At WTW We Transform Tomorrows

At WTW, we provide data-driven, insight-led solutions in the areas of people, risk and capital that make organizations more resilient to maximize performance. We work shoulder to shoulder with our clients, bringing diverse points of view and a deep commitment to our client’s success.
By challenging one another, we achieve breakthroughs because only the best ideas survive. The result? Innovative solutions that meet our client’s needs—informed by the global view and the local understanding of our colleagues around the world. At WTW, we transform the toughest challenges into actionable opportunities. And set the path for sustainable success.

This is a senior role that gives leadership a trusted, well-informed view of the whole delivery portfolio: what is being delivered, what it costs, and whether it is actually being used. The Portfolio Director works alongside the Delivery Managers across regions and time zones, understands the substance of what they are delivering, and turns that understanding into clear, thoughtful reporting and advice.

The role is not a data relay. The post-holder is embedded with the delivery leads, forms an independent view of each delivery, challenges where the picture does not add up, and tells leadership what the numbers mean and what to do about them. They produce reporting at two levels: a weekly delivery report for the Technical Programme Manager and a monthly executive-level output. They own portfolio finances, including the split between operating and capital expenditure, track adoption as well as delivery, maintain the resource trackers and RAID log, and handle ad-hoc requests at short notice.

The role suits someone who is exceptionally organised and methodical, credible with senior stakeholders, and trusted to chase, challenge and follow through without being asked twice.

 

Responsibilities:

Embedded Delivery Insight

• Work closely with each Delivery Manager and delivery lead, attending the delivery reviews and working sessions needed to understand scope, dependencies, technical constraints and where the real risks sit.

• Understand what is being reported, not just that it has been reported. Form an independent view of each delivery and test it against the update received.

• Challenge RAG ratings, dates and narrative that are vague, unevidenced or inconsistent with the prior week, and push back constructively until the picture is accurate.

• Add commentary and judgement to every report: what has changed, why it matters, what is likely to happen next, and what action or decision is needed.

• Spot patterns across the portfolio, such as shared dependencies, recurring capacity constraints and common causes of slippage, and raise them before they affect several deliveries.

• Build trusted working relationships with delivery leads so they bring problems early.

Delivery Update Coordination

• Collect updates from all Delivery Managers on a fixed weekly cadence and deadline, across time zones and working styles.

• Chase missing or late updates, and compare each week's updates to the previous week to flag RAG and date changes, who agreed them, and any items removed or downgraded without a closure note.

• Maintain a single, current source of truth for status, owners, milestones and dependencies across the portfolio.

Weekly Reporting

• Produce a weekly delivery report for the Technical Programme Manager covering RAG and date changes, RAID changes, open leadership asks, upcoming milestones, adoption position and data quality issues.

• Highlight what has moved, what has slipped and what needs a decision, with evidence and a clear recommendation.

Monthly Executive Reporting

• Produce a concise monthly executive-level output summarising portfolio status and trends, key risks and issues, adoption and benefit progress, financial position and resource position, and the decisions required.

• Adapt content and level of detail to the audience. Keep reports short, accurate and ready for senior leadership without rework.

• Prepare briefing material ahead of governance and leadership forums, present where needed, and record actions and decisions afterwards.

Portfolio Financial Management

• Own the financial picture of the portfolio: budget, forecast and actuals at project and portfolio level, reconciled to delivery plans, with variances explained and corrective actions proposed.

• Track operating expenditure (opex) and capital expenditure (capex) separately for every project and for the portfolio as a whole, working with Finance, who determine the accounting treatment under company policy and applicable standards.

• Understand the principles that drive capitalisation well enough to challenge and advise: building new capability versus running or maintaining existing services, the point at which capitalisation starts and stops, activities that are normally expensed (such as training, planning and ongoing support), and how licences, subscriptions, cloud consumption and contractor costs are treated.

• Work with delivery leads so that work, time and spend are classified correctly at source, rather than corrected at month-end.

• Forecast the opex and capex split ahead of time, flag when the actual split drifts from plan, and explain the impact on funding and the approved budget.

• Maintain the finance workbooks to a standard that Finance and leadership can rely on, and escalate budget risks early.

Adoption & Benefit Tracking

• Track adoption for every deployed capability as well as delivery. Distinguish clearly between built, live and actually used.

• Work with delivery leads and business and process owners to define the adoption measures for each capability, such as active users, usage volumes, process coverage and benefits realised, and agree how and when they are measured.

• Report adoption alongside delivery status in the weekly and monthly outputs. Surface capabilities that are live but under-used and drive the actions needed to close the gap.

• Link adoption and benefit evidence back to the financial position so leadership can see what the investment is returning.

RAID & Issue Management

• Maintain the portfolio-level RAID log with consistent logging, categorisation, ownership and likelihood and impact ratings.

• Follow up with owners on mitigations and due dates, escalate overdue or high-impact items early, and keep a clear record of every closed, removed or downgraded item and the reason.

Resource Management

• Maintain resource trackers showing allocation, availability and gaps across projects and workstreams.

• Highlight over-allocation, unfilled roles and part-allocated resources that put delivery at risk, and give the Technical Programme Manager regular summaries and forward-looking capacity views.

Ad-hoc Requests

• Take on ad-hoc asks from the Technical Programme Manager and senior stakeholders, such as one-off analysis, additional reports, deep dives and urgent information requests.

• Prioritise ad-hoc work against the weekly and monthly reporting cycle without letting either slip, and flag early when competing demands cannot all be met.

Standards & Leadership Support

• Set and maintain the reporting templates, definitions and ways of working used by all Delivery Managers so updates are consistent and comparable.

• Validate data quality across all trackers and logs, and challenge inconsistencies before they reach leadership.

• Give day-to-day support to the Technical Programme Manager, including preparation of packs, action tracking and follow-up.nt.

Requirements:

Essential

• Significant experience (typically 10+ years) in portfolio management, programme management or delivery leadership across multiple concurrent projects, ideally in a technology or transformation environment, with credibility at director level.

• Proven ability to get close to delivery teams, understand the substance of their work, and produce insight and recommendations, not just consolidated data.

• Strong portfolio financial management: budgets, forecasts, actuals and variance analysis, including practical working knowledge of opex versus capex treatment for technology projects and experience working with Finance on it.

• Experience tracking adoption and benefit realisation, not only delivery to go-live.

• Hands-on ownership of RAID logs, resource trackers and finance workbooks.

• Advanced Excel, strong PowerPoint and Word, and experience with Power BI or similar reporting tools.

• Exceptional organisation and attention to detail, with a methodical, disciplined approach to keeping logs and trackers current.

• Able to influence, chase and challenge senior stakeholders without formal authority, and comfortable working with people across time zones and with different approaches.

• Able to manage competing priorities and ad-hoc requests at short notice while keeping weekly and monthly deliverables on schedule.

• Clear, concise written and verbal communication for both operational and senior executive audiences. Fluent business English.