Head of Projects, Bids and PMO

Location: Oxford, United Kingdom

A Joint Venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), Thales Alenia Space is a global space manufacturer delivering, for more than 40 years, high-tech solutions for telecommunications, navigation, Earth Observation, environmental management, exploration, science and orbital infrastructures. Thanks to our diversity of skills, talents and cultures, our customers (governments, institutions, space agencies, telecommunications operators), therefore have Space to Connect, Secure & Defend, Observe & Protect, Explore, Travel & Navigate.

Together we offer fantastic opportunities for committed employees to learn and develop their career with us. At Thales UK, we research, develop, and supply technology and services that impact the lives of millions of people each day to make life better, and keep us safer. We innovate across the major industries of Aerospace, Defence, Security and Space. Your health and well-being matters to us and that’s why we offer you the flexibility to do what’s important to you; whether that’s part time hours, job sharing, home working, or the ability to flex your start and finish times. Where possible, we support a working pattern that suits your lifestyle and helps you reach your ambitions.

Thales Alenia Space (TAS) Joint-venture (JV) is a key player in space activities, in particular in the domain of telecommunication, navigation, Earth Observation, radar, orbital infrastructures for both civil and military applications as well as for institutional or commercial customers and proposes a wide range of equipment and solutions in relation thereof. TAS in the UK are focused on world-leading propulsion, refuelling and defence opportunities.

Together we offer fantastic opportunities for committed employees to learn and develop their career with us. We are a part of Thales Group and we research, develop, and supply technology and services that impact the lives of millions of people each day to make life better, and keep us safer. We innovate across four major industries; Aerospace, Defence, Security and Space.

Your health and well-being matters to us and that’s why we offer you the flexibility to do what’s important to you; whether that’s part time hours, job sharing, home working, or the ability to flex your start and finish times. Where possible, we support a working pattern that suits your lifestyle and helps you reach your ambitions.

Working closely with the UK Chief Executive Officer and the senior leadership team, the successful candidate will be leading Project Management, Bid and PMO activities within Thales Alenia Space UK developing and implementing project delivery plans, overseeing performance, intervening for positive change and aligning controls to support a range of high profile space missions.

This role is based primarily in Harwell, Oxfordshire

• Would you like to be part of our Thales Alenia Space in the UK future?  

• Do you enjoy leading a portfolio of projects, managing change and delivering great outcomes?

• Are you someone who can bring the Projects and PMO communities together to ensure that we work harmoniously?

• Would you like to influence our organisation, to deliver better results more reliably?

• Can you see yourself coordinating a complex set of projects in order to deliver excellence?

• Could you see yourself executing a capture strategy for bids, winning new business for the organisation?

• Can you bring innovation into the execution of this mixed portfolio of activities ensuring commercial results for the business?

• Would you like to hold an influential position in the Thales Alenia Space Joint Venture, engaging meaningfully with stakeholders across the business in the UK and across the world – ensuring they have a great relationship with our UK entity; relationships that deliver?

• Do you see yourself as a problem solver, someone who can help customers feel confident and overcome any challenges in partnership with you?

• Can you inspire a team of project, bid and PMO people to deliver outstanding commercial results for our customers?

What the role has to offer

• An influential position; leading a team to deliver on our project commitments to time, quality and budget.

• Challenging and diverse work, from landing on the Moon in 2030 to exploring the observable universe, your projects enable space missions that further humanities understanding of Space.

• Your work and that of your team will ensure we deliver our financial results to the full satisfaction of stakeholders.

• Designing and executing a strategy for Projects, Bids and PMO as a function of TAS-UK.

• Delivering the future strategy for TAS-UK ensuring projects and bids are carefully managed and future ready to deliver growth for our shareholders.

Our Opportunity

You will work for the UK Chief Executive Officer to:

• Lead, deploy, and improve Projects and PMO activities within TAS UK.

• Lead the Bid Team as they craft the strategy, and deliver winning bids to the market.

• Engage in competitiveness challenges, seeking and capitalising on the opportunities to deliver better results for our customers.

• Line managing a team of Project Managers, Bid Managers and Project Controllers/PMOs, allocating resources and balancing demand with supply.

• Ensuring the PMO Lead has a clear vision for execution to lead their team within your organisation.

• Performance management of all projects (analysing trends and variances, recommending corrective actions).

• Capture plan leadership, engaging the bid team in strategic opportunities for business growth and ongoing delivery.

• Provide coaching and guidance to the project, bid and PMO teams, leading by example with great behaviours and fostering best practices from inside and outside of our organisation.

• Creating a continuous improvement culture – encouraging innovation, promoting best practice, and ensuring lessons are learned and changes are implemented where required.

• Lead the UK project managers to ensure they are motivated and equipped to be effective in their roles, with tooling and your personal support to ensure they feel empowered and they lead their teams in line with the Thales Leadership Model.

• Supporting the identification and management of tactical resourcing/capability issues.

• Taking a leading role in OTD and making sure that projects deliver against their commitments.

• Playing a role in the co-ordination of the TAS MYB.

• Playing a leading role in ensuring we have a robust S&OP Process.

