Group IT Project Manager

C&D Foods and its affiliates are one of the largest pet food manufacturers in Europe, offering specially-formulated cat and dog food for the private label market. Founded in 1969, C&D Foods and its affiliates have grown to become one of the industry’s leading pet food producers with eight manufacturing sites across Europe supplying quality products to customers around the world. We provide a one-stop-shop for all our customer’s wet and dry pet food needs, from large-scale, low-cost highly-automated facilities to multi-purpose, smaller volume flexible sites. Through our dedicated Nutrition & Research Centre and focus on continuous improvement, we’ve developed a reputation for innovation, collaboration, quality and market expertise.

As part of C&D's digital evolution and standardisation programme, we are looking for an experienced IT project manager to deliver the European rollout of our Time and Attendance software, Clockwise from Softworks. This is an exciting opportunity that will lead to meaningful change and optimisations across many T&A related business processes. This is a high profile role and the successful candidate will have the opportunity to develop and build cross functional relationships while gaining significant business exposure during the rollout.

This role will report to the Head of IT and will work with project stakeholders across all sites. They will also coordinate their work with the ABP IT Programme Manager.

As a Group IT Project Manager (Fixed Term Contract) you will manage the European rollout of our Time and Attendance software alongside the delivery of many of our business transformation and modernisation projects. 

You will use your business knowledge and understanding to ensure projects are managed and delivered to the expectations of all stakeholders. You will be a champion of quality project management practices and measure project progress using qualitative and quantitative tools, structures and metrics. You will adopt, improve and be accountable for governance and process and you will work closely with the IT management team to coach and elevate the skills of the IT team to those standards. You will build relationships and work collaboratively to ensure successful outcomes, both internally with our IT and business teams as well as externally with our partners, suppliers and customers. Our objective as a team is to develop and sustain the quality and consistency of the delivery of projects across our division.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Full project management of the European Time and Attendance software project
• Oversee a value driven delivery portfolio of projects and manage those in parallel
• Follow good project management practices to manage and measure project progress and performance and ultimately deliver
• Maintain strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders and adhere to project governance standards
• Contribute to scope identification and prioritisation across projects and business units 
• Find early wins and get to production fast with impactful features or project deliverables 
• Set and meet clear milestones for project delivery 
• Adhere to administrative, reporting and risk SLAs for projects ensuring the Project Management and governance systems are kept up to date
• Work closely with other teams across business units to ensure alignment of all development activities associated with projects 
• Partner with other stakeholder teams across business units (e.g., commercial, supply chain, sales, finance, security, compliance) to ensure our approach aligns with key business processes and activities and that business leadership feels ownership of IT deliverables
• Keep abreast of emerging processes, technologies, standards and practices that are associated with relevant IT capabilities
• Author and update internal and external project related documentation 
• Train, coach and support IT members in managing own projects

PERSONAL COMPETENCIES AND QUALIFICATIONS

• BSC in Computer Science, Business Management or equivalent
• Project Management Certificate holder
• 5+ years of proven experience in similar roles and projects
• Experienced in both Waterfall and Agile delivery methodologies
• Project Management experience delivering Enterprise Applications, Infrastructure, Integration and Data platforms and systems across regions
• Excellent analytical skills; the ability to assess and manage project risks and problems thoroughly
• Ability to work with ambiguity and competing priorities 
• Clear prioritisation and time management skills 
• Demonstrable stakeholder management, communications and interpersonal skills 
• Ability to quickly learn new technologies and new products 
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, strong presentation skills 
• Excellent Microsoft Office skills
• Ability to present technical issues to non-technical audiences 
• Passion for technology