Digital Portfolio Lead Manager

Location: St James's

Entity:
Customers & Products Job Family Group:
Project Management Group

Job Description:

This is a role within the Castrol organisation and the successful candidate will become part of the Castrol ring-fence. If you are part of the ring-fence, it is expected that your employment will move with Castrol to new ownership. The Digital Portfolio Lead Manager is the operating engine of the digital function in Castrol, ensuring strategy translates into measurable business value through principled execution, financial rigour, and strong governance.

Reporting to the CIO, this role is both strategic and delivery-focused, responsible for orchestrating the digital portfolio while serving as a trusted advisor to the CIO and digital leadership team on investment decisions, prioritisation, and performance. The role combines portfolio leadership, financial stewardship, and organisational influence, ensuring the digital function operates as a transparent, value-driven, and commercially accountable business partner.

As Digital Portfolio Lead Manager, you will Strategic Portfolio Leadership and Value Delivery Lead the end-to-end digital portfolio strategy, planning, and prioritisation, spanning programmes, products, and transformation initiatives. Translate business and digital strategy into a coherent, balanced portfolio roadmap aligned to value creation and enterprise outcomes. Drive portfolio optimisation, ensuring effective allocation of funding, resources, and capabilities. Monitor portfolio health, dependencies, risks, capacity, and value realisation, proactively addressing constraints and trade-offs.

Act as a strategic integrator, ensuring alignment across digital, business units, and corporate objectives. Resolve complex cross-portfolio issues, balancing speed, risk, cost, and value. Lead digital governance forums (e.g. Portfolio Board, Architecture Review Board). Governance, Standards and Delivery Assurance Design and run modern, outcome-focused governance, including Portfolio Board and Architecture Review forums. Ensure consistent delivery standards, reporting, and controls across programmes and products.

Establish governance that enables speed with accountability, reducing unnecessary bureaucracy. Provide independent oversight and challenge to ensure delivery confidence and benefit realisation. Digital Strategic Financial Leadership (Run  Change) Lead the digital financial model across Run and Change, ensuring alignment to strategy and business value. Lead budget planning, forecasting, and investment prioritisation in partnership with Finance and Digital leadership. Ensure robust business cases, benefits tracking, and investment governance.

Drive financial transparency, including variance analysis and optimisation opportunities. Shape the multi-year financial roadmap for digital transformation, cloud, and strategic programmes. Act as a commercial advisor to the CIO, balancing cost, value, and risk across the portfolio. Strategic Vendors and Commercial Management In partnership with category leadership, define and execute the digital sourcing and supplier strategy. Manage key strategic partners to ensure commercial value, innovation, and performance outcomes.

Oversee supplier governance, SLA/KPI performance, and continuous value realisation. Drive contract optimisation, renewal strategy, and risk management across the supplier landscape. Risk, Controls and Compliance Leadership Own the digital risk and control environment, ensuring alignment with the Castrol framework. Maintain the digital risk register, embedding proactive risk identification and mitigation. Lead responses to audit, regulatory requirements (e.g. SOX, GDPR), and resilience obligations.

Oversee digital-wide policies, standards, and assurance activities, ensuring governance enhances trust, compliance, and operational resilience while enabling pace of execution. Operating Model and Ways of Working Own and continuously evolve the Digital Operating Model, including decision rights, governance, and accountability structures. Drive consistency across delivery, service, architecture, security, and commercial processes. Champion…