Head of PMO

Job Purpose

The Head of PMO is accountable for leading the Project Management Office, Product Roadmap delivery and oversees the end‐to‐end product lifecycle across the company. This role ensures that change delivery, strategic programmes, governance and the project & product roadmap are aligned to corporate strategy, regulatory obligations, customer outcomes, and commercial performance.

The role provides leadership to the Project Managers, Product Owners, Business Analysts, and cross‐functional delivery teams—ensuring a unified approach to prioritisation, investment planning, and product development.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and lead the PMO strategy, standards, frameworks, and governance for programmes and projects.
• Own the Change Delivery framework and audit adherence, ensuring full alignment with corporate strategy, risk appetite, and regulatory requirements (e.g., FCA, PRA, GDPR, Consumer Duty, ICO etc).
• Provide reporting, insight, and challenge to the Executive and Board Committees.
• Ensure effective financial management of the change portfolio, including budgeting, forecasting, and benefits realisation.
• Lead the Product Ownership function, including origination, servicing, collections, retention, and digital channels.
• Own the product roadmap, ensuring transparency, stakeholder alignment and clear prioritisation criteria.
• Ensure Product Owners define customer‐centric product visions, value propositions, OKRs, and clear backlogs.
• Drive innovation and optimisation in the mortgage product experience, collaborating with risk, compliance, underwriting, operations, technology, and commercial teams.
• Oversee delivery of large-scale transformation projects/programmes (e.g., core system upgrades, digital mortgage journeys, regulatory change, data initiatives).
• Ensure predictable, high-quality delivery by embedding best practices in project management, Agile delivery, and hybrid governance.
• Resolve cross‐programme dependencies, risks, resource conflicts, and delivery bottlenecks.
• Lead, mentor, and develop PMO staff, Product Owners, and Analysts.
• Build strong communities of practice in change delivery and product management.
• Champion a culture of transparency, continuous improvement, customer-first thinking, and cross-functional collaboration.
• Ensure all delivery and product activities meet regulatory and operational resilience requirements (e.g., Consumer Duty, SMCR, data governance, operational resilience impact tolerances).
• Maintain robust controls around project execution, product releases, vendor delivery, and change management.
• Oversee audit responses, ensuring findings are addressed promptly.
• Act as the senior point of contact for the Executive team on matters relating to project performance and product roadmap decisions.
• Collaborate closely with Technology, Risk, Compliance, Mortgage Operations, Finance, and Customer Experience functions.
• Provide clear and influential communication across business areas.
• Coordination of the R&D process & obtaining required information
• Coordination of the IT roadmap & cascade to the business
• Coordination of the company change management procedure policy & reviews

Key Skills & Experience

Essential

• Proven senior leadership across PMO, change delivery, or product management in a regulated financial services environment.
• Strong understanding of UK mortgage products, processes, customer journeys, and the regulatory landscape.
• Experience managing large change portfolios and complex, multi-year programmes.
• Demonstrable expertise in both Agile and traditional delivery methodologies.
• Strong financial acumen including forecasting, prioritisation, and benefits management.
• Excellent communication, influencing, and executive stakeholder management.
• Ability to multi-task and deliver multiple projects on an ongoing basis

Desirable

• Experience in digital mortgage transformation, automation, and data-driven decisioning.
• Knowledge of emerging fintech trends and mortgage innovation.
• Experience managing third-party vendors or system integrators.
• Professional certifications (e.g., MSP, Prince2, Agile/Product Owner, SAFe, APM).