Senior Delivery Manager

Role Overview

Senior Delivery Manager at dmg events. The role is a senior business partner to the organisation, connecting business strategy, product priorities and technology execution.

Role Purpose

The role is accountable for leading complex cross-functional delivery, establishing and maturing enterprise PMO capability, and embedding pragmatic agile and enterprise delivery frameworks that improve transparency, prioritisation and business outcomes. It is structured around four essential outcomes: translating business priorities into coherent, outcome-led portfolios; creating proportionate standards and controls without slowing delivery; removing impediments and delivering complex change predictably; and coaching Product Owners and teams to apply agile and lean practices and continuously improve.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Business Partnering

• Act as a trusted delivery partner to senior business and technology leaders, building deep understanding of strategic priorities, commercial drivers, operational pressures and customer outcomes.
• Translate strategy and business needs into prioritised roadmaps, clear delivery outcomes and executable plans across functions, platforms, brands and events.
• Provide constructive challenge, evidence-based recommendations and transparent trade-offs to support executive decisions on scope, sequencing, investment and risk.
• Build strong relationships across business units and create shared accountability for delivery outcomes, benefits and adoption.

Enterprise PMO and Portfolio Governance

• Design, establish and continuously mature an enterprise PMO operating model, including demand intake, prioritisation, business cases, stage gates, portfolio planning, assurance, reporting and benefits tracking.
• Introduce proportionate enterprise delivery standards, governance, templates and controls that work across agile, predictive and hybrid delivery environments.
• Create a reliable enterprise portfolio view covering outcomes, milestones, investment, capacity, dependencies, risks, issues and decisions.
• Establish effective governance cadences and decision forums, ensuring actions, ownership and escalation routes are clear and timely.
• Partner with Finance, Product, Technology and business leaders on investment planning, resource forecasting, portfolio scenarios and value realisation.

Delivery Leadership

• Lead complex, business-critical programmes and cross-functional initiatives from discovery through implementation, adoption and benefits realisation.
• Own integrated delivery plans and proactively manage scope, schedules, budgets, quality, risks, issues, assumptions, decisions and cross-team dependencies.
• Remove organisational and technology impediments, resolving ambiguity and creating conditions for teams to deliver efficiently and consistently.
• Hold teams and partners accountable for commitments while creating a safe, collaborative environment for early escalation and problem solving.
• Manage third-party suppliers and consultants where required, ensuring delivery, commercial and quality expectations are met.

Agile, Lean and Product Coaching

• Coach Product Owners on product vision, outcome-based roadmaps, value prioritisation, backlog health, user stories, acceptance criteria and effective stakeholder engagement.
• Coach delivery teams and leaders in Scrum, Kanban, Lean and scaled enterprise practices, adapting the approach pragmatically to the nature and risk of the work.
• Facilitate high-value workshops, planning sessions, reviews and retrospectives that create alignment, resolve decisions and maintain momentum.
• Build delivery capability through mentoring, communities of practice, playbooks, maturity assessments and targeted learning interventions.
• Promote continuous improvement using flow, predictability, quality, customer and value metrics rather than activity measures alone.

Performance, Communication and Organisational Leadership

• Produce concise, decision-oriented portfolio reporting for senior stakeholders, with clear narrative on progress, forecast, value, risk and required action.
• Maintain exceptional organisation across multiple priorities, balancing strategic planning with hands-on intervention where delivery needs support.
• Use data to identify systemic delivery constraints and lead improvements in ways of working, governance, capability and organisational design.
• Role-model calm, inclusive and accountable leadership, especially when priorities are changing or delivery is under pressure.

Qualifications & Experience

• Substantial experience leading complex technology-enabled business change, programmes or portfolios in a senior delivery, programme, transformation or PMO leadership role.
• Demonstrable experience establishing, transforming or materially maturing an enterprise PMO or portfolio governance capability.
• Strong working knowledge of agile and lean delivery, together with enterprise-scale and hybrid frameworks; ability to select and tailor the right approach rather than apply a single methodology rigidly.
• Proven ability to coach Product Owners and senior stakeholders in product thinking, prioritisation, roadmaps, backlogs, outcome definition and value realisation.
• A degree or equivalent professional experience.
• Relevant qualifications such as MSP, PgMP, PMP, PRINCE2, SAFe, Scrum or ICAgile are desirable, but practical application is more important than certification alone.
• Experience in a multi-brand, international, events, media or similarly fast-paced organisation is advantageous.

Skills & Competencies

• Exceptional stakeholder management, influencing and negotiation skills, with confidence to operate as a credible business partner at executive and senior leadership level.
• Excellent organisational skills and ability to create clarity, structure and momentum across a large portfolio with competing priorities and dependencies.
• Strong commercial acumen, including experience of investment cases, budgets, resource planning, suppliers and benefits management.
• Evidence-led approach to portfolio and delivery reporting, including use of flow, predictability, quality, risk and outcome measures.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, with ability to simplify complex information for technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experience of delivery tooling such as Jira and Confluence, together with portfolio reporting and collaboration platforms.

Additional Information

• dmg events is an equal opportunity employer.