Senior Program Manager Lead

Strategic Programme Lead – Large grocery / homeware client

£1000 per day

12 month contract

Hybrid working - London Based

Context / business overview

Our client is embarking on a multi-year growth and transformation journey to deliver a new North Star centred on mission-led, digital-first customer experiences and significant revenue growth. My client is the strategic partner helping to define and deliver this agenda across

experience, data, technology, loyalty and new growth plays.

The Strategic Programme Lead is my clients senior leader for this account-wide programme – responsible for turning the North Star and growth ambition into a coherent, sequenced programme that delivers measurable value.

Role purpose / mission

To own and lead the digital growth programme end-to-end, defining the growth roadmap, aligning senior stakeholders around it, and orchestrating and client teams to deliver sustained customer and commercial impact.

This role holds the single, executive view of the programme: where value comes from, how it will be unlocked, and how the organisation needs to change to make it stick

.

Key responsibilities / accountabilities

Strategy & roadmap

• Translate the North Star and commercial targets into a multi-year growth roadmap, with clear phases, outcomes and investment.

• Maintain and evolve the programme portfolio – adding, shaping or retiring initiatives based on evidence, performance and external change.

Value, scope & prioritisation

• Own the programme value case (revenue, customer metrics, cost/eMiciency) and ensure each major initiative has a clear line of sight to that value.

• Lead trade-oM decisions on scope, phasing and investment, balancing ambition, risk, capacity and dependency on client group initiatives.

Executive governance & decision-making

• Shape and chair the SteerCo agenda, focusing on decisions and options, not status reporting.

• Ensure risks, dependencies and structural issues are surfaced early, with clear options and recommendations for senior stakeholders.

Cross-programme orchestration

• Align work across experience, data, CRM/loyalty, operations and new growth plays so they reinforce each other rather than compete.

• Coordinate with client Tech, Supply Chain and other strategic programmes to avoid duplication and manage integration points.

Client partnership & influence

• Act as my clients principal strategic partner to client leadership on digital growth.

• Challenge and support senior stakeholders on where to focus, how fast to move and what to stop, using data and insight.

Leadership of team

• Build, lead and develop a multi-disciplinary programme team across strategy, CX, CRM, data, media, engineering and change.

• Set expectations, ways of working and culture that support high performance and constructive challenge.

Scope & scale

• Programme scale: multi-year, multi-million transformation covering clients digital experience, data & analytics, CRM/loyalty and supporting technology.

• Team footprint: leadership of a cross-functional Merkle team (typically 20–50+ people across disciplines onsite, near-shore, oM-shore) plus coordination of client and third-party teams.

• Decision remit: significant influence over programme investment, prioritisation and sequencing, within an agreed commercial framework.

• Impact: direct impact on a material share of clients revenue growth and customer performance over the next 3–5 years.

Experience requirements

• Significant experience (c. 10+ years) leading large-scale digital / data / eCommerce / CRM transformations for major brands.

• Proven track record as a Programme Director / Transformation Director / Portfolio Lead working with C-suite stakeholders.

• Exposure to retail, grocery or fashion strongly preferred; understands trading, digital, data, loyalty and ops dynamics.

• Experience within a consulting, agency or SI environment, orchestrating multi-discipline teams and partner ecosystems.

• Demonstrable experience managing multi-million budgets, complex dependencies and high-stakes governance.

Skills & competencies

• Strategic thinking: can connect customer insight, commercial levers and operating constraints into a clear transformation thesis.

• Executive influence: able to frame choices and trade-oMs for senior leaders; confident in high-stakes conversations.

• Portfolio & programme leadership: strong grasp of prioritisation, phasing, risk management and cross-programme orchestration.

• Commercial acumen: understands P&L drivers, investment cases and how to track value realisation.

• People leadership: builds diverse, high-performing teams; creates clarity and alignment; handles conflict constructively.

• Comfort with ambiguity: can lead through incomplete information, course-correcting as evidence emerges.

Key relationships & reporting lines

Client stakeholders:

• Client Exec Sponsors (e.g. Digital Director, CCO, CMO, CIO/CTO, Chief Data OMicer).

• Senior leaders in Commercial, Marketing, Data & Analytics, Technology, Operations, Finance.

External / partners:

• Client programme leaders, key technology and platform vendors, other consulting partners.