Commercial Policy Manager (Sourcing) in Leeds

Location: Leeds

We have an exciting new role in the Commercial Policy and Operations team at the Bank, leading how we deliver commercial sourcing policy and providing expert support and guidance to the rest of the organisation. This role is part of the Commercial division’s Policy and Operations team, who deliver the policies, processes, systems and tools needed for the Bank to undertake commercial activity.

The Team

The team operates partly in a matrix management style, with most people dividing their time between their area of accountability (sourcing policy in this case) and pooled resource to work on cross-team projects. This enables the team to be dynamic and responsive around workload, drive collaboration and develop leadership skills at all levels.

This role will be responsible for ensuring we have effective commercial sourcing policies, processes and guidance in place, as well as leading on cross-team projects in a matrix management setup.

Role Responsibilities

This role will be responsible for:

• Setting out the forward-looking strategy for sourcing policy in the Bank, defining what is needed in this area and developing a plan to deliver it. This should include the required stakeholder management, communications, etc.
• Creating and maintaining the Bank’s sourcing policies and processes.
  These should seamlessly integrate with any other areas of the commercial lifecycle, notably supplier management, third-party risk management and responsible procurement, and integrate considerations from key stakeholders such as Legal.
  The policies should align with public-sector legislation (including the National Procurement Policy Statement and applicable Procurement Policy Notes) and should be regularly reviewed and updated in line with benchmarking exercises, to ensure they reflect the latest best practice, and the processes should be continually improved to maximise efficiency and effectiveness.
• Ensuring colleagues involved in sourcing (both inside and outside of the Commercial division) understand their role and how the policies and processes should be applied, and are enabled to do this, by producing and sourcing appropriate and tailored templates, guidance and training, and ensuring they are communicated and delivered to them.
• Providing sourcing policy expert advice and support for more complex and specific queries not covered by the training and guidance, in line with the latest best practice. This will also include ensuring the sourcing policies are considered as part of commercial governance and offering technical advice on these considerations.
• Being able to evidence progress in the Bank’s approach to sourcing through the monitoring of key sourcing KPIs, such as compliance with notice publication requirements.
• Writing short business cases to support having access to the Policy team’s resource pool.

You will also be part of a pool of resources across the team, enabling you to lead on some of the larger cross-team projects, depending on how workload varies across areas. These projects may cover matters across the whole of the Policy and Operations’ team scope.

Although this is not a people management role, you will matrix manage other colleagues in the context of the projects you will lead. In those instances, you will be responsible for defining roles and responsibilities within your projects. You will develop the team through sharing information effectively, coaching and communicating a clear vision to ensure that your staff are productive, engaged and motivated to deliver the area's aims. You will also be expected to provide feedback to their line manager about their performance during your projects.

Role Requirements

Minimum criteria

• In-depth knowledge and experience of public-sector sourcing and current legislation
• Demonstrable experience of writing and rolling out public-sector sourcing policies
• Demonstrable knowledge of the rest of the commercial lifecycle (supplier management, responsible procurement and third-party risk management)
• Demonstrable knowledge of where and how to source the latest best-practice trends in public-sector sourcing
• Experience of creating and implementing strategies and delivery plans for their area of responsibility
• Ability to explain and present commercial matters to non-commercial colleagues, in the context of sourcing matters

Essential criteria

• Excellent stakeholder management skills
• Excellent problem-solving skills
• Creative and critical thinking skills
• Self-motivation, with past evidence of driving own workload
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Customer-focused, with experience delivering high-quality service and continuous improvement.

Other criteria
If you do not already have it, you would be expected to achieve Level 4 CIPS (funded by the Bank).