex and novel programmes and projects, people who have the gravitas and depth of experience to work alongside our policy and operational leaders to develop innovative commercial arrangements, whether through joint ventures, outsourcing or best-in-class contracts.

The Government Commercial Organisation is an employer which is truly committed to creating a welcoming, inclusive workplace where all our people are able to bring their whole selves to work and are able to perform to their potential. We understand the importance of diversity and inclusion and strive for a workplace that reflects the communities which we serve. We especially welcome applications from underrepresented groups including Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidates, candidates with a disability and candidates with gender-diverse identities. Appointments will be made on merit on the basis of fair and open competition.

We have already made significant progress through the establishment of the Government Commercial Organisation (GCO), our single employer of senior commercial talent across government. This role will sit within the GCO, but based in our MOD commercial team delivering departmental objectives.

Job description

This is a challenging role which represents an extraordinary opportunity for a leader with significant commercial capability to create a best-in-class commercial change organisation that will lead the development of one of the largest procurement teams in Europe.

It is expected you will lead transformation and continuous improvement programmes in close working with the Commercial Directors across the function and therefore the Director will need a combination of strong leadership, excellent change management skills, self-motivation, personal resilience, and collaboration skills.

As our Commercial Change Director, you will take responsibility for programmes whilst they are in the change delivery mode and will then hand over business as usual tasks to the right part of the organisation. The Director will need to build a hub and spoke approach with delivery Directors to deliver business improvement initiatives that can deliver effective change by commercial best practice for Defence.

You will maintain a small portfolio management organisation with funded change programmes reporting for the duration of delivery. As our Commercial Change Director, you will be responsible for identifying the priority change programmes that will achieve best value impact for Defence and in building the pipeline of future change projects. This will include horizon scanning to identify the required changes and improvements as well as business case development and agreement to ensure programmes are correctly funded and resourced to be deliverable.

Portfolio management will include the following:

• Horizon scanning to build the pipeline of change projects;


• Business case development to secure funding and set up projects;


• Programme oversight of priority initiatives to ensure pace and outcomes.

Responsibilities

You will be:

• Holding accountability for maintaining and delivering a change portfolio which delivers on the ambitions and priorities for Defence, from creating initial business cases, running communities of excellence, and embedding change throughout commercial and the wider Defence business;


• Identifying innovative important projects for the future of our commercial organisation;


• Collaborating with other commercial directors to uplift functional capability, delivering commercial change, including any functional transformation programmes;


• Delivering business improvement initiatives through portfolio management of funded change programmes for commercial change in the wider function;


• Maintaining communities of excellence for the purpose of raising capability and being embedded in wider function;


• Reviewing and driving performance of the commercial function and recommending improvements to the Director General Commercial;


• Establishing and maintaining comprehensive measurements of the Commercial Change delivery element of the overall MOD Commercial Function;


• Providing robust leadership to a diverse and geographically dispersed organisation;


• Operational leadership for up to 250 colleagues in an integrated Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) and MOD team.

You will also:

• Be amongst the most senior members of the Government Commercial Function and play a role in the broader commercial reform programme led by the Government Chief Commercial Officer;

• Play a key leadership and change management role in developing a strong commercial function for the Ministry of Defence and across Government.

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Hands on experience of delivering transformation and change programmes that have demonstrably improved capability in commercial and procurement functions;
• Track record of leading commercial teams, understanding what best in class looks like and uplifting capability;
• Experience of delivering programmes across a large complex organisation within a matrix structure and the ability to navigate and influence multiple stakeholders;
• Strong leadership experience working at Board level and with a broad range of Board-level stakeholders.