IT Business Partnering & Project Management Associate Director

Role Overview

We are seeking an experienced Associate Director – IT Business Partnering & Project Management to lead an integrated technology delivery function covering strategic business partnering, portfolio governance, and end-to-end project delivery.

This role is responsible for ensuring that technology demand is effectively shaped, prioritized, governed, and delivered with strong discipline and clear business alignment. The successful candidate will oversee both IT Business Partnering and IT Project Management functions, ensuring a cohesive operating model from strategic intake through execution, reporting, and benefits realization.

The role partners closely with senior business stakeholders and transformation leaders to ensure technology investments deliver measurable value and support strategic business objectives.

Key Responsibilities

IT Business Partnering & Demand Management

• The role will lead the IT Business Partnering function, ensuring strong alignment between IT and business units. This includes shaping demand, developing roadmaps, supporting business case creation, and ensuring prioritization of initiatives based on value and strategic fit.

• The Associate Director will act as a senior escalation point for business demand and stakeholder engagement, ensuring clarity of requirements, expectations, and investment decisions prior to project initiation.

Project & Programme Delivery Leadership

• This role will oversee IT project and programme delivery, ensuring robust planning, execution, RAID management, and delivery governance across all initiatives.
• The successful candidate will drive consistent use of delivery methodologies including Agile, Waterfall, and Hybrid approaches. They will also ensure delivery predictability, structured execution, and continuous improvement across all change initiatives, with clear tracking of benefits throughout the lifecycle.

PMO Governance & Portfolio Oversight

• The Associate Director will embed strong PMO governance practices across the function, including reporting standards, quality assurance, and delivery oversight.
• This includes portfolio-level reporting on status, risks, issues, dependencies, financials, and resource utilization. The role also ensures delivery assurance through health checks, project reviews, and lessons-learned processes, while maintaining strong financial governance and benefits tracking across the portfolio.

Integrated Operating Model & Process Excellence

• The role is responsible for building a unified operating model that connects demand management, project delivery, and governance into a seamless end-to-end process.
• This includes improving clarity of roles, handoffs, and workflows across teams, while promoting data-driven insights, transparency, and continuous improvement across the technology delivery lifecycle.

People Leadership & Team Development

• The Associate Director will lead and develop combined teams across IT Business Partnering and Project Management functions.
• This includes building a high-performance culture focused on accountability, collaboration, and continuous development. The role is responsible for coaching team members, supporting capability development, and strengthening delivery excellence across governance, financial management, and stakeholder engagement.

Financial & Resource Management

• This role oversees portfolio financial management, including forecasting, cost tracking, and financial governance across all change initiatives.
• The Associate Director will also lead resource and capacity planning across teams and support investment cases to ensure effective allocation of technology budgets and resources.

Senior Stakeholder Engagement

• The role requires strong engagement with senior business leaders and executive stakeholders. The Associate Director will communicate complex portfolio and delivery information in a clear, structured, and executive-ready manner, ensuring alignment across strategic priorities and delivery outcomes.

Qualifications & Experience

• The ideal candidate has proven leadership experience across IT Business Partnering, Project Management, or Portfolio Governance functions, ideally within complex enterprise environments.
• Strong experience leading technology delivery teams and managing end-to-end change portfolios is required. The candidate should have a strong understanding of Agile, Waterfall, and Hybrid delivery methodologies, along with hands-on experience embedding PMO governance practices.
• Strong commercial, financial, and analytical capabilities are essential, along with the ability to manage budgets, resources, and portfolio performance effectively.
• Excellent communication, influencing, and stakeholder management skills are required, particularly in engaging senior leadership and executive stakeholders.

Preferred Experience

• Professional certifications such as PMP, PRINCE2, MSP, P3O, or SAFe
• Experience in complex, multi-vendor, or matrixed organizations
• Exposure to large-scale digital transformation or enterprise change programs

Impact of the Role

This role plays a critical part in ensuring technology investments are strategically aligned, well-governed, and effectively delivered. By integrating business partnering, portfolio management, and delivery governance, the Associate Director enables strong execution discipline and measurable business value across the technology landscape.