Senior Commercial Manager-Base Planning in England

Location: Manchester or London

As Senior Base Planning Manager, you will lead the planning, coordination, and delivery of initiatives and activities that protect, grow, and optimise TalkTalk’s customer base. Providing structured governance, overseeing cross-functional planning and delivery, you will ensure alignment to commercial, trading, operational, and customer experience objectives.

With responsibility for owning and developing the base calendar as part of the quarterly and annual planning process, you will play a critical role in delivering strategies, plans, and insights which grow value from TalkTalk's existing customer base. Working in collaboration with stakeholders across Finance, Products, Marketing, Data, Analytics, GTM, Digital, Customer Operations, and Customer Lifecycle Management, you will ensure TalkTalk maximises retention, margin, and customer satisfaction.

Main Responsibilities

• Base Planning Ownership
  • Own the base calendar and lead the quarterly and annual planning for base and marketing, ensuring a fully aligned and agreed plan reflecting business priorities.
  • Run cross-functional planning forums that align Product, Marketing, Trading, Digital, and Customer Ops on quarterly and annual base plans, risks, and delivery sequencing.
  • Shape prioritisation frameworks to ensure focus on initiatives that maximise customer lifetime value, reduce churn, and support TalkTalk’s challenger strategy.
  • Act as the single point of contact for all activity/programme requests that are related to the base, ensuring effective quality control of requests and impact assessment.
  • Govern an integrated customer base calendar to avoid customer fatigue and optimise business pacing/rhythm.
  • Drive continuous improvement in base planning processes, proactively finding opportunities for efficiency and value optimisation.
• Risk Management and Mitigation
  • Identify commercial, regulatory, and execution risks for base-related activities and proactively identify mitigation strategies.
  • Design mitigations and ensure alignment with internal commercial governance and risk management policy.
  • Identify at-risk value cohorts, assess impact, and establish treatments to minimise churn impact and maximise Customer Lifetime Value.
• Customer Value Maximisation
  • Act as the representative of the Base Management team to maximise the value protection and generation on industry-driven projects.
  • Lead long-term strategic projects to ensure value is at the heart of decision-making.
  • Oversee base-focused programs aimed at improving customer experience, driving engagement, and reducing churn, ensuring impact on customer base is reflected in base planning.
  • Work closely with other Base Management team members and relevant stakeholders to ensure effective treatments are considered and active in base management activities.
  • Vet and contribute to business cases from a base value management perspective to ensure we have realistic expectations and are progressing with the right projects.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration
  • Act as the central point of alignment across Product, Marketing, Trading, Commercial, Operations, Data, and Technology teams, ensuring Base programmes are delivered cohesively and on time.
  • Build strong relationships across TalkTalk and influence stakeholders through clear, succinct communication of programme strategy, impact, risks, and benefits.
  • Work closely with marketing, finance, product, GTM, data, analytics, and base management teams to build and execute a unified base calendar plan.
  • Ensure alignment across teams and provide clear communication to stakeholders on progress and recommendations.
  • Collaborate across internal teams to align customer journeys, messaging, and programme design.
• Performance Monitoring & Communication
  • Track status and performance of base calendar items and base programmes.
  • Flag any issues and risks early on to ensure timely resolution/mitigation.
  • Work with Insights teams to develop performance and business impact review for base calendar items and base programmes.
  • Communicate effectively with wider stakeholders to drive awareness of base activities and impact.

Knowledge, Skills & Experience

• Extensive experience in base planning, base management, or related roles.
• Strong understanding of Commercial, Trading, Sales, and Operational teams in a telecoms or subscription-based environment.
• Deep understanding of customer lifecycle programs including retention, cross-sell/upsell, loyalty, engagement, and monetisation.
• Proven ability to lead multi-disciplinary teams and influence senior stakeholders in a complex matrix organisation.
• Demonstrated capability in risk management, dependency mapping, and benefits realisation frameworks.
• Ability to manage complex planning and prioritisation processes.
• Ability to develop innovative solutions and strategic recommendations and be able to convey concepts to create value.

Essential experience

Skills & Competencies

• Strong business acumen and experience delivering data-driven results.
• Strong commercial understanding and business process design/improvement.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to interpret complex data.
• Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration skills.
• Strong influencing and stakeholder management skills.

Behaviours

• Customer-obsessed mindset focused on creating simple and compelling customer experiences.
• Highly collaborative, adaptable, resilient, and comfortable working at pace in a fast-changing environment.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Economics, Analytics, or related field; advanced degree (e.g. MBA/MSc) preferred.
• Demonstrable experience in base planning, programme management, revenue management, or base management within telecoms or similar subscription-based industries.