Head of Commercial Project Management Office

Note: All applicants are required to mandatorily fill the complete online application form including the employment, educational details, behavioural and technical/ professional skills questions. We will be thoroughly reviewing the application forms only with all the required details and the shortlisting is not basis CV/ cover letter. Forms that are incomplete in any respect will not be considered while shortlisting for the next stage.

Main purpose of job:

Based at the British High Commission in New Delhi the job holder will have a key leadership role in the creation and management of a newly established team that will lead on the Commercial Project Management activities, including, date cleansing and reporting, procurement, quality assurance and co-ordination of DDaT projects for the United Kingdom's (UK) Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).

The Team will be a part of the FCDO's wider Commercial Directorate and report into the Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) Commercial Team located in the UK. The role of the New Delhi DDaT Team will be to lead and operate as a Commercial Project management Office (CPMO) that are primarily focused on commercial service delivery for DDaT and FCDO key stakeholders across Diplomacy and Development.

The Head of CPMO, New Delhi, will lead, manage and coordinate a team of specialists who will work closely with the rest of the DDaT Commercial team in the UK and other regions to take requirements and complete workstreams that comply with the FCDO's processes and procedures. The role will be line managed from the UK within DDaT Commercial.

The jobholder will be accountable for the overall delivery of CPMO services ensuring the team's compliance to processes and procedures, reporting, administrating and quality assurance. They will have responsibility leading and managing the team's overall workload, setting priorities and providing a point of coordination for interacting with the Commercial team in the UK. The jobholder will be expected to oversee, coach and mentor their team.

Due to the remote management aspect of the role the job holder will require strong communication, interpersonal, and supervisory skills to lead their team and interact with colleagues, customers and suppliers in the UK.

We reserve the right to review, revise or amend the roles and responsibilities from time to time reflecting the changing needs of business.

Roles and responsibilities / what will the jobholder be expected to achieve?

Reporting to the Head of Commercial - DDaT in the UK, the jobholder will have responsibility for management and leadership of the Commercial Project Management activities based in New Delhi (minimum of 2 staff based in New Delhi).

The primary responsibility of the jobholder will be to lead their team to manage the Commercial Project Management Office for the procurement process for technology-based goods and services for requirement owners within the FCDO:

• Lead the governance and commercial control of the DDaT portfolio
• Lead quality assurance and compliance of project frameworks, processes and policies to ensure consistent delivery with wider stakeholders, including the UK and Manilla teams.
• Lead Quality Assurance and compliance: Monitor adherence to internal and external policies, including regulatory requirements, working with wider DDaT global team.
• Risk Management, identifying, assessing, and mitigating commercial risks across projects.
• Change control: working with contracts managers from a commercial and financial perspective to avoid scope creep.
• Work with the Senior Strategic Relationship Leader in the UK to bolster relationships to ensure information is captured and reported as required.
• Oversee audit and quality assurance function
• Reporting and analytics, capture on commercial activities
• People and capability development, manage and build capability of the New Delhi DDaT team, understanding training requirements and objective setting. Responsible for team cohesion and management of expectations aligned with wider DDat team and culture.
• Continuous improvements, lessons learning and best practice
• Ensure best in class technology and tools
• Creation of CPMO functions aligned to the on-going work in the UK
• Capturing and reporting on procurement activities
• Lead, manage and oversea of monthly data, for DDaT Team, Senior Leadership Team and other stakeholders
• Capture DDaT Commercial Directorate data around procurement activities, contracts management, category strategies and other as required
• Contribute to leadership of working with key stakeholder across FCDO to capture and help refine requirements
• Other duties as required

The jobholder will be responsible for working with requirement owners in the FCDO and the DDaT Commercial Team to ensure that business needs are met, value for money is achieved and that procurements align with Global Category Plans that are developed and managed by the team in the UK

As part of their day-to-day role the jobholder will need to:

• act as the conduit between the Technology Sourcing Team and the DDaT Commercial Team in the UK, including with future overseas teams.
• develop relationships with senior stakeholders FCDO stakeholders such as; Information, Digital and Data (IDD) Directorate (the IT Department of the FCDO) to promote commercial best practice, and Legal to review and engage on commercial matters.
• build relationships with other teams and spend categories across the FCDO
• contribute to global category development with local expertise and knowledge of spend, markets, and environments.
• coach the team in developing their knowledge and experiences in commercial project management activities, procurement and participating in category strategy development.
• Run best practice Procurements which are aligned with the Cabinet Office sourcing playbooks.
• On an ongoing basis identify procurement opportunities that will result in VFM.
• Able to expertly review & critique specification, requirements, and commercial models as part of the procurement process.

The job holder will be expected to provide overall leadership, guidance and support to their team in order to:

• promote efficiencies and deliver savings
• design commercial solutions that manage commercial risk in the FCDO's third party relationships
• share best practice through lessons learnt exercises and collaborative working across Commercial Directorate
• regularly review commercial processes and procedures to meet UK FCDO procurement guidance
• challenge how we do things to ensure a culture of continuous improvement
• ensure the team's performance is tracked and managed
• working with the UK capability teams to identifying development/training needs and solutions and professionally develop their team
• Building/maintaining an inclusive and positive environment for their team and behave in a way that supports the FCDO cultural statement acting as a role model for the team.
• Identify and document commercial savings, including necessary approvals of benefits in line with FCDO Commercial savings policy.
• Capture, manage and report commercial data

Resources managed (staff and expenditure):

Line management of 1 X SEO (Senior Procurement Managers) 1 X HEO (Procurement Managers)

Language requirements:

Language: English

Level of language required: Operational – Extensive

Learning and development opportunities (and any specific training courses to be completed):

• Continual professional development through CIPS certification up to MCIPS / or CPSM – Multiple Options
• Foundation Level Contract Management Training - Government Commercial Office

Candidates should note that the FCDO operates within a regulated sector for procurement and that training will be provided on the UK's legal framework for conducting public sector procurement. However, skills and experience in the basic principles of conducting a procurement and creating a contract will be an essential foundation.

Working patterns:

Gross conditioned hours are 40 hours per week. Any changes with regards to work hours or working patterns, considering alignment to certain UK shift timings will be basis the operations requirements and an agreement with the line manager/ head of department.