Portfolio & Roadmap Manager

Portfolio & Roadmap Development Manager - FTC - 12 months - £78-95k - Hybrid working - Watford/London/Remote

A bit about the role...

The Roadmap Development Manager plays a pivotal role in shaping and maintaining a single, integrated transformation roadmap for the organisation. Acting as the primary liaison between business functions and the change and portfolio team, this role ensures that strategic needs are understood, prioritised, and accurately represented in planning processes. Operating within a highly regulated environment, the role requires balancing pace with integrity, breaking down siloes, and fostering cross-functional collaboration to deliver joined-up outcomes.

What you’ll be doing...

Stakeholder Engagement

• Build and maintain strong relationships with senior business stakeholders (e.g., Heads of Product, Head of Digital & Retail Operations).
• Act as a trusted advisor, ensuring alignment between business priorities and roadmap planning.

Requirement Gathering & Demand Management

• Partner with business leaders to articulate and document strategic needs and demand requests.
• Ensure all requests meet defined entry criteria and are captured in the demand pipeline.

Roadmap Development & Communication

• Develop and maintain the visual representation of the roadmap, ensuring clarity on priorities, dependencies, and timelines.
• Present roadmap updates to governance forums and senior stakeholders, enabling informed decision-making.

Voice of the Customer

• Represent business needs during prioritisation discussions, advocating for customer and commercial requirements while balancing regulatory and operational constraints.

Expectation Management

• Communicate roadmap changes, prioritisation decisions, and project status updates back to business stakeholders in a clear and timely manner.

Business Case Support

• Collaborate with business owners to support the creation of robust business cases, ensuring alignment with strategic objectives and compliance requirements.

What experience we’re looking for...

Essential

• Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to influence at senior levels.
• Strong business acumen and understanding of strategic planning processes.
• Proven experience in roadmap development, portfolio management, or demand planning.
• Proficiency with roadmap and planning tools (e.g. Jira, Power BI).
• Ability to operate in a fast-paced, highly regulated environment while maintaining governance and integrity.

Desirable

• Experience in Gaming, gambling or other regulated industries.
• Strong analytical skills and ability to translate complex data into actionable insights.

Key Measures of Success:

• Delivery of a clear, integrated roadmap adopted across all business functions.
• Improved stakeholder satisfaction and transparency in prioritisation decisions.
• Timely and accurate communication of roadmap changes and project status.

Role Context & Background

• Change and Portfolio Management function is relatively new (established last year) and still maturing.
• Team has been building capability around roadmap planning, demand management, governance, and delivery.
• Hiring manager has effectively been operating as a “lone ranger” to date.

Purpose of the Role

• Support and evolve the organisation’s portfolio and roadmap management capability.
• Move from an annual, static planning cycle to a more dynamic, rolling (quarterly) planning and forecasting approach.
• Act as the central point of coordination for cross-business change initiatives.

Key Responsibilities

• Bring together plans, initiatives, and “wish lists” from all business functions into a single, prioritised roadmap.
• Maintain a single source of truth for all change and project activity across the organisation.
• Work closely with senior leadership to understand priorities, objectives, and upcoming changes.
• Support prioritisation decisions, including clarity on what will not be delivered.

Scope of Portfolio

• Cross-portfolio and enterprise-wide (not limited to one business unit).
• Includes:
• Commercial growth initiatives (e.g. new product/game launches, digital innovation).
• Operational efficiency projects (e.g. speed to market, process improvement).
• Systems and technology initiatives (e.g. SAP SuccessFactors implementation).
• Technical upgrades and infrastructure work (e.g. data centre closures).
• Discovery and pipeline work for future commercial uplift (2027+).

Desired Outcomes

• Clear visibility of current, upcoming, and future initiatives.
• Improved prioritisation aligned to business strategy and capacity.
• Better planning of people and resources against roadmap commitments.
• A more mature, structured portfolio management approach across the organisation.

Portfolio & Roadmap Development Manager - FTC - 12 months - £78-95k - Hybrid working - Watford/London/Remote