AI Programme Director, London

WPP is the creative transformation company. We use the power of creativity to build better futures for our people, planet, clients, and communities.

Working at WPP means being part of a global network of more than 109,000 accomplished people in 110 countries. WPP has headquarters in New York, London and Singapore and a corporate presence in major markets worldwide.

We create transformative ideas and outcomes for our clients through an integrated offer of communications, experience, commerce, and technology.

WPP and our award-winning agencies work with most of the world's biggest companies and organisations - from Ford, Unilever and P&G to Google, HSBC, and the UN. Our clients include 61 of the FTSE 100, 317 of the Fortune Global 500, all 30 of the Dow Jones 30 and 62 of the NASDAQ 100. WPP are the leader in the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index and 8th in the FTSE 100 rankings for Women on Boards.

WPP IT provides IT services for WPP, the world's largest communications services group. As a creative transformation company, WPP is helping its clients transform the future through extraordinary work. WPP IT is an integral part of that journey and we are proud to provide technology for some of the world's most creative brands.

Why we're hiring:

At WPP, technology is at the heart of everything we do, and it is WPP IT's mission to enable everyone to collaborate, create and thrive. WPP IT is undergoing a significant transformation to build the transformation platform that will power the next evolution of WPP. WPP is on a journey to clarify and simplify the operating model between our brands and WPP, modernise and create tech-enabled colleague experiences, and create an open, integrated technology innovation platform across WPP.

Along that journey we will ensure WPP IT is a destination for tech talent, modernise our ways of working, shift to cloud and micro-service-based architectures, drive automation, digitise colleague and client experiences and deliver insight from WPP's petabytes of data.

As one of the pivotal pillars of WPP IT's transformation WPP is embarking on a strategic programme on AI to support proactive use of AI products and technologies within WPP, to enhance productivity and ensure market leadership.

For the next phase in this journey on AI we require a highly experienced Programme Director to lead a combined set of AI related initiatives into a single coordinated AI programme going forward. Directly reporting to the Head of Strategic Transformation Delivery you will work closely and collaboratively with key stakeholders across Agency Leadership teams, Group CTO, Group Finance, Legal Security and risk team, and of course the WPP IT Leadership to create and own the AI roadmap and structure and own the programme delivery end to end.

This role will manage demanding workloads with challenging and critical distributed data and must articulate a vision for building a new cross-functional and cross-divisional organisation and product culture by collaborating with business and technical leaders, designers and engineers, change and adoption and communication.

What you'll be doing:
• Develop the global strategic vision and roadmap for the WPP AI programme
• Serves as the single accountable party for defining, planning, orchestrating, and delivering given programme
• Build credible, strong relationships with agency exec/IT & CTO leadership in order to influence and drive collaboration around strategic initiatives
• Ensure end results are of the highest calibre with clearly articulated scope and quantifiable business benefits
• Identifies, defines and manages all aspects of programme level projects. Including, but not limited to, the overall programme project plan, execution, resource management, issue tracking, quality, governance, change management, risk management, communications and budget
• Ensures that delivery and Practice project management processes and procedures are adhered to on all projects within the programme
• Acts as liaison between stakeholders, sponsors and steering committee and manages these relationships
• Manages third party suppliers/partners to contract commitments in a seamless manner
• Coordinates inter-project dependencies, including those with projects, suppliers and stakeholders outside of the programme
• Develop and compose business cases to support the acquisition or development of critical project components or strategic initiatives

What you'll need:

Critical to success is a high tolerance for dynamic environments and demonstrated ability to deliver a complex programme of infrastructure delivery. In addition, successful senior exec stakeholder management and C-suite engagement is being a key success factor for this role as well.

You will also have:
• Previous experience in leading key business transformation initiatives in a global, complex environment
• Data and/or AI programme delivery experience with a focus on large complex planning and delivery in global enterprises.
• The ability to break-down financial information clearly and concisely in order to present to non- finance related functions
• Energised by the challenge a seemingly inscrutable problem presents and adept at troubleshooting people and technical problems
• Experience in a global organisation with multiple entities is strongly preferred
• An exemplar thought leader with an ability to lead and inspire teams directly and in a matrix or virtual structure
• Exceptional at communicating concepts and ideas to stakeholders at all levels
• Leadership which role models through own behaviour and actions, embedding change by inspiring, coaching, holding them-self and others to account and setting the right cultural tone

Who you are:

You're open : We are inclusive and collaborative; we encourage the free exchange of ideas; we respect and celebrate diverse views. We are accepting: of new ideas, new partnerships, new ways of working.

You're optimistic : We believe in the power of creativity, technology and talent to create brighter futures or our people, our clients and our communities. We approach all that we do with conviction: to try the new and to seek the unexpected.

You're extraordinary: we are stronger together: through collaboration we achieve the amazing. We are creative leaders and pioneers of our industry; we provide extraordinary every day.

What we'll give you:

Passionate, inspired people - We promote a culture of people that do extraordinary work.

Scale and opportunity - We offer the opportunity to create, influence and complete projects at a scale that is unparalleled in the industry.

Challenging and stimulating work - Unique work and the opportunity to join a group of creative problem solvers. Are you up for the challenge?

WPP is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without regard to race, color, religion or belief, sex, age, national origin, citizenship status, marital status, military/veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical or mental disability. We believe in creating a dynamic work environment that values diversity and inclusion and strives to recruit a diverse slate of candidates to help us achieve that goal.

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