IT Business Solutions Manager - Global Product Innovation in Gloucester

Hybrid – at least 3 days per week on site at Quedgeley offices. Salary to be discussed on application, with excellent benefits including car cash allowance, company bonus, private health care and generous pension scheme.

The Kohler EMEA IT function partners with a diverse portfolio of businesses across the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, as well as Kohler’s Global Product Innovation (GPI) teams. The EMEA IT team is responsible for delivering business-facing technology solutions, supporting day‑to‑day operations, and driving digital and technology-enabled transformation across a complex and varied landscape of markets, functions, and brands.

Within EMEA IT, Business Solutions Managers (BSMs) act as the primary interface between the business and IT, working closely with stakeholders to shape demand, prioritise initiatives, and deliver value through technology. Global Product Innovation (GPI) represents a critical and high‑impact area for Kohler, focused on product development, innovation and delivering differentiated customer value. The nature of demand within GPI often spans early‑stage ideation through to scaled delivery, requiring close alignment between business ambition and technology capability.

The BSM role is responsible for partnering directly with GPI stakeholders to shape, prioritise and deliver technology-enabled innovation. Working across Enterprise IT teams and the broader EMEA IT function, the BSM will operate in a highly collaborative, matrixed environment to ensure that innovation initiatives are effectively translated into scalable, integrated and value-driven solutions.

Role Purpose

The Business Solutions Manager, Global Product Innovation (GPI), is a senior IT leadership role responsible for partnering with the GPI organisation to ensure technology is effectively embedded within product innovation and development initiatives to deliver measurable business outcomes. Working closely with business, product and delivery teams, this role provides end‑to‑end accountability for aligning innovation priorities with technology strategy, architecture and execution. Focused on high‑value and strategically important initiatives, the role ensures that opportunities are clearly defined, prioritised and delivered with strong alignment to enterprise standards and capabilities.

The BSM acts as the primary IT point of accountability for GPI, working across Regional IT and Enterprise teams to translate innovation ambition into scalable, integrated and value‑driven technology solutions.

Core Accountabilities

• Business Partnership & Relationship Ownership: Acts as the primary IT point of accountability for assigned business areas, owning the overall health and effectiveness of the business‑IT relationship. Embeds with senior business leadership as a trusted advisor, contributing to business strategy discussions and representing IT perspectives.
• Technology Strategy & Roadmap Ownership: Accountable for creation, maintenance and communication of a clear, prioritised multi‑year technology roadmap aligned to business strategy, enterprise architecture standards and delivery capacity. Translates business strategy into coherent capability roadmaps spanning digital, ERP, data, AI, commercial and operational platforms.
• Demand Shaping & Prioritisation: Leads the shaping, constructive challenge and prioritisation of new business demand, ensuring focus on initiatives that deliver the greatest business value. Partners with business leaders, Enterprise Architecture and PMO to sequence demand based on value, dependencies, risk and capacity.
• End‑to‑End Ownership of Business Outcomes: Accountable for ensuring that approved technology initiatives deliver their intended business outcomes and benefits. Works across business, delivery and operational teams to proactively identify risks, remove blockers and address issues that threaten value realisation.
• Portfolio Oversight, Risk & Issue Escalation: Provides end‑to‑end oversight of the business technology portfolio. Owns escalation and resolution of portfolio‑level risks, issues and dependencies affecting business outcomes. Ensures senior stakeholders have transparent, accurate views of progress, trade‑offs and decisions required.
• Operational Accountability & Service Performance Visibility: Accountable for ensuring business stakeholders have visibility of IT operational performance, service health, risks and impacts. Works with Service Management, vendors and platform teams to prioritise, elevate and resolve high‑impact or recurring operational issues.
• Investment, Business Case & Value Management: Partners with business and finance teams to shape technology investment cases, articulate expected value and agree success measures. Tracks and reports on benefits realisation for major initiatives to ensure value commitments are met.
• Vendor & Partner Management: Manages key technology and service partner relationships relevant to the portfolio. Ensures vendors deliver against contractual, value and roadmap expectations and contribute to innovation and ‘art of the possible’ discussions.

Leadership & People Responsibilities: Acts as a senior leader within a matrixed delivery model, working closely with Business Analysts, Architects, Project Managers and other IT specialists across Business Partnering, delivery and platform teams. Sets clear direction aligned to the technology roadmap and agreed business outcomes, influencing and aligning cross‑functional teams. Leads through influence and collaboration, providing coaching and informal feedback to matrix team members and partnering with functional line managers to support effective delivery and development.

Skills / Requirements: Proven experience (typically 8-12+ years) in IT, Digital or Technology roles, with a strong track record of delivering business-facing technology solutions in close partnership with business stakeholders. Demonstrated ability to operate as a trusted business partner, building credibility and working closely with stakeholders to understand priorities, shape demand and deliver meaningful outcomes. Experience developing and maintaining technology strategies and roadmaps, translating business direction into clear, prioritised and actionable technology capabilities. Strong experience owning or contributing to end‑to‑end delivery of initiatives, ensuring alignment across business, architecture, delivery and operational teams, and driving through to realised business value. Commercially minded, with the ability to evaluate and articulate business value, supporting prioritisation and ensuring outcomes are aligned to business objectives. Proven ability to operate effectively in complex, evolving environments, where priorities may not always be fully defined and require active shaping and alignment. Ability to build strong relationships and influence stakeholders across business, IT and external partners, driving alignment and progress within a matrixed organisation. Experience providing oversight of technology portfolios, including identifying and managing risks, issues and dependencies, and ensuring transparency and timely escalation where required. Strong understanding of IT service and delivery models, with the ability to engage effectively across both change and operational contexts, including supporting the business during high‑impact incidents and service issues. Experience working with external vendors and partners, ensuring delivery quality and alignment to expected outcomes. Experience working in product‑oriented, innovation or R&D‑led environments, with an understanding of how technology supports product development, innovation pipelines or experimentation, is advantageous.

Kohler is an equal opportunity employer. It is Kohler’s policy to recruit, hire, and promote qualified personnel in all job classifications without regard to gender, age, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status or race. If, as an individual with a disability, you require any adjustments during the recruitment process, please contact the HR department through talentacquisitionuk@kohler.com.