Senior Delivery Manager

About the roleOur client is a highly prestigious research and innovation institution in Saudi Arabia (name withheld for confidentiality at this stage), delivering a national-level ecological initiative: one of the largest and most ambitious coral reef restoration programmes in the world. The programme is working to restore, protect and understand coral reef ecosystems across a significant stretch of the Red Sea, enhancing and restoring approximately 100 hectares of reef, supported by a new land-based coral nursery that will be among the largest of its kind globally when it opens in 2026. It is a long-term, fully funded national programme running through 2030 and beyond, with ambitions to expand to further Red Sea sites. This role is onsite with client.You will be accountable for scope, schedule, budget, quality, risks, and stakeholder outcomes within the agreed programme scope and delegated authority.You will own the integrated delivery roadmap, establish programme governance, manage dependencies, and serve as the client’s primary contact for delivery performance. Working closely with the Product Owner/Scrum Master and technical leads, you will align day-to-day execution with programme milestones and commitments.Key responsibilitiesProgramme governance and accountabilityLead delivery across data architecture, data engineering, ML engineering, and the wider technical teams.Establish and maintain steering committee reporting, stage gates, RAID logs, decision logs, and escalation routes.Own the integrated delivery roadmap, milestone plan, and critical path across concurrent workstreams.Coordinate dependencies with infrastructure or other external workstreams where applicable.Report programme status, RAG health, delivery metrics, and decisions required to the client sponsor and steering committee.Prepare and lead delivery governance meetings, chairing steering committees where agreed.Planning, risk, and financial managementManage programme budgets and commercial performance within delegated authority, including forecasting, burn tracking, and variance reporting.Identify, assess, and mitigate delivery risks; escalate blockers before they affect key milestones.Manage scope changes, impact assessments, change requests, and approved re-baselining with full traceability.Coordinate resource planning and capacity across multidisciplinary teams.Balance Agile delivery with traditional or infrastructure-related planning requirements.Stakeholder and client managementAct as the primary client contact for delivery performance.Engage technical teams, research and scientific leadership, executive sponsors, and national-programme stakeholders.Align delivery priorities with the Product Owner/Scrum Master and technical leads while maintaining clear ownership.Translate complex technical progress, risks, and dependencies into clear business-level communication.Coordinate commitments and resolve delivery dependencies across client teams, suppliers, and external partners.Delivery leadership and qualityEstablish consistent delivery standards, ways of working, and reporting cadences.Support Agile delivery health and apply hybrid programme controls where appropriate.Manage vendors, suppliers, and third-party delivery partners.Coordinate acceptance criteria, quality reviews, sign-off, and release readiness with designated owners.Ensure applicable technical, security, and operational approvals are incorporated into delivery plans.Oversee documentation, knowledge transfer, and operational handover within the agreed scope.Change and continuous improvementLead programme-level change management as new capabilities and ways of working are introduced.Support stakeholder readiness and adoption using approaches such as ADKAR or equivalent.Run lessons-learned reviews and implement practical improvements to delivery performance.Required experience and qualifications15+ years in programme, delivery, or project management, including 8+ years leading large-scale, multi-workstream technology programmes.Demonstrated end-to-end accountability for budget, schedule, risk, quality, and stakeholder outcomes.Experience managing mixed delivery environments involving Agile teams and traditional, waterfall, or infrastructure workstreams.Strong financial and commercial capability, including budget ownership, forecasting, and change control.Proven executive stakeholder management, steering committee facilitation, and senior-level reporting.Ability to challenge estimates, track commitments, and resolve delivery issues across specialist technical teams.Strong communication, negotiation, problem-solving, and team leadership skills.Core skills and toolsProgramme governance, stage-gate controls, RAID management, and risk assessment.Budgeting, forecasting, burn tracking, earned-value tracking, and commercial reporting.Scope management, dependency management, capacity planning, and change control.Executive reporting, RAG dashboards, and steering committee presentations.Scaled Agile delivery knowledge, such as SAFe or equivalent.Vendor, supplier, and third-party contract management.Change management methodologies, such as Prosci ADKAR or equivalent.Delivery and reporting tools such as Jira, Azure DevOps, MS Project or Smartsheet, Confluence, and Power BI, or comparable platforms.Working technical understanding of Azure, data platforms/Databricks, AI/ML, and Digital Twin solutions. Hands-on engineering is not required.Quality management, acceptance, and release/go-live governance.CertificationsCandidates should hold at least one of the following:MSP — Managing Successful ProgrammesPRINCE2 Foundation and PractitionerPMPStrong advantage:SAFe Release Train Engineer (RTE)SAFe Program Consultant (SPC)Additional desirable certifications:PMI-ACPProsci Change Management CertificationPMI-RMPITIL FoundationPreferred experienceDelivery within research, scientific, environmental, government-funded, or national programmes.GCC/Saudi Arabia delivery experience, or substantial experience leading multinational and multicultural teams.Delivery of Digital Twin, IoT, or AI/ML-enabled programmes.Physical/infrastructure or construction-adjacent programme experience where relevant to programme dependencies.