Professional Development Programme Manager, Regulatory Services

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Job Title: Professional Development Programme Manager, Regulatory Services

Reports to:    Head of Professional Development

Location: UK or Europe – Home-based

Overview / Purpose of the position

Lead portfolio and programme management for the Professional Development (PD) team within Regulatory Services (RS). Establish and operate the governance, cadence and decision‑making needed to prioritise PD initiatives effectively and deliver measurable benefits aligned to RS strategy. Act as PD’s primary interface to the RS Business Improvement (BI) function, coach PD project leads to apply agreed standards, and directly manage delivery of a small number of high‑priority initiatives where required.

Responsibilities & Accountabilities

Portfolio governance & ways of working

• Own and continuously improve PD’s portfolio governance framework (e.g., stage gates, change control, RAID, benefits tracking, decision logs), aligned where appropriate with BSI project management practices.
• Create and operate a predictable governance cadence (weekly/fortnightly/monthly), ensuring PD leaders have timely, decision‑grade information and forums to make high‑quality decisions.

Prioritisation, resourcing & delivery quality

• Maintain a single, transparent PD portfolio with clear scope baselines, priorities, dependencies and resource plans; drive trade‑off discussions and escalate unblockers.
• Raise the standard of programme/project management across PD by setting expectations, curating templates and guidance, coaching project leads, and running peer reviews/health checks.
• Enable effective resource assignment across initiatives by supporting demand planning and balancing workload and capability to meet agreed priorities.

Direct delivery (high‑priority initiatives)

• Directly manage delivery of selected high‑priority PD initiatives end‑to‑end where agreed, including delivery planning, RAID, stakeholder management, change control, reporting and benefits tracking, aligned to BI governance requirements where applicable.

BI interface & enterprise alignment

• Serve as PD’s key interface to the RS Business Improvement (BI) function: represent PD in governance forums; surface cross‑programme dependencies; and recommend sequencing and priorities.
• Recommend which PD initiatives should run within BI governance versus PD‑led governance, ensuring clear ownership, decision paths and benefits tracking.

Reporting & transparency

• Produce concise, executive‑ready portfolio reporting for PD/RS leadership (status, risks, mitigations, decisions required, benefits realisation) and maintain consistency of reporting standards across initiatives.
• Ensure each initiative has appropriate KPI baselining and an agreed benefits profile, and that progress is tracked consistently.
• Implement clear methods for communicating portfolio progress to PD and wider stakeholders (e.g., a portfolio/project SharePoint page where appropriate).

Stakeholder, risk & change management

• Map and proactively engage stakeholders across RS and adjacent teams; manage change impacts and communications for key portfolio milestones.
• Ensure robust RAID management across the portfolio and that key dependency/risk themes are owned with clear mitigations and time‑bound actions.

Tooling & data stewardship

• Steward the portfolio “single source of truth” using appropriate tooling (e.g., Planner/MS Project/Power BI), with proportionate data quality controls.
• Apply recognised methodologies (e.g., PRINCE2/PMI/Agile) proportionate to initiative size and complexity to support effective planning and delivery.

Key Success Indicators

• Governance health: stage gates run as planned; decisions recorded; change requests managed through an agreed route; risks and dependencies actively controlled.
• Transparency & decisiveness: leadership receives clear, timely reporting; decision latency reduces; stakeholders understand status, risks and next steps.
• Capability uplift: demonstrable improvement in PM practice across PD (standards adoption; health‑check/peer review outcomes; stronger delivery discipline).
• Delivery outcomes (assigned initiatives): high‑priority initiatives led directly by the role are delivered to agreed outcomes with benefits tracked and evidenced.
• Stakeholder confidence: positive feedback from PD/RS/BI stakeholders on clarity of governance, partnership and delivery effectiveness.

Key Performance Indicators:

• On‑time completion of agreed stage gates across initiatives.
• RAID closure rate and ageing of critical risks/issues/dependencies.
• Benefits realisation tracking maintained vs agreed plan (where measurable).
• Portfolio baselining coverage (initiatives with owner, scope baseline, RAID, benefits profile, and reporting).
• Decision latency for key portfolio issues (issue‑to‑decision time) and quality of decision logs.
• For initiatives directly led by the role: milestone delivery performance and benefits tracking completeness.

Travel requirements:

• The position is home-based but may involve light travel to BSI and third-party locations (indicative ~10%)

Knowledge and Experience：

Essential Criteria:

• Proven success leading programme and/or portfolio management in a complex, matrix environment, managing multiple concurrent initiatives, dependencies and trade‑offs.
• Demonstrable experience establishing and operating governance rhythms (e.g., stage gates, RAID, benefits tracking) and improving PM practice through coaching, standards and quality assurance.
• Experience working with, or within, a central PMO / enterprise project governance function (e.g., aligning reporting, decision forums, standards).
• Experience producing executive-ready portfolio reporting that enables timely decisions (status, risks, mitigations, dependencies, decisions required).
• Experience directly managing delivery of complex or time‑critical initiatives (end‑to‑end) where required, while maintaining oversight of a wider portfolio.

Desirable Criteria:

• Experience working in highly regulated environments.
• Experience working in L&D / capability / training environments.
• Experience designing and implementing a PM system from scratch (standards, templates, governance forums), not only operating within an established PMO.

Skills and Abilities:

Essential Criteria:

• Expertise in governance design, portfolio reporting, dependency & risk management, and benefits management.
• Highly analytical and organised; able to simplify complexity into clear options, recommendations and decision points.
• Strong stakeholder management; confident, succinct communicator with senior leaders; able to hold the line on standards and facilitate trade‑offs.
• Strong working knowledge of standard PM tooling and reporting (e.g., MS Project / Planner / Power BI / Excel or equivalents).
• Coaching capability: able to develop project leads through guidance, feedback and practical support to raise consistency of PM practice.

Desirable Criteria:

• Data visualisation for executive audiences (e.g., dashboards and decision‑grade reporting packs).
• Change management and communications planning; workshop facilitation and coaching.

Education / Qualifications (e.g. Technical):

Essential Criteria:

• Formal project/programme management certification (e.g., PRINCE2 Practitioner, PMP, or IPMA-D).
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience.

Desirable Criteria:

• Advanced PM certification (e.g., IPMA-C).

Personal Qualities :

Essential Criteria:

• Client-centric, collaborative, and agile; role-models BSI’s Excellence behaviours.
• Outcome-oriented, proactive, and resilient; comfortable with ambiguity; strong integrity and judgement.
• A desire to exceed the expectations of BSI internal customers  .

Desirable Criteria:

• Experience mentoring project leads and shaping a culture of continuous improvement.

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