McLaren Automotive Ltd
Business Office Lead
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What to Expect
Purpose of the Role
The Manufacturing Business Office exists to drive delivery of the Chief Manufacturing Officer's priorities, translating manufacturing strategy into executed outcomes across transformation, governance, performance, communications and cross-functional alignment. The Business Office Lead is the senior individual contributor at the heart of this office, responsible for providing the rhythm, rigour and momentum that keep the manufacturing leadership team aligned, informed and decisive.
Reporting to the Head of Manufacturing Strategy & Business Office, the Business Office Lead owns the core pillars of governance, reporting, strategy execution, planning and organisational alignment. The role leads the Manufacturing rhythm of business, performance reporting and OKRs, strategic planning activities, transformation delivery and change adoption, ensuring priorities progress from concept through to measurable business outcomes. Success is achieved through influence, credibility and trusted relationships across functions rather than direct authority.
The role also helps shape future manufacturing capability by supporting financial realisation, digital transformation, Industry 4.0 and AI-enabled improvement initiatives, while maintaining strong alignment across operational and functional teams. Working closely with Finance, IT, Operational Technology, Procurement, plant leadership and the PMO, the Business Office Lead provides day-to-day leadership, coaching and development for the Strategy Graduate.
What You'll Do
Principal Accountabilities
Governance, Reporting & Performance
- Own the Manufacturing governance architecture and rhythm of business, ensuring governance forums, reporting routines and decision-making processes remain effective and aligned to business priorities.
- Lead performance reporting and OKRs, maintain robust action and decision tracking, and provide data-driven insight that supports effective leadership decision-making.
Strategy Execution & Transformation
- Lead delivery of the Manufacturing Business Office agenda, coordinating the Manufacturing Transformation programme and ensuring strategic priorities progress from definition through to executed outcome.
- Drive cross-functional alignment, remove organisational bottlenecks and lead discrete strategic initiatives as business priorities evolve.
Strategic Planning, Financial Realisation & Risk
- Own the strategic planning calendar, aligning manufacturing priorities with enterprise planning cycles, including long-range planning, annual operating planning and quarterly forecasting.
- Partner with Finance and operational leads to develop business cases, prioritise investment and establish benefits realisation frameworks, while supporting strategic risk assessment, scenario planning and long-term value creation.
Change, Communications & Engagement
- Lead manufacturing communications and change adoption activities, including Town Halls, leadership messaging and stakeholder engagement, ensuring strategic priorities are translated into clear narratives that build understanding, alignment and organisational commitment.
Future Capability, Digital & AI
- Shape future manufacturing capability by contributing to digital, Industry 4.0 and AI roadmaps.
- Identify, prioritise and support the adoption of technologies and ways of working that improve productivity, quality, decision-making and employee experience, informed by external benchmarking and emerging industry best practice.
People Leadership
- Provide day-to-day leadership, coaching and development for the Strategy Graduate, supporting capability growth and creating meaningful development opportunities across the Business Office remit.
Impact
Types of roles managed by jobholder
- Directly – Strategy Graduate (Business Office): day-to-day direction, coaching and development.
- Indirectly – cross-functional stakeholders across Manufacturing and partner functions, engaged and aligned through influence rather than line authority.
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Key Financial Measures
- No direct budget accountability; partners with operational leads plus Finance and FP&A to shape business cases, CapEx justification and OpEx prioritisation for transformation initiatives.
- Owns the benefits-realisation framework - auditing that completed initiatives deliver their projected ROI, efficiency gains and cost-per-unit reductions over time.
- Accountable for the accuracy and integrity of the performance and OKR reporting that underpins leadership decision-making.
Key Stakeholders
- Head of Manufacturing Strategy & Business Office (direct line).
- Chief Manufacturing Officer and the Manufacturing leadership team.
- Finance and FP&A.
- IT, Operational Technology (OT) and digital manufacturing teams.
- Procurement, Quality, Supply Chain, Manufacturing Engineering and Product Development.
- PMO (including the Project Lead) and Group / inter-company Business Office and PMO counterparts.
- Plant leadership and the wider manufacturing workforce (via communications and Town Halls).
What You'll Bring
Knowledge, Skills & Experience
A track record of leading strategy, transformation or business-office activities in a complex, fast paced environment, turning priorities into executed and measurable outcomes.
- 5+ years' relevant experience across business-office leadership, transformation, PMO, strategy execution, management consultancy or comparable delivery environments.
- Demonstrable experience establishing and operating governance frameworks, facilitating senior leadership forums, and owning performance reporting and OKR processes.
- Experience partnering with Finance on business cases, investment prioritisation and benefits realisation.
