Chief Delivery Officer; CDO

Overview

Amazing chance to join a Software Development company that develops software for the insurance industry. They are a medium size company that look after their staff and give recognition. They have been around for over 25 years and have an international footprint in London. They have a branch in London, Stellenbosch and Rosebank. They are extremely people orientated and offer a fun dynamic working environment.

• Exceptional leadership and people management skills, with the ability to inspire, coach and hold teams accountably
• Strong presence and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to engage credibly with senior customers and C‑suite stakeholders
• Strong communication skills, written, verbal and presentational, with the ability to distil complex delivery information into clear, actionable insights for varied audiences
• Analytical and commercially minded, with the ability to balance delivery quality, speed and cost
• Structured and execution‑oriented, with the ability to manage multiple concurrent programs
• A strong operator rather than a conceptual strategist
• Highly accountable, with low ego and high ownership
• Resilient under pressure with sound judgement and decision‑making ability in ambiguous or high‑stakes environments
• Collaborative and able to influence cross‑functional teams without direct authority
• Able to create calm, clarity and control in complex delivery environments
• Strong enough to hold teams accountable without creating unnecessary escalation or fear
• Comfortable operating close to the detail while still communicating at executive level
• Able to build trust with PMs, technical teams, senior stakeholders and customers
• Strong dependency management skills across Product, Engineering, Architecture, BAU, Sales and Finance
• Able to distinguish between useful governance and process noise
• Commercially alert to margin leakage, under billing, scope creep and revenue risk
• Strong judgement on when to solve within the delivery function and when to escape structural trade‑offs

• Improved delivery predictability across the implementation portfolio
• Stronger PMO governance, cadence and portfolio visibility
• Reduced reliance on ExCo intervention in day‑to‑day project detail
• Clearer, more concise executive reporting on delivery health, risk and decisions required
• Improved PM ownership, communication and accountability
• Better visibility and management of Core Dev / Architecture / Product dependencies
• Stronger handoffs from Sales to Discovery, Discovery to Delivery, and Delivery to BAU
• Improved customer implementation confidence and reduced escalations
• Improved delivery efficiency, implementation margin and utilisation
• Reduced rework, scope leakage and avoidable delivery noise
• More resilient delivery function with reduced single‑person dependency
• Scalable delivery operating model capable of supporting growth

• Delivery leadership
• Own end‑to‑end delivery execution across customer implementation programs
• Build a delivery culture grounded in accountability, clarity, predictability and customer confidence
• Be accountable for delivery performance across the implementation portfolio
• Ensure programme execution against agreed milestones, scope and commercial assumptions
• Improve delivery predictability through clear planning, dependency management and escalation discipline
• Oversee delivery risk identification, mitigation and recovery planning
• Ensure executive visibility of delivery health through concise, exception‑based reporting
• Oversee delivery resource planning, prioritisation and capacity visibility
• Ensure delivery commitments are operationally credible before they are made to customers
• Reduce reliance on informal escalation and senior executive intervention in day‑to‑day delivery detail
• PMO leadership and project governance
• Build and lead a robust, high‑performing PMO and delivery management function
• Create a single operating rhythm for delivery management across the implementation portfolio
• Establish clear project control standards, including consistent RAG reporting, milestone tracking, blocker ownership, dependency tracking, people risk, commercial risk and…