Director, Strategic Change Initiative

Job Summary

Wealth and Retail Banking (WRB) aim to become the leading Cross-Border Affluent Bank and Wealth Manager, through strengthening our Affluent continuum, unlock network value via International Banking, accelerate Private Banking growth, and future proof our business with strong focus on risk, talent, underpinned by scalable digital platform and operational capabilities.

WRB will invest in building client-centric digital wealth and retail journeys that expands our wealth solutions and upgrade advisory capabilities, tailor our international propositions, uplift our ability to drive client upgrades and move along the client continuum, enhance our frontline enablers to support our growth in relationship managers, and strengthen our support functions in line with our growth aspirations.

We are seeking a highly skilled Strategic Change Initiative lead who will be the integration and discipline layer between business strategy, funded capacity and delivery execution, ensuring that:

• Business objectives are translated into coherent, outcome-based roadmaps

• Delivery capacity is explicitly planned, sequenced, and protected

• Progress is measured by outcomes realised, not activity completed

This role will partner closely with business owners and accountable executives to ensure delivery roadmap remains relevant, value-focused, and decision-ready.

Key Responsibilities

Strategy

• Translate business strategy underpinning initiative into clearly articulated delivery outcomes with defined success measures

• Ensure all delivery components/OKRs are explicitly aligned to strategic intent, avoiding dilution of focus through fragmented initiatives

• Maintain a coherent strategy-to-execution narrative, ensuring programme roadmap reflects agreed priorities and assumptions

• Proactively identify misalignment between strategy, delivery capacity, funding, and surface implications early

Business

• Partner with business owners and accountable executives to shape outcomes that resonate with business terms (value, growth, risk reduction, productivity)

• Ensure programme roadmap clearly demonstrates how delivery enables business objectives, not just technical outputs

• Enable informed trade-off decisions by framing options in terms of business value, timing, and impact

• Act as a trust integrator between business demand and delivery execution

Processes

• Establish and enforce disciplined programme planning processes linking business outcomes, delivery roadmap, and funded capacity

• Ensure dependency management, sequencing, and prioritisation are intentional and transparent

• Maintain roadmap integrity through structured change control, ensuring changes are assessed against outcome impact and capacity constraints

• Promote continuous improvement of delivery and planning processes based on performance insights

People & Talent

• Coordinate multi-disciplinary delivery teams to operate as a cohesive system, not isolated workstreams

• Ensure capacity plans reflect the right skill mix, locations, and availability to support outcome delivery

• Foster a culture of outcome ownership, accountability, and delivery discipline across teams

• Support delivery leaders in resolving resourcing conflicts and capability gaps that threaten outcomes

Risk Management

• Identify, assess, and manage risks that could impact outcome realisation, capacity sustainability, or delivery integrity

• Ensure key dependencies, assumptions, and constraints are explicitly documented and monitored

• Surface emerging risks early, with clear mitigation options and decision points

• Partner with risk and control functions to ensure delivery remains compliant without undermining speed or value

Governance

• Provide decision-ready insights to governance forums, focusing on outcomes, trade-offs, and capacity implications rather than activity reporting

• Ensure governance cadence supports timely decisions and course correction, not retrospective oversight

• Maintain clear accountability for outcomes, funding, and delivery commitments

• Act as custodian of programme standards, ensuring consistent application of outcome-based planning and reporting

Regulatory & Business Conduct

• Display exemplary conduct and live by the Group’s Values and Code of Conduct.

• Take personal responsibility for embedding the highest standards of ethics, including regulatory and business conduct, across Standard Chartered Bank. This includes understanding and ensuring compliance with, in letter and spirit, all applicable laws, regulations, guidelines and the Group Code of Conduct.

• Effectively and collaboratively identify, escalate, mitigate and resolve risk, conduct and compliance matters.

Key Stakeholders

• WRB Digital Head

• WRB Digital Change Delivery and Enablement team

• WRB Cost Management team

• Relevant WRB Product / Segment stakeholders

• WRB Portfolio Team

• Group Investment Management team

• Relevant Functions in Risk, Compliance, Finance, Legal & HR

• Programme/Project Accountable Executives and Managers

Other Responsibilities

• Embed Here for good and Group’s brand and values in Wealth and Retail Banking. Perform other responsibilities assigned under Group, Country, Business or Functional policies and procedures.

