Technology Platforms Strategy & Innovation Director

The Technology Strategy & Innovation Lead is a senior leadership role within the Technology Platforms organisation, created to add critical technologist capacity, strategic depth, and architectural oversight to the leadership team.

This role does not own platform delivery. Instead, it provides senior technical leadership, early-stage engagement, and strategic orchestration across Technology Platforms, Cyber, Digital, and Supply Chain - working earlier in the lifecycle to shape direction, influence design, and improve outcomes.

The role exists to ensure Technology Platforms has:

• A stronger seat at the enterprise table
• Earlier, higher-quality engagement in Digital and Supply Chain-led initiatives
• Clear, credible technology narratives communicated in the right language for executive and business audiences
• Strong awareness of industry trends, emerging technologies, and vendor innovation
• Senior architectural oversight across EUC, Edge, Cloud, and Network
• Architectural oversight of risks and mitigation from a technology platforms perspective
• Senior input into discussions relating to resilience engineering and business continuity planning

Role Specific Accountabilities:

Strategic Technology Leadership

• Act as a senior technologist and strategic partner within the Technology Platforms Leadership Team, complementing platform owners by focusing on direction, coherence, and future-readiness.
• Provide enterprise-level architectural and technology oversight across End User, Edge, Cloud, and Network platforms (distinct from formal Enterprise Architecture).
• Bridge the gap between “what’s possible” and “what’s operationally sustainable”, ensuring ambition is grounded in operational reality.

Early Engagement & Business Partnership

• Embed closely with Digital teams, engaging early in ideation, shaping, and solution design—working alongside senior Digital leaders (e.g. early engagement with roles such as Sandesh).
• Partner deeply with Cyber and Supply Chain to align platform strategies with security, resilience, operational continuity, and business transformation priorities.
• Improve technology outcomes by influencing decisions earlier in the lifecycle, reducing downstream rework and risk.

Innovation & Industry Awareness

• Maintain strong awareness of industry direction, emerging technologies, vendor roadmaps, and architectural patterns relevant to global platform organisations.
• Build and sustain senior relationships with strategic vendors, partners, and industry peers, including CTO-level engagement.
• Translate external innovation into practical, consumable insights that inform platform strategy and enterprise decision-making.

Executive Communication & Influence

• Act as a trusted technology voice in executive and senior business forums—able to articulate complex technology topics in clear, outcome-focused commercial language.
• Produce high-quality executive artefacts (strategy packs, options papers, and decision decks), often at short notice, to support leadership discussions and investment decisions.
• Strengthen Technology Platforms’ credibility by consistently presenting well-structured, evidence-based, business-aligned narratives.

Cross-Platform Coherence & Risk

• Provide independent, cross-platform perspective to ensure coherence, consistency, and alignment across EUC, Edge, Cloud, and Network initiatives.
• Support Cyber initiatives through senior technical challenge, architectural guidance, and risk-based thinking.
• Help platform owners focus on delivery excellence by holding the broader strategic and architectural context.

Key Relationships

• Technology Platforms Leadership Team – peer contributor and strategic adviser
• Digital Leadership & Product Teams – early-stage design and shaping partner
• Cyber Leadership – technical oversight and alignment
• Supply Chain Technology & Operations – resilience, operability, and scalability alignment
• Strategic Vendors & Partners – innovation, roadmap influence, and insight generation

Experience:

Essential:

• Significant previous experience in within a broad IT infrastructure leadership role.
• Significant experience managing or influencing technical staff and projects.
• Proven success in improving the customer experience.
• Experience working within a matrix structure in global organisations.
• Senior technologist with deep experience across modern enterprise platforms (EUC, Cloud, Network, Edge).
• Proven ability to operate credibly at senior executive and board-facing levels.
• Strong architectural thinking without reliance on formal EA constructs.
• Demonstrated experience influencing outcomes without direct line authority.
• Exceptional ability to translate technical complexity into business-relevant language.
• Comfortable operating at pace, including turning around executive-quality materials quickly

Desirable:

• Experience working closely with Digital / Product organisations in large enterprises.
• Exposure to global, asset-intensive or supply-chain-driven environments.
• Strong external network across vendors, partners, and industry forums.