Client and Executive Stakeholder Management

• Act as the single senior Napier delivery contact with the client's programme director, delivery leads, and executive sponsors
• Chair steering committees and executive status forums with authority and credibility
• Prevent client escalations bypassing programme governance
• Represent Napier at client executive escalations, industry regulator interactions where relevant, and third-party (hyperscaler, SI) governance

Commercial Governance

• Own programme P&L, forecast, and margin
• Run formal change control against every scope movement, defect classification, and delivery obligation
• Defend Napier against uncapped commitments, one-sided release triggers, and unbounded acceptance criteria
• Hold the defect versus change request line: no product commitment leaves Napier without your sign-off
• Escalate commercial and contractual risk to the CCO before it becomes a client-facing position

Delivery Excellence and Risk Management

• Maintain the end-to-end programme plan, dependency map, and critical path
• Own the risk register and drive mitigations with named accountable owners
• Establish and maintain go/no-go readiness assessment against agreed criteria
• Drive continuous improvement in Napier's delivery methodology from evidence in the field

Third-Party Regulatory Instruments

• Manage the operational side of any escrow, source-code deposit, or equivalent regulatory instrument on your programmes, working with Napier Legal, Engineering, and the third-party agent
• Manage client expectations on trigger events, deposit content, and verification cycles

Customer Outcomes and Transition

• Ensure customers achieve successful implementation, adoption, and business value realisation
• Manage a clean transition from delivery into Customer Success and Support with complete documentation and no orphaned commitments

Do you have what it takes?

Essential

• 12+ years leading large-scale enterprise software delivery programmes, with at least 5 years at senior programme director or equivalent level
• Direct financial crime compliance domain experience: AML, KYC, Transaction Monitoring, Sanctions Screening, or Case Management platforms. Not adjacent, not learned on the job during a stint - deep and current
• Delivered at least one enterprise implementation into a Tier 1 or systemic bank in the UK, EU, or US, chairing steering committees at C-1 level
• Proven turnaround experience: taken over a live enterprise programme mid-flight, restored client confidence, re-baselined credibly, and landed a successful outcome
• Cloud-based enterprise SaaS platform delivery experience, ideally including hyperscaler-hosted environments (Azure, AWS, or GCP)
• Multi-vendor programme experience across client, primary vendor, hyperscaler, and system integrator
• Strong commercial and contractual instincts: has run defensive change control, held scope, defended margin, and defeated attempts to reclassify enhancements as defects
• Experience of programmes with regulatory or contractual hard deadlines (go/no-go gates, DORA, PRA/FCA supervisory dates, or equivalent)
• Presence and credibility at C-1 and C-suite client levels

Highly Desirable

• Experience of escrow, source-code deposit, or equivalent third-party regulatory instruments in a live client engagement
• Experience across multiple geographic regions (EMEA, Americas, APAC)
• Programme management certifications (MSP, PgMP, PMP, Prince2) - useful, but not a substitute for the experience above
• Experience in Private Equity-backed software companies operating to a defined value creation plan

About You

You bring calm authority and structured judgement to programmes under pressure. You are equally comfortable in a technical defect triage, a commercial change control meeting, and a bank executive steering committee. You know when to push and when to protect, and you are willing to hold uncomfortable positions internally to protect the commercial and delivery outcome

You do not need consensus to act. You do need clarity of accountability, direct access to executive decision-making, and the trust to run your programme.

Why Napier?

• Comprehensive private healthcare through AXA covering optical, audio & dental.
• 25 days of annual leave + bank holidays, your birthday and a wellness day
• Dedicated pension plan through Aviva
• Life Insurance 4x your annual salary
• Enhanced Maternity & Paternity leave
• Income protections policy
• Work from anywhere for up to 1 month
• Access to our employee wellbeing programme.
• Gym membership discounts.
• Flexibility in work schedules and locations, ensuring a work-life balance.
• This role can be fulfilled either with a hybrid approach or fully in-office – depending on your preference.
• An open and flexible culture that allows you to work in the best way for you.

Please note applicants must have the right to work in the United Kingdom. We are unable to offer sponsorship or take over sponsorship of employment visas at this time.