Skills and Competencies:

• Strong leadership and team management skills with the ability to motivate, mentor, and develop talent.

• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, with the ability to influence and engage stakeholders at all levels.

• Excellent connected listening skills to establish strong understanding and trusted relationship with key stakeholders.

• In-depth knowledge of change delivery best practice with strong ability to manage ambiguity.

Our Ideal Candidate

Experience:

• 10+ years of experience in leading large-scale change and transformation initiatives, ideally in financial services or digital-first organisations

• Experience in embedding outcome-based planning, ensuring clear traceability from strategic objectives through to execution and value realisation.

• Strong background in managing demand, supply, and investment prioritisation across complex portfolios.

• Demonstrated ability to establish and scale frameworks for delivery performance management across multiple organisational layers

• Skilled at bridging business strategy with technology delivery, ensuring digital capability investments create measurable business impact.

• Experienced in influencing and partnering with C-suite, senior business leaders, and delivery teams to drive alignment and accountability.

• Expertise in building organisational change capability, fostering adoption of lean governance, and shifting delivery culture toward value-based outcomes.

• Knowledge of risk management practices in change and transformation, with ability to balance agility, compliance, and control.

• Experience working with cross-functional teams in a global and complex organisation.

• Proven ability to provide guidance and execute in an agile way with teams across geographic locations.

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in finance, business, economics, or a related field (MBA or equivalent advanced degree preferred).

• Relevant professional qualifications in Agile or Lean Portfolio Management (e.g., SAFe, LeSS, Disciplined Agile), Change Management (e.g., PROSCI, ACMP), Project and Programme management (e.g., PMP, MSP, PRINCE2), Business Architecture or Value Management (e.g., TOGAF, Value Stream Management) are a plus

Role Specific Technical Competencies

• Strategic Transformation & Change Leadership

• Portfolio, Capacity & Investment Prioritization Management

• Outcome-Based Planning, Benefits Realization & Delivery Governance

• Executive Stakeholder Management, Cross-Functional Leadership & Risk Management

• Agile/Lean Portfolio Management (SAFe, LeSS, Disciplined Agile)

• Change Management & Organizational Transformation (PROSCI, ACMP)

• Milestone Tracking, Dependency Management & Change Governance Standards

• Business Architecture, Value Stream Management, Financial Planning & Regulatory Compliance

About Standard Chartered

We're an international bank, nimble enough to act, big enough for impact. For more than 170 years, we've worked to make a positive difference for our clients, communities, and each other. We question the status quo, love a challenge and enjoy finding new opportunities to grow and do better than before. If you're looking for a career with purpose and you want to work for a bank making a difference, we want to hear from you. You can count on us to celebrate your unique talents and we can't wait to see the talents you can bring us.

Our purpose, to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity, together with our brand promise, to be here for good are achieved by how we each live our valued behaviours. When you work with us, you'll see how we value difference and advocate inclusion.

Together we:

• Do the right thing and are assertive, challenge one another, and live with integrity, while putting the client at the heart of what we do

• Never settle , continuously striving to improve and innovate, keeping things simple and learning from doing well, and not so well

• Are better together , we can be ourselves, be inclusive, see more good in others, and work collectively to build for the long term

What we offer

In line with our Fair Pay Charter , we offer a competitive salary and benefits to support your mental, physical, financial and social wellbeing.

• Core bank funding for retirement savings, medical and life insurance , with flexible and voluntary benefits available in some locations.

• Time-off including annual leave, parental/maternity (20 weeks), sabbatical (12 months maximum) and volunteering leave (3 days), along with minimum global standards for annual and public holiday, which is combined to 30 days minimum.

• Flexible working options based around home and office locations, with flexible working patterns.

• Proactive wellbeing support through Unmind, a market-leading digital wellbeing platform, development courses for resilience and other human skills, global Employee Assistance Programme, sick leave, mental health first-aiders and all sorts of self-help toolkits

• A continuous learning culture to support your growth, with opportunities to reskill and upskill and access to physical, virtual and digital learning.

• Being part of an inclusive and values driven organisation , one that embraces and celebrates our unique diversity, across our teams, business functions and geographies - everyone feels respected and can realise their full potential.

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