About this role
Purpose of the Role
- The Head of Transformation & Implementation is responsible for translating the Group’s strategic priorities into successful, measurable business outcomes.
Working closely with senior leadership, the role will lead the Group’s transformation agenda, ensuring that major strategic, operational and technology initiatives are clearly prioritised, effectively implemented, and deliver their intended benefits.
- This is a hands-on leadership role combining strategy, execution, change management and organisational improvement. The successful candidate will be expected to challenge existing ways of working, simplify processes, drive accountability, and ensure the organisation moves from identifying opportunities to delivering results.
- The role will lead the central transformation and implementation capability while working through functional leaders who remain accountable for embedding change within their respective business areas.
Key Responsibilities
Transformation
- Translate Group strategy into a clear portfolio of transformation initiatives, priorities, and implementation plans.
- Establish a Group-wide transformation roadmap with clear objectives, milestones, ownership, and measurable outcomes (KPIs).
- Support leadership to prioritise resources focused on initiatives with the greatest strategic and financial impact.
- Identify dependencies, risks, obstacles and competing priorities across the transformation initiatives.
- Provide concise reporting to the COO, senior leadership and governance forums.
Implementation & Delivery
- Facilitate the successful implementation of major cross-functional initiatives from concept through execution to final implementation.
- Establish clear accountability for delivery across business functions using appropriate project management frameworks.
- Provide guidance where programmes are delayed, objectives are unclear, or accountability is insufficient.
- Ensure initiatives deliver sustainable business change rather than temporary project outputs.
- Implement a disciplined, simplified, delivery framework without unnecessary bureaucracy.
Business Process Transformation
- Identify opportunities to simplify and improve end-to-end processes across, for example, Trading, Operations, Shipping, Risk, Finance and Corporate functions.
- Drive standardisation, automation and elimination of manual activities.
- Redesign processes around business outcomes rather than organisational silos.
Technology, Data & AI Transformation
- Partner with Technology, Data and business leaders to align technology investment with business strategy.
- Support tech leadership to identify opportunities for AI, analytics and automation to improve productivity and decision-making.
- Ensure technology programmes are adopted and deliver measurable business value.
Organisational and Cultural Change
- Support leaders in embedding organisational and process change.
- Identify organisational barriers to process change and improvement; work with leadership to address them.
- Support in running the Corporate Transformation Team programme – organisation, execution and implementation.
Performance Measurement
- Define measurable business benefits before initiatives are approved (define the ‘why’).
- Track delivery against business cases and financial targets.
- Develop transformation KPIs covering delivery, productivity, cost, and business impact.
- Ensure completed initiatives transition successfully into business-as-usual ownership.
Key Result Areas
Success in the role will be measured primarily by outcomes rather than project activity, including:
- Delivery of strategic transformation priorities on time and against agreed objectives.
- Financial benefits and productivity improvements realised.
- Reduction in manual processes and organisational complexity.
- Improved end-to-end processes across the trade lifecycle.
- Successful adoption of new technology, data, and AI capabilities.
- Reduction in project delays and failed or underperforming initiatives.
- Improved accountability and execution across transformation programmes.
- Sustainable transfer of completed initiatives into business-as-usual operations.
Personal skills and behaviours required for success in the role
- Strong leadership, analytical and communication skills.
- High levels of impact and influence. Able to influence others without direct line authority.
- Goal oriented, tenacious and results driven.
- Highly resilient and agile.
Skills and experience necessary for success in the role
- The successful candidate will combine strong commercial judgement with exceptional execution capability. They should be comfortable operating between strategy and detailed implementation and able to influence senior stakeholders across a complex international organisation.
- Experience in commodity trading, energy, financial markets, or another transaction-intensive environments would be highly advantageous.
The individual should demonstrate:
- Significant experience leading complex business transformation and implementation programmes.
- Strong understanding of commodity trading or comparable front-to-back business processes.
- Ability to work effectively with Leadership across Trading, Operations, Risk, Finance and Technology teams.
- Strong commercial and financial judgement.
- Experience delivering technology-enabled business transformation.
- Ability to simplify complex problems and translate strategy into executable plans.
- Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills, including at senior leadership level.
- A track record of challenging established practices while bringing people with them.
- High levels of ownership, engagement, and personal accountability.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving capability.