Strategic Programme & Operations Manager

About the role

The Strategic Programme & Ops Manager is a newly created role to help take Arbor to the next level in strategic planning and operational effectiveness. Reporting to the CTO and with a dotted line to all senior management (and specifically the CRO, Chief of Customer Success and Finance Director) you will be responsible for the successful delivery of internal scaling projects according to timescales and budget, and the coordination of delivering our largest commercial projects. 

In this role you will work closely with business sponsors and stakeholders to understand project drivers and requirements, ensuring business enablement teams and any wider stakeholders have clear deliverables and are delivering to timescales. This role will also aid the business enablement team in breaking down complex tasks, coordinating and scheduling dependencies between teams, and gathering resources and requirements where needed to improve business efficiency and effectiveness. You will ensure faster access to accurate internal information and remove any system barriers to scaling and be a critical part of Arbor’s successful growth over the next few years.

Core Responsibilities

• Identify opportunities for tactical improvements (e.g. through workflow automation, process change or systems improvement) and support business leaders in building solutions
• Help to (re)design and build the internal systems and data infrastructure of the business
• Eliminate any system barriers to scaling, driving change projects and leveraging internal stakeholders to get buy-in throughout the business
• Coordinate with key internal and external stakeholders on large commercial projects, keeping teams to task and timeline
• Work closely with the business stakeholders to understand project timescales and budget
• Work closely with the engineering business enablement team to ensure clear deliverables and clear understanding of requirements
• Track project progress over time, and provide clear communication of progress and issues to project stakeholders
• Aid engineering team with interfacing with stakeholders to deal with issues and change requests
• Deliver standardised reporting and project governance processes to ensure consistency of projects, and transparency of project progress

Knowledge, skills and experience

• Strong experience understanding and distilling the commercial context in complex situations
• Proven ability to liaise with multiple stakeholders up and down the organisation, as well as senior external clients
• Excellent communicator, able to break down difficult processes and content into simple narratives and descriptions
• Incredibly organised, able to balance multiple spinning plates with a laser eye on detail
• A systems thinker with experience delivering complex software projects
• Knowledge and experience of leading agile software delivery projects
• A positive and proactive attitude to problem solving, no problem is too big or too small 
• A team player, willing to muck in and help others when needed
• A driven personality who asks questions and actively participates in discussions. We’re looking for someone who is passionately curious and can learn fast!

Bonus skills

• 5+ years experience in a ops role within B2B SaaS scale-up or 4-5+ years experience working in a top-tier IT Management Consulting firm delivering systems, change and strategy projects
• Familiarity with Scrum methodology or other agile development processes
• Prince2 or other project management qualifications

What we offer

The chance to work alongside a team of hard-working, passionate people in a role where you’ll see the impact of your work everyday.

• We believe in supporting you to grow professionally and giving you the freedom to choose how. If you tell us where you want to go, we have a dedicated training budget to help you get there!
• One of our core values is to make an impact, so we give everyone 1 day off each year to volunteer with a charity of your choice.
• We promote positive well being and as part of this you’ll have access to a choice of comprehensive 24/7 well being support services as well as internal Wellbeing Champions.
• We support autonomy and flexibility, and depending on your role can offer flexible working.
• We offer enhanced maternity pay to support new mothers during this exciting period of your life.
• Spending quality time together is really important, so to encourage this, our social committees organise regular team nights out to learn something new (we’ve had pizza making, comedy nights, guest talk by a drag queen, immersive theatre etc)
• We offer 30 days holiday (plus Bank Holidays), part of which is made up of half-day Fridays during the school summer holidays, a day off during Easter and a day off over Christmas.
• Our office is based in the heart of Leeds or London. It’s lively and vibrant, and you’ll have breakfast supplied every day along with other healthy snacks you can choose from. *At this time, due to the Coronavirus pandemic we are operating fully remotely and will continue to do so until it is safe for our teams to be together again

Refer a friend: Know someone else who would be good for this role? You can refer a friend, family member or colleague, if they are offered a role with Arbor, we will say thank you with a voucher valued up to £200! Simply email: careers@arbor-education.com 

Please note: We are unable to provide visa sponsorship at this time.