Head of PMO

Job content

Aesop has carefully cultivated a work environment in which our employees are constantly challenged to do their best. Our company is determinedly creative, intelligent and progressive, and nurtures these qualities by employing people who share our passionate interest in design, innovation, and incisive enquiry across all fields.

Our organisational culture is entirely unique, distinguished by an uncommon blend of courtesy, cordiality and intellectual energy. We seek those who can bring a wealth of life experience and inspired ideas to our table.

In return, we provide comprehensive induction and training programmes, and encourage an inclusive culture that nurtures enduring professional relationships. We also appreciate the benefits that flow from our employees’ external pursuits.

We raise our bar high at Aesop and never lower it; this is one of the keys to our success and one of the many reasons why people wish to work here. If you would like to join Aesop, we invite you to peruse our current career opportunities.

POSITION PURPOSE

Aesop is on a strong growth trajectory, as we scale BAU alongside transformational activities such as our journey to circularity and Net Zero, North Asia Acceleration, supply chain transformation and customer relationship centricity.

Each year, Aesop operates a large and growing project portfolio with a focus on business improvement and meeting strategic objectives. The size and scale of projects continues to increase, driven by the need to support more significant and strategic pieces of work that deliver greater benefit to the organisation. The PMO is central to organisation, prioritization and delivery of our key strategic projects and programs across the business, with a true cross-functional focus to ensure interdependencies and resources are aligned.

The PMO is tasked with the responsibility of managing and streamlining the processes to support both the funding of business initiatives and their subsequent delivery. The PMO runs the delivery and governance of our Strategic Plan and Transformation activities. There is runway to build out Continuous Improvement program and embed further enablement support for the business under the PMO team, in addition to leading and managing our Project Managers (Melbourne and London).

Key Responsibilities

Portfolio Management

• Lead the organisation transformation agenda unlocking resources and holding functions to account on delivery of key transformation projects
• Lead the business partnership with all functions to understand their transformation and project needs to include in the enterprise port
• Lead the prioritisation of the project portfolio ensuring strategic alignment and functions are able to deliver
• Facilitate and drive the fortnightly portfolio management forum (C-Suite) to ensure the business is making the right decisions on which projects to undertake and their relevant phasing
• Ensure processes and tools to manage the project portfolio are suitable for scale as the business grows
• Key stakeholders in the corporate planning cycle ensuring the portfolio forecast is accurate, stakeholders are aligned and appropriate funds are sought
• Aesop PMO portfolio management and enterprise level reporting and analysis
  
  

Programme Management

• Lead a team of Project Managers on the business transformation streams to ensure accountabilities are clear and traction is being made
• Identify and manage project interdependencies across streams and functional teams
• Manage and co-ordinate project portfolio updates including functional and regional
• Support the facilitation of key governance committees including Programme SteerCos, and Project SteerCos
• Support the business to frame up their business problems into deliverable solutions
• Document business requirements across a range of projects with diverse stakeholders
• PMO Process improvement for all areas on projects including:
• Cost management
• Tools and templates
• Schedule management
• Reporting
  

Project Reporting

• Working with our Project Managers to identify where projects need to be escalated to relevant forums in order to break roadblocks or secure additional resources.
• Managing project closure including scope reconciliation, project performance assessment and capture of lessons learned
• Overall progress monitoring and reporting, and timely escalation of exceptions
• Present timely project reports and tracking information to Project Steering Committee to enable responsible decision making.
  
  

Continuous Improvement

• Identify and deliver service improvement activity across the business through employing process improvement methodologies and the application of innovative thinking
• To work with key business stakeholders, across the globe, to build a continuous improvement environment to support an ongoing programme of change
• To lead and facilitate LEAN / process improvement based workshops to drive ideas and solutions
• To support the delivery of greater efficiency through identification and elimination of unnecessary complexity within business processes and finding better ways of working
• Identify trends and process variations through establishing CI monitoring
• To develop the Aesop Continuous Improvement Strategy
• Take ownership of change initiatives from evolution through to project delivery using the Aesop project methodologies and processes
• Ensure business impacts and project objectives are identified, reporting on and managed at all times
• Setup a programme, deliver coaching, and run CI projects
  
  

Relationship Management

• Lead and motivate the teams working on CI efforts, ensuring behavioural expectations of team members are established
• Identify and engage with stakeholders, including facilitation of relevant project reference groups
• Project governance and control, including operation of the steering committee and ongoing management of the business case
• Prepare and maintain baseline management products and agree them with the Project Steering Committee
• Build relationships with key project stakeholders including, yet not limited to, GM Community, Project Manager Community
  
  

Required Skills

• Excellent organizational, time and self-management skills.
• People management toolkit, able to lead through others and build strong cross-functional relationships
• Detail oriented, with excellent follow through skills.
• Strong sense of initiative.
• Knowledge of business functional areas.
• Outstanding verbal and written communication and presentation skills.
• Strong business analysis and problem solving skills.
• Good level of understanding of new technologies.
• Experience building relationships across all levels and functions of an organisation.
• Ability to influence and negotiate and partner with technical and non-technical staff.
• Experience in developing KPIs to measure adherence to frameworks and processes.
  
  

Preferred Qualifications/Experience

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in commerce, business or project management.
• Relevant work experience.
• Experience in project delivery or a PMO environment.
• Understanding of retail and fast growth companies a plus.
• Relevant PMO / Project Management toolkit (Agile, Six Sigma etc a plus)
• Strong computer skills, proficient use of Microsoft Office (including Outlook, Project, Word, Excel and PowerPoint)
• Analytical toolkit, financial understanding
  
  

Aesop is committed to attracting, developing and retaining the very best people by offering a creative and inclusive workplace where talent is truly recognised and rewarded. We are committed to promoting inclusion for all with the belief that diversity, inclusion and belonging plays an important role in the success of our organisation. We actively encourage everyone to consider becoming a part of our journey.