Head Of Infrastructure Portfolio

Head of Infrastructure Portfolio (Director Level)

Banking & Financial Services

London (Hybrid) | Up to £160,000 + Bonus + Benefits

• Plan, direct and govern the Infrastructure investment portfolio end‑to‑end, owning the delivery roadmap, critical path and prioritisation decisions across projects and programmes.
• Manage delegated authority from senior Head Office stakeholders (via the CIO), driving delivery on behalf of the Accountable Executive and reporting into EMEA ExCo, Delivery Forum and portfolio committees.
• Own portfolio governance: baseline control (budget, scope, benefits, timeline), change approval, risk/issue management, business case sign‑off and project closure.
• Lead, recruit and develop a team of circa 13 consultants/contractors, plus matrix‑manage wider project delivery staff.
• Manage investment budgets, cost forecasting and financial control, ensuring accurate, golden‑source reporting to stakeholders and oversight committees.
• Set and maintain quality standards across all portfolio artefacts, ensuring compliance with project delivery policy, controls (including SOX) and regulatory requirements.
• Manage vendors, consultants and contractors, and work with procurement to ensure cost‑effective, well‑governed delivery.
• Provide oversight across major infrastructure and technology transformation programmes – spanning data centre migration, network transformation, cloud migration, and end‑user compute (EUC) modernisation such as VDI, Microsoft 365 (M365) deployment, Windows/OS migration, endpoint and device deployment, and email/Exchange upgrades.

• 10‑15+ years’ proven track record delivering programmes and projects within financial services, financial institutions or comparable large‑scale technology/infrastructure organisations, to time and budget.
• Genuine portfolio management experience – not just programme or project delivery – including prioritisation and trade‑off, resource allocation, roadmap and dependency management across a large, complex book of work.
• Hands‑on experience of major infrastructure transformation, such as data centre migration, network transformation, cloud migration, and end‑user compute (EUC) platform modernisation – for example VDI, Microsoft 365 (M365) deployment, Windows/OS upgrades, endpoint and device deployment, or Exchange/email platform upgrades.
• Strong financial management skills, including capex/opex management, budget planning and forecasting, and understanding of IFRS or local GAAP standards.
• Demonstrable experience managing multiple senior stakeholders, with first‑hand knowledge of banking or financial services products, and executive/steering committee reporting experience.
• Line management or matrix management experience, with strong coaching and leadership skills.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to influence and report at C‑suite/CIO level.
• Desirable: annual/multi‑year planning cycle experience, knowledge of banking regulations and regulatory project delivery, vendor/consultancy contract negotiation, and experience delivering through both waterfall and agile (SDLC/PDLC) methodologies.