Digital Portfolio Lead Manager

This is a role within the Castrol organisation and the successful candidate will become part of the Castrol ring-fence. If you are part of the ring-fence, it is expected that your employment will move with Castrol to new ownership.

The Digital Portfolio Lead Manager is the operating engine of the digital function in Castrol, ensuring strategy translates into measurable business value through principled execution, financial rigour, and strong governance.

Reporting to the CIO, this role is both strategic and delivery-focused, responsible for orchestrating the digital portfolio while serving as a trusted advisor to the CIO and digital leadership team on investment decisions, prioritisation, and performance.

The role combines portfolio leadership, financial stewardship, and organisational influence, ensuring the digital function operates as a transparent, value-driven, and commercially accountable business partner.

As Digital Portfolio Lead Manager, you will:

• Strategic Portfolio Leadership and Value Delivery
  • Lead the end-to-end digital portfolio strategy, planning, and prioritisation, spanning programmes, products, and transformation initiatives.
  • Translate business and digital strategy into a coherent, balanced portfolio roadmap aligned to value creation and enterprise outcomes.
  • Drive portfolio optimisation, ensuring effective allocation of funding, resources, and capabilities.
  • Monitor portfolio health, dependencies, risks, capacity, and value realisation, proactively addressing constraints and trade-offs.
  • Act as a strategic integrator, ensuring alignment across digital, business units, and corporate objectives.
  • Resolve complex cross-portfolio issues, balancing speed, risk, cost, and value.
  • Lead digital governance forums (e.g. Portfolio Board, Architecture Review Board).
• Governance, Standards and Delivery Assurance
  • Design and run modern, outcome-focused governance, including Portfolio Board and Architecture Review forums.
  • Ensure consistent delivery standards, reporting, and controls across programmes and products.
  • Establish governance that enables speed with accountability, reducing unnecessary bureaucracy.
  • Provide independent oversight and challenge to ensure delivery confidence and benefit realisation.
• Digital Strategic Financial Leadership (Run + Change)
  • Lead the digital financial model across Run and Change, ensuring alignment to strategy and business value.
  • Lead budget planning, forecasting, and investment prioritisation in partnership with Finance and Digital leadership.
  • Ensure robust business cases, benefits tracking, and investment governance.
  • Drive financial transparency, including variance analysis and optimisation opportunities.
  • Shape the multi-year financial roadmap for digital transformation, cloud, and strategic programmes.
  • Act as a commercial advisor to the CIO, balancing cost, value, and risk across the portfolio.
• Strategic Vendors and Commercial Management
  • In partnership with category leadership, define and execute the digital sourcing and supplier strategy.
  • Manage key strategic partners to ensure commercial value, innovation, and performance outcomes.
  • Oversee supplier governance, SLA/KPI performance, and continuous value realisation.
  • Drive contract optimisation, renewal strategy, and risk management across the supplier landscape.
• Risk, Controls and Compliance Leadership
  • Own the digital risk and control environment, ensuring alignment with the Castrol framework.
  • Maintain the digital risk register, embedding proactive risk identification and mitigation.
  • Lead responses to audit, regulatory requirements (e.g. SOX, GDPR), and resilience obligations.
  • Oversee digital-wide policies, standards, and assurance activities, ensuring governance enhances trust, compliance, and operational resilience while enabling pace of execution.
• Operating Model and Ways of Working
  • Own and continuously evolve the Digital Operating Model, including decision rights, governance, and accountability structures.
  • Drive consistency across delivery, service, architecture, security, and commercial processes.
  • Champion simplification, agility, and continuous improvement in ways of working.
  • Act as a change leader, embedding new practices that improve effectiveness and scalability.
• CIO Insight and Executive Engagement
  • Run the CIO operating rhythm, including leadership forums, business reviews, and planning cycles.
  • Deliver insight-driven reporting and board-level narratives, not just metrics.
  • Provide strategic briefing, decision support, and challenge to the CIO and leadership team.
  • Lead executive communications, ensuring clear, consistent messaging on priorities and performance.
  • Produce CIO dashboards, metrics, and board-level reporting.
  • Own internal and external communications for town halls, newsletters, and leadership updates.
  • Provide communication support for major programmes and change initiatives.
  • Ensure stakeholder alignment across the C-suite, business units, and digital leadership.
• Data, Insights and Analytics for Digital Performance
  • Create a single source of truth for digital KPIs, including delivery, financial, security, risk, service, and customer satisfaction.
  • Build and maintain portfolio and performance dashboards, analytics, and reporting automation.
  • Enable evidence-based decision-making across the digital organisation.
• People, Capability and Culture Enablement
  • Partner with leadership to shape workforce strategy, capability uplift, and succession planning.
  • Coach and support the Digital Leadership Team on portfolio, financial, and governance disciplines.
  • Promote a culture of accountability, transparency, and continuous improvement.

For this role, you will bring the below Skills & Experience:

• 10+ years experience in enterprise technology, with 5+ years in portfolio management, PMO, strategy, transformation, operations, or IT finance roles within complex, global matrix organisations.
• Record leading enterprise digital portfolios, operating models, and transformation initiatives at scale, balancing delivery pace with governance, risk, and value realisation.
• Experience operating in fast-paced, high-performance environments where structure, prioritisation, and executive decision support are critical to business outcomes.
• Deep commercial and financial acumen, including ownership of Run + Change budgets, investment planning, forecasting, business case development, investment governance, and benefits realisation.
• Strong strategic and operational judgement, with the ability to translate business and technology strategy into clear portfolio priorities, investment decisions, and execution plans.
• Experience handling enterprise-level prioritisation, capacity, dependencies, delivery risk, and trade-off decisions across complex digital portfolios.
• Experience establishing and evolving digital/technology operating models, governance frameworks, and portfolio management disciplines that improve transparency, accountability, and execution effectiveness.
• Highly credible executive communicator, with experience influencing CIOs, senior leadership teams, and cross-functional stakeholders on complex strategic, operational, and investment decisions.
• Strong problem-solving capability, with the ability to bring structure, clarity, and momentum to ambiguous, fast-moving, and high-change environments.
• Strong analytical and data-driven decision-making capability, including KPI development, executive reporting, dashboards, and performance insight generation.
• Experience working with strategic suppliers, commercial partners, and sourcing stakeholders to drive performance, value, and accountability.
• Experience in management consulting, private equity-backed environments, or similarly high-intensity transformation settings would be advantageous.
• FMCG experience is desirable, though greater importance will be placed on experience leading digital portfolios within complex global businesses.
• Highly organised and execution-focused, with strong judgement, resilience, and attention to detail.
• Bachelors degree in Business, Technology, Information Systems, or a related discipline is desirable.

Why Join us?

We're committed to supporting leaders who want to make an impact. You will have the chance to shape and influence significant business outcomes. You will be part of an inclusive environment where diverse perspectives are valued, and where your contribution to performance and integration matters. We invest in the growth and wellbeing of our people, providing the resources, networks, and development opportunities needed to thrive.

Our total rewards package includes competitive pay, bonuses and a range of benefits designed to meet your needs. We recognise that people have multifaceted lives, and we strive to offer a career experience that reflects that.

Travel Requirement: Up to 10% travel should be expected with this role.

Relocation Assistance: This role is not eligible for relocation.

Remote Type: This position is a hybrid of office/remote working.