Head, T&O Program Masterplan & Schedule Management

JOB SUMMARY

T&O organisation is the engine room of the Bank and provides Technology and Operations services across the Bank globally. It consists of over ~50,000 people across 59 markets. In all, approximately 80% of investment costs land in T&O for delivery and this presents a significant challenge in scheduling conflicts for their go-lives.
 
As Head, T&O Program Masterplan & Schedule Management, this role provides foresight of T&O’s delivery landscape, ensuring transparency, risk mitigation, and scheduling management. Partnering closely with T&O program and change management teams, the incumbent will lead proactive identification and resolution of program conflicts, interdependencies, and critical path risks across portfolios upfront and through-out the life cycle of projects. The role is accountable for convening and coordinating major programs to assess impacts to delivery timelines, dependencies, and master schedules. It plays a pivotal role in surfacing issues for escalation at Program and Portfolio Steering Committees (PgSC/PfSC), influencing RAG status, and driving timely interventions to keep delivery on track

Success in this role requires a strong command of governance & risk frameworks, control environments, and risk awareness, combined with the ability to synthesize business, financial, regulatory, technical, and strategic inputs into actionable insights. The ideal candidate will possess strong awareness of the Bank’s technology landscape, business continuity options, integration services experience, interpersonal skills, and leadership behaviours necessary to embed new ways of working and elevate delivery discipline across the organisation. Operating across the full T&O footprint, this role is essential to safeguarding the health of the Bank’s regulatory, strategic, and transformation programs, while enabling confident, data-driven decision-making at the highest levels of the organisation.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Strategy

•    Serve as the escalation point for program conflicts, including prioritization, resource allocation, and schedule management to ensure timely and fact-based resolutions.
•    Drive proactive management of cross-program interdependencies to mitigate delivery bottlenecks and optimize sequencing and throughput.
•    Provide advisory support to Portfolio and Program Managers on trade-offs, scope negotiations, and risk mitigation to maintain delivery integrity and business value.
•    Leverage analytics and automation to enhance real-time reporting, forecasting, and decision support. 
•    Embed industry best practices, automation, and predictive analytics to enhance forecasting, reporting, and governance rigor.
•    Ensure T&O compliance to overarching Enterprise Change Management and other governance processes as appropriate.
•    Foster a culture of collaboration and innovation among cross-functional teams to drive continuous improvement and achieve strategic goals.

Business

•    Develop and enforce governance frameworks and tools that facilitate early risk identification, mitigation, and escalation. 
•    Manage and escalate significant changes in program materiality, including resource shifts, spend variations, or outcome alterations.
•    Maintain continuous oversight of program dependencies to prevent downstream issues post-conflict resolution.
•    Consolidate and report delivery metrics, KPIs, and trend analyses to T&O Management Teams, Investment Committees, and relevant business units.
•    Identify and implement operational improvements to enhance T&O delivery effectiveness and efficiency.

•    Lead conflict resolution workshops and negotiations involving senior cross-functional stakeholders to ensure alignment and timely resolution.
•    Champion adherence to Change Delivery Standards and the Bank’s control and governance frameworks.
•    Drive continuous process improvement, including digitization, automation, and simplification initiatives across program and project management functions.
•    Develop and maintain a comprehensive conflict resolution framework with clear escalation pathways and resolution protocols.
•    Analyze root causes of conflicts and recommend enhancements in processes, governance, and communication channels.
•    Lead, mentor, and develop high-performing program management teams, fostering a culture of accountability, excellence, and innovation.

Processes
•    Embed industry-leading change management practices to consistently mitigate delivery risks.
•    Proactively review and refine impacted T&O tools and processes in response to ongoing or planned investments.
•    Ensure transparent and consistent communication of program progress, risks, and milestones to senior stakeholders throughout the delivery lifecycle.
•    Support the identification, automation, and continuous enhancement of T&O tools and processes

People & Talent
•    Lead internal teams, delivery partners, and external vendors engaged in transformation initiatives.
•    Promote a collaborative, innovative culture that encourages continuous improvement and strategic alignment.
•    Establish clear performance metrics and standards, providing transparent feedback and recognition to team members.
•    Recruit, retain, and develop top talent, with a strong focus on succession planning for critical roles.
•    Regularly review team structure and capacity to ensure alignment with delivery objectives and client outcomes.
•    Ensure ongoing training and development, verifying that team members are suitably skilled and receive effective supervision to mitigate risks.
•    Set and monitor objectives and job descriptions for direct, matrixed, and vendor teams, providing performance feedback aligned with organizational goals.

