Global Engineering Center Lead

WPP is the transformation company. We use the power of creativity to build better futures for our people, planet, clients, and communities.

Working at WPP means being part of a global network of more than 100,000 accomplished people in 110 countries. We create transformative ideas and outcomes for its clients through an integrated offer of communications, experience, commerce, and technology. WPP and our award-winning agencies work with most of the world's biggest companies and organisations – from Ford, Unilever and P&G to Google, HSBC, and the UN. Our clients include 61 of the FTSE 100, 325 of the Fortune Global 500, all 30 of the Dow Jones 30 and 62 of the NASDAQ 100.

WPP has headquarters in New York, London and Singapore and a corporate presence in major markets worldwide. We are quoted on the London Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange. Key performance indicators for WPP (2020) include Billings of £46.9bn and Revenue of £12bn.

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Why we're hiring:

At WPP, technology is at the heart of everything we do, and it is WPP IT’s mission to enable everyone to collaborate, create and thrive. WPP IT is undergoing a significant transformation to build the transformation platform that will power the next evolution of WPP.  WPP is on a journey to clarify and simplify the operating model between our brands and WPP, modernise and create tech-enabled colleague experiences, and create an open, integrated technology innovation platform across WPP.

Along that journey we will ensure WPP IT is a destination for tech talent and that we modernise our ways of working, shift to cloud and micro-service-based architectures, drive automation, digitise colleague and client experiences and deliver insight from WPP’s petabytes of data.

To ensure we are transforming the way our partners deliver, we have identified the need for a critical new role – Global Engineering Centre (GEC) Lead. This role will ensure we meet our goal of supporting the innovative IT strategic roadmap, by providing critical solutions and services for projects worldwide. Based in strategic locations our vision is for multi-vertical GEC teams to be deployed on major projects across the globe, and to use design tools, innovative thinking and a human-centred approach to offer industry leading solutions.

The lead will play a key part in establishing the India GEC, which will be the cynosure of our GEC’s and also support with the rest of the global GEC’s. It will work with the IT Leadership Team to develop a service transition roadmap and manage successful service setup and transition outcomes. It will drive the uplift in effectiveness of GEC operations, maximising value of services, increasing productivity of services provided and ensuring teams are strategically and spiritually aligned.

This role will work closely with location owners for enabling the setup of the GEC and with the IT People & Comms team to ensure our GEC’s are fully supported and resourced with industry and multi-vertical expertise. It will be tasked with inaugurating state of the art technology labs in each of our GEC locations and ensuring that each act as a critical hub to meet the rapid development of business initiatives, at a global and regional level.

The GEC will bring in capabilities to design and develop best in class products and services for WPP, and will support mechanical, embedded and connectivity areas across product / service lines, technologies, and regions.

What you'll be doing:

• Establish the India Global Engineering Centre and support with the rest of the |Global GEC’s, working with the IT Leadership Team to develop a service transition roadmap and manage successful service setup and transition outcomes
• Act as offshore practice lead on behalf of IT ensuring the creation of an environment which fosters innovation, automation and fresh thinking
• Drive uplift in effectiveness of GEC operations, maximising value of services, increasing productivity of services provided and ensuring teams are strategically and spiritually aligned
• Develop and evolve the GEC business strategy in close alignment with the wider organisation
• Develop a well-engineered transformation planning and execution program so the GEC can meet and exceed its performance targets, while setting out on a path of continuous improvement and innovation
• Define and ensure service and product value: assess all of the engineering services and products provided along the engineering services value chain, from basic to advanced, simple to complex, with high functioning value add to customer
• Ensure services and products are aligned to the businesses overall evolving requirements and demands and can be expanded as required by the business
• Establish a baseline of current skills and capabilities and ensure that engineering skills are fostered and deployed appropriately
• Define the capabilities, skills, experience and expertise required across the GEC’s to ensure depth and breadth of each vertical is covered
• Ensure tools, infrastructure, processes can be scaled up and down efficiently and productively over time based on demand
• Ensure the GEC’s internal application systems support the business processes, functions, integrations, and requirements
• Ensure the right processes, systems, procedures and policies are in place to effectively capture, develop, maintain, evolve, share and leverage the services and products across the GEC value chain
• Ensure the GEC demonstrates and continuously applies information, knowledge, imagination and initiative to the development of new ideas that result in significantly more value for new or enhanced products or services
• Ensure process and standardisation maturity are optimised and utilised by the GEC across the product lifecycle
• Drive profitable growth within the GEC by working with the key stakeholders
• Translate the corporate strategy into department plans and processes and ensure actions are understood by the team, and the wider business
• Work with the People & Comms team to develop a hands on and interdisciplinary engineering curriculum; enhance on the job training opportunities
• Promote the Community of Practice formed and actively explore how it can build on evidence to develop a fuller picture with instructive, global examples of how engineering can further drive safer, more sustainable development for WPP
• Promote collaboration between industry and academia; partner with the Royal Academy of Engineering.

What you'll need:

• Substantial experience of building Managed Services and Engineering programmes
• Experience with cloud managed services and managing multinational teams (incl. nearshore and offshore teams)
• Technical background, strong cloud engineering experience
• Strong networking and interpersonal skills, the ability to exercise diplomacy, and build partnerships and consensus within teams and amongst other stakeholders
• A strong consulting background and experience gained from working within a leading system integrator or management consulting firm
• Proven ability to lead sophisticated subject matter experts across different regions and cultures across the globe
• Natural coach with proven relationship building experience

Who you are:

You're open: We are inclusive and collaborative; we encourage the free exchange of ideas; we respect and celebrate diverse views. We are accepting: of new ideas, new partnerships, new ways of working.

You're optimistic: We believe in the power of creativity, technology and talent to create brighter futures or our people, our clients and our communities. We approach all that we do with conviction: to try the new and to seek the unexpected.

You're extraordinary: we are stronger together: through collaboration we achieve the amazing. We are creative leaders and pioneers of our industry; we provide extraordinary every day.

What we'll give you:

Passionate, inspired people – We promote a culture of people that do extraordinary work.

Scale and opportunity – We offer the opportunity to create, influence and complete projects at a scale that is unparalleled in the industry.

Challenging and stimulating work – Unique work and the opportunity to join a group of creative problem solvers. Are you up for the challenge?

WPP is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without regard to race, color, religion or belief, sex, age, national origin, citizenship status, marital status, military/veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical or mental disability. We believe in creating a dynamic work environment that values diversity and inclusion and strives to recruit a diverse slate of candidates to help us achieve that goal.

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