Senior Project Manager

at  Castore

Castore exists for one single reason – to make athletes better. Our ethos is built upon the philosophy of BETTER NEVER STOPS, an ideal deeply infused in our DNA and something we strive to live every single day. We utilise advanced engineering and unique technical fabrics to create the highest quality sportswear in the world for athletes who demand the very best. Designed with a passion for innovation with specialist features to help to optimise athletic performance in all conditions.
The founders’ vision is to build Castore into a brand respected across the globe for a deep and unrelenting commitment to engineering the highest quality sportswear in the world, with no stone left unturned in its search for innovation and performance enhancement.
The sportswear market has been dominated by a small clique of mass-market brands and the vision is for Castore to be a premium alternative to these, the natural brand of choice for discerning athletes who demand the very best.

SKILLS & QUALITIES

• Project Management experience gained within a retail environment in one or more of the following core retail areas; Buying, Merchandising, Production, Sourcing, International, Finance, HR and Logistics. M&A integration experience would also be desirable.
• A collaborative, organised, structured approach to ways of working and documentation.
• Solid technical background with an understanding of software development and web technologies.
• Knowledge of Enterprise Architecture and Business Process Architecture.
• Knowledge and understanding of behavioural and cultural change and how to land change successfully within teams.
• Experience of ERP solutions within a retail environment (ideally NetSuite).
• Excellent communication skills – ability to communicate at all levels within the business from board level down to individual business teams. Ability to be diplomatic, to be able to effectively challenge, solve problems, think analytically and understand and respond to business teams needs in often rapidly changing environments.
• Experience of large scale business change/transformational change programmes which include complex business process change as well as IT change.
• Ability to work effectively with large amounts of information both being able to drill down into the detail but also being able to provide incisive high level overviews.
• PM qualifications (Prince2, Agile) and expertise across both waterfall and agile methodologies

THE ROLE

Castore have a significant roadmap of IT/business change planned over the coming 3 years. The business is growing rapidly, is very successful and further programmes and projects will look to support the business in that growth and include work in all core business areas within Castore; store operations as the business moves more to an omni-channel environment, e-commerce as the on-line presence grows and across Team Sport, International and Wholesale areas of the business.
We are looking to build an effective permanent business solutions capability to support the technology plans over the coming years.
This is an opportunity to really make a difference within both the IT and the business teams.
The individuals within this team will be highly motivated, experienced and knowledgeable about retail and will be driven to deliver the best solutions for both technology and the business teams.
The individual will work closely with their IT colleagues in areas such as Enterprise and Solutions Architecture, Business Analysis, Systems Analysis and Support. The team will also work closely with other business process and change resources across the Castore business ensuring the successful delivery of programmes and projects into the business.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Developing project scope documents and project initiation documents involving all of the relevant stakeholders within technology and the business teams.
• Ensuring that projects are delivered on-time, within the correct scope and within budget while also being cognisant of the wider delivery programme and not just the delivery of individual projects.
• Manage Business Analyst team
• Co-ordinating internal resources and third parties/vendors where required for the flawless execution of projects.
• Building and maintaining effective collaborative relationships with stakeholders in functions and across the business and within the technology team.
• Ensure resource availability and allocation.
• Develop detailed project plans to track progress.
• Use appropriate verification techniques to manage changes in project scope, schedule and costs.
• Measure project performance using appropriate systems, tools and techniques.
• Report and escalate to senior teams as required.
• Manage stakeholder relationships.
• Perform risk management to minimise project risks and ensure a RAID log is kept up to date and managed daily for each project.
• Management of dependencies.