Risk Management
•    Proactively seek assurance that delivery teams adhere to agreed change processes and standards.
•    Identify, communicate, and monitor T&O delivery risks and issues throughout business case and program lifecycles.
•    Maintain comprehensive understanding of the risk and control environment within the teams.
•    Ensure support procedures comply with Group Security and Audit policies.

Governance

•    Lead and represent T&O in key governance forums including Program/Portfolio Steering Committees, Quarterly Performance Reviews (QPRs), and Monthly Performance Reviews (MPRs).
•    Collaborate with 2nd and 3rd line governance and audit functions, providing engagement and responses to internal and external regulatory requests for information (RFIs).

Regulatory & Business Conduct

•    Display exemplary conduct and live by the Group’s Values and Code of Conduct. 
•    Take personal responsibility for embedding the highest standards of ethics, including regulatory and business conduct, across Standard Chartered Bank. This includes understanding and ensuring compliance with, in letter and spirit, all applicable laws, regulations, guidelines and the Group Code of Conduct.
•    Effectively and collaboratively identify, escalate, mitigate and resolve risk, conduct and compliance matters.
•    Lead the T&O Delivery and Program teams to achieve the outcomes set out in the Bank’s Conduct Principles 

Key Stakeholders
•    T&O Delivery, Portfolio, Program, Release and Change Teams
•    T&O Management Teams, Product Owners, and Business Heads 
•    Fit for Growth (FFG) Portfolio Leads, Product Owners, Central Team, and Finance
•    Transformation Leads across business units and functions
•    Serve as a strategic advisor to senior leadership across T&O and Business Unit

Other Responsibilities

• Embed Here for good and Group’s brand and values in T&O Delivery.
• Perform other responsibilities assigned under Group, Country, Business or Functional policies and procedures.

Our Ideal Candidate

• Education : Bachelors Degree in a related field 
• 12+ years of experience in the financial domain
• Certifications :  PMP or other project/program management certifications

Role Specific Technical Competencies

•    Change Control
•    Portfolio Management
•    Change Management
•    Financials Management
•    Performance Management
•    Consulting
•    Regulatory Engagements
•    Risk Management

About Standard Chartered

We’re an international bank, nimble enough to act, big enough for impact. For more than 170 years, we’ve worked to make a positive difference for our clients, communities, and each other. We question the status quo, love a challenge and enjoy finding new opportunities to grow and do better than before. If you’re looking for a career with purpose and you want to work for a bank making a difference, we want to hear from you. You can count on us to celebrate your unique talents and we can’t wait to see the talents you can bring us.

Our purpose, to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity, together with our brand promise, to be here for good are achieved by how we each live our valued behaviours. When you work with us, you’ll see how we value difference and advocate inclusion.

Together we:

• Do the right thing and are assertive, challenge one another, and live with integrity, while putting the client at the heart of what we do
• Never settle, continuously striving to improve and innovate, keeping things simple and learning from doing well, and not so well
• Are better together, we can be ourselves, be inclusive, see more good in others, and work collectively to build for the long term

What we offer

In line with our Fair Pay Charter, we offer a competitive salary and benefits to support your mental, physical, financial and social wellbeing.

• Core bank funding for retirement savings, medical and life insurance, with flexible and voluntary benefits available in some locations.
• Time-off including annual leave, parental/maternity (20 weeks), sabbatical (12 months maximum) and volunteering leave (3 days), along with minimum global standards for annual and public holiday, which is combined to 30 days minimum.
• Flexible working options based around home and office locations, with flexible working patterns.
• Proactive wellbeing support through Unmind, a market-leading digital wellbeing platform, development courses for resilience and other human skills, global Employee Assistance Programme, sick leave, mental health first-aiders and all sorts of self-help toolkits
• A continuous learning culture to support your growth, with opportunities to reskill and upskill and access to physical, virtual and digital learning.
• Being part of an inclusive and values driven organisation, one that embraces and celebrates our unique diversity, across our teams, business functions and geographies – everyone feels respected and can realise their full potential.

Recruitment Assessments

Some of our roles use assessments to help us understand how suitable you are for the role you’ve applied to. If you are invited to take an assessment, this is great news. It means your application has progressed to an important stage of our recruitment process.

Visit our careers website www.sc.com/careers