- Demonstrable experience influencing senior stakeholders and driving cross-functional outcomes through collaboration and credibility rather than direct authority.
- Experience evaluating, implementing or supporting digital, Industry 4.0, automation, analytics or AI-enabled improvement initiatives is advantageous.
- Automotive, advanced manufacturing or other complex operational experience is advantageous.
Preferred Qualifications
- Degree educated; a Master’s degree or MBA is desirable.
- A change management qualification (e.g. APMG Change Management or Prosci) or equivalent demonstrable experience.
- A recognised project or programme management accreditation (e.g. APM, PRINCE2 or Agile) is advantageous.
- Lean / Six Sigma or continuous-improvement certification is advantageous.
Business Knowledge
- Strong understanding of manufacturing operations and large-scale transformation.
- Understanding of governance, performance management and leadership decision-making processes.
- Familiarity with enterprise planning cycles and strategic business planning.
- Understanding of financial models, investment prioritisation and benefits realisation.
- Awareness of digital manufacturing, Industry 4.0, AI and sustainability trends, and their practical application within operational environments.
Essential Functional / Technical Skills
- Governance and facilitation.
- Performance reporting and OKR design.
- Strategic planning, business-case development and benefits realisation.
- Communications, stakeholder engagement and change adoption.
- Digital, automation and AI-enabled business improvement.
- Stakeholder influence and cross-functional leadership across all levels of seniority.
- Advanced operating level across the Microsoft M365 suite, with strong reporting and presentation output (notably Excel and PowerPoint).
Personal Attributes / Competencies
- Commit to Win – Pragmatic resilience for execution: when production pressures push transformation milestones sideways, adapts plans to operational reality while protecting the strategic end-goal.
- Communicate with Clarity – Translating complexity into action: explains complex priorities, trade offs and strategic decisions in a way that enables leaders and teams to act with confidence, earning buy-in through honesty, transparency and practicality.
- Create with Courage – Constructive challenge and innovation: never satisfied with surface-level reporting; interrogates data, challenges assumptions and asks the difficult questions that drive better decisions. Champions innovation and continuous improvement, actively exploring new technologies, AI-enabled capabilities and ways of working that create measurable business value.
- Collaborate for Impact – Network empathy for alignment: understands the competing objectives of peer functions and builds trusted relationships that enable collaboration, alignment and effective decision-making across organisational boundaries.
- Influence without authority | Builds credibility, trust and momentum across functions, delivering outcomes through relationships, judgement and persistence rather than formal hierarchy.
- Trusted Professionalism | Operates with integrity, discretion and sound judgement, balancing attention to detail with an understanding of the wider organisational context.
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Complexity & Problem Solving
The Business Office Lead operates across the full breadth of the Manufacturing Business Office – execution, reporting, alignment and communications – with no direct authority over the people and functions whose delivery and adoption they depend on. Success rests on borrowed authority and peer influence: understanding the competing priorities of Finance, Engineering, Quality, Supply Chain, IT / OT and Procurement, and building the informal currency needed to align them behind shared goals.
The role must continually connect strategy to financial impact and operational reality – adapting plans when production pressures bite while protecting the strategic end-goal, interrogating the data behind performance rather than accepting surface-level status, and keeping the leadership team focused on high leverage decisions. It requires the judgement to balance forward-looking strategy (digital, benchmarking and ESG) with the discipline of day-to-day execution, and the discretion to handle sensitive commercial and organisational information appropriately.
Career Path
Talent Pool for Role: Experienced business office, strategy, transformation, PMO and chief-of-staff professionals, together with management-consultancy practitioners and operational leaders with a strong track record of driving cross-functional delivery and organisational change. Experience within automotive, advanced manufacturing or other complex industrial environments is advantageous.
This is a permanent, high-visibility role at the heart of the Manufacturing leadership team, offering broad exposure across strategy execution, governance, transformation, finance, operations and organisational performance. The role provides a strong platform for progression into senior Business Office, Strategy, Transformation, PMO or operational leadership positions.
What We'll Do for You
We offer a wide-ranging benefits package, which includes:
- Structured career development framework
- 25 days’ holiday, plus bank holiday. Annual buy & sell up to five days
- Enhanced company pension scheme
- Discretionary annual bonus award
- Private medical insurance and health cash plan
- Life assurance benefit
- Ability to apply for a sabbatical of up to one year after only two years’ service
- Benefits you can adapt to your lifestyle, such as discounted shopping
- Generous parental leave policies
- A range of wellbeing initiatives, such as employee assistance programme and free financial & mortgage advice
Who Are We?
No restraints. No limitations. We don’t simply push boundaries. We completely rethink them. McLaren Automotive exists to create breath-taking performance road cars.
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