• You’ll also need to balance competing priorities and influence a broad network of stakeholders to make a positive impact on delivery performance.

Key Performance Indicators:

• Achievement of Business Performance objectives, in particular OTD, EBIT, Cash and Sales

About you:

The successful candidate will have outstanding people skills and be an exemplar of the Thales Leadership Model, you will need to have influence over many aspects of the business through the portfolio of projects you lead, this means you need to be an expert in helping people understand the goals and engage in them. Change is hard, but you make it exciting and you inspire people to engage.

This role provides challenges and excitement in equal measure and is ideally suited to someone who has strong business acumen, customer focus, who is tenacious, flexible, dynamic and resilient. You will have strong interpersonal and communications skills together with being a team player and a skilled negotiator.

• Demonstrates a professional, committed approach to all tasks undertaken.

• Displays passion, energy, drive, agility and resilience in achieving work-related goals under difficult circumstances; enjoys performing through teamwork.

• Self-Motivated/Flexible with a constructive 'can do' attitude, always seeking positive outcomes; resilient when challenged.

• Ability to deliver through influence rather than authority.

• Able to question / challenge established processes and offer innovative alternatives.

• Demonstrates attention to detail, particularly in investigating problems, and a pride in producing accurate work.

• Must be able to work in a multi-disciplined team environment with Suppliers, Thales employees and Customer.

• Excellent communications skills.

Principle Relationships:

Relationships must be built and maintained with the following:

• CEO; Head of Operations and Competitiveness; Head of IS/IT; Head of Engineering; CFO; PCC Director; HRBP. You will also develop relationships across the JV with Procurement, Quality and Data Management teams as well as leading on interactions with PM, Bid and PMO activities in the TAS JV.

Skills and Experience :

• Ability to demonstrate a vision for the future direction of the business for all of our PM, Bid and PMO colleagues.

• Clear and demonstrable managerial leadership within an engineering organisation (or similar), with excellent people management skills and the ability to influence and challenge others.

• Team player who can interface at all levels within projects, operations, engineering and manufacturing, representing the business to outside government and customer organisations, and who can operate successfully in a multi-cultural environment.

• Good understanding of relevant European Space Agency Project Management approaches.

• An ability to quickly assimilate and utilise a knowledge of the technical and market environment and apply this to the commercial requirements of the business.

• A confident Line management professional, coaching and supporting your team and others as required; ability to work professionally and constructively within a team environment providing advice and consultancy.

• A self-starter, capable of working on own initiative, with a high level of integrity.

• First class communication skills – you create an open environment where you share information and ideas and innovative thinking is stimulated.

Values & Behaviours:

• Make it Happen - Deliver User Centric solutions

  • Ensures Accountability

  • Builds Trust

• Make it Happen -  Acts with Agility

  • Take smart risks

  • challenges the status quo

• Think Big - Imagine the Future

  • Sees ahead

  • Supports Innovation

  • Deals with Complexity

• Think Big - Inspire to Engage

  • Leads with integrity

  • Engages Stakeholders

• Together - Include others

  • Promotes Collaboration

  • Grow self and others

• Oversight and approval of estimates for bids and projects

Qualifications:

• Relevant qualifications in Project Management

• Professional recognition

What We Can Offer

We’re committed to giving you opportunities to be your best. We believe in embracing the passion and potential of our people, and to achieve this we offer market leading training, development and experiences, along with the opportunity to be mentored and coached by some of the smartest minds in the industry. We hire from within as our first priority, so you’ll have a myriad of opportunities within our diverse, global group.

Company Story

The future is full of challenges; each new change and technology creates situations no one has had to deal with before or even anticipated and it will happen at an even faster pace than it does today. Join us and be a part of our story as we embark on our second decade of operations - the work we do is on the biggest missions that humanity can imagine – for example our current portfolio includes work to support the Lunar economy (we are building refuelling modules for the Lunar Gateway (space station in orbit around the Moon) and TAS are involved in landing people and equipment on the Lunar surface. Space is in everything we do, every day, help write the story for humanity’s future.

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In line with Thales' Baseline Security requirements, candidates will be asked to provide evidence of identity, eligibility to work in the UK and employment and/or education history for up to three years. Some vacancies may require full Security Clearance which can require further evidence to be provided. For further details of the evidence required to apply for Baseline and Security Clearance please refer to the Defence Business Services National Security Vetting (DBS NSV) Agency.

At Thales we provide CAREERS and not only jobs. With Thales employing 80,000 employees in 68 countries our mobility policy enables thousands of employees each year to develop their careers at home and abroad, in their existing areas of expertise or by branching out into new fields. Together we believe that embracing flexibility is a smarter way of working.

Thales UK is committed to providing an inclusive and barrier-free recruitment process. We will provide reasonable adjustments and support to ensure neuro-diverse applicants or those with a disability or long-term condition can be their best during the recruitment process. To request an adjustment, if you need this job advert in an alternative format or if you have any questions about the recruitment process, please contact Resourcing Ops for mid to senior roles, or the Early Careers Team for graduate and apprentice roles.

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