Director, IT Portfolio – Supply Chain And R&D

Role Overview

We are seeking an experienced IT Portfolio Director to lead on IT Portfolio Management and operate as a Programme Director across our Supply Chain and R&D domains, ensuring that technology investments deliver desired business outcomes across Discovery to Launch, Planning, Manufacturing, Logistics, Procurement, and Order-to-Cash processes.

This position combines strong business partnership, delivery assurance, financial acumen and functional expertise to drive the execution of our strategy and delivery of technology solutions. The Director plays a pivotal role in assessing, shaping, initiating and overseeing the Supply Chain and R&D project roadmaps, influencing technology investment decisions; and developing our project, programme and portfolio management capabilities and teams.

Key Responsibilities

Portfolio Leadership & Programme Delivery

• Oversee delivery of Supply Chain and R&D technology project and programmes, ensuring on‑time, in‑scope, and on‑budget completion
• Define and evolve the Project, Programme and Portfolio Management Approaches across the Supply Chain and R&D Portfolio in alignment with the Change Delivery Framework and IT‑wide governance processes
• Manage demand intake, prioritization, and sequencing of initiatives in line with business strategy and available capacity
• Manage major programme‑level risks and dependencies
• Manage financials and overall cost management across the portfolio
• Provide portfolio visibility and reporting to senior stakeholders and governance forums
• Ensure effective collaboration with architecture, platform, data, and infrastructure teams for cross‑domain project delivery

Business Partnership & Strategic Alignment

• Build strong business partnership across Wella’s extended Supply Chain and R&D leadership teams; managing key stakeholders and supporting them in delivering against our business strategy
• Support the definition of our business technology strategy and multi‑year roadmaps
• Partner with Finance, Planning, Procurement, Manufacturing, Logistics, and Regional Supply Chain teams to identify digital enablers that improve operational performance and cost efficiency
• Ensure all initiatives align with enterprise architecture, data strategy, and technology guardrails
• Drive business case development, value realization, and benefits reporting for Supply Chain and R&D technology programmes
• Work collaboratively with platform, data, architecture, and cybersecurity teams, as well as external partners, to ensure seamless technology delivery and operational excellence across the value chain

Solution Leadership & Functional Expertise

• Leverage functional and change expertise across Supply Chain and R&D investments to ensure they deliver against our strategy and realise key benefits
• Partner with the Functional Experts and AMS teams to resolve critical system issues, review proposed changes, and ensure long‑term sustainability of solutions
• Support decision‑making across solution design, testing, and release management

Governance, Risk & Vendor Management

• Embed strong governance discipline across all technology delivery activities in the Supply Chain and R&D domains
• Oversee vendor performance, ensuring external partners meet contractual obligations and quality standards
• Ensure compliance with internal audit, data protection, and cybersecurity frameworks
• Define and monitor KPIs to drive continuous improvement

People & Capability Leadership

• Provide leadership to project, programme and delivery leads across the Supply Chain and R&D team
• Foster a high‑performance culture through mentoring, collaboration, and accountability
• Build functional capability and ensure succession readiness for critical SAP and digital roles
• Promote cross‑functional knowledge sharing across business and technology teams

Key Skills & Competencies

• Project Delivery Discipline – Experience in structured delivery methodologies (e.g., agile, hybrid and waterfall), particularly for R&D systems requiring high stability and regulatory adherence.
• Business Partnership & Stakeholder Management – Proven ability to serve as a strategic interface and thought leader to the business, translating platform capabilities into actionable outcomes for Supply Chain leaders.
• Problem Solving – Strong analytical and problem‑solving skills
• Vendor & Contract Management – Experience managing vendor performance and ensuring delivery quality across distributed teams
• Functional Expertise – Strong functional expertise in Supply Chain and/or R&D
• Enterprise Architecture Acumen – Understanding of structured, scalable enterprise systems architecture, including cloud‑readiness and data integration across systems and domains.

Qualifications & Experience

Education

• Bachelor’s degree
• PMP or APM certification advantageous
• ITIL certification advantageous
• TOGAF and/or SAP SD/MM certification or relevant process domain certification advantageous
• MBA advantageous

Experience

• 10+ years of experience in Supply Chain or Technology roles, with at least 5 years in leadership or business partnering positions
• Proven track record leading technology portfolios or major transformation programmes within FMCG or manufacturing industries
• Strong SAP functional background, ideally across ECC and/or S/4HANA
• Experience managing global teams, external vendors, and multi‑country deployments

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• Portfolio Delivery: % of projects and initiatives delivered on time, within scope, and within budget
• Business Satisfaction: NPS or qualitative feedback from Supply Chain and R&D leadership
• Value Realisation: % projects delivering against business case; %ROI delivered for financial business cases
• Governance Compliance: Adherence to project governance, architecture standards, and risk frameworks
• Vendor Performance: SLA adherence and quality scores across AMS and external delivery partners
• Process Efficiency: % improvement in cycle times and automation within O2C and P2P value streams

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