Business Change Lead
Location: Manchester (Hybrid)
Contract: Permanent
Level: Senior / Leadership
The Opportunity
A large, complex organisation is seeking an experienced Business Change Lead to shape and embed an enterprise-wide change capability across a broad transformation portfolio.
This is a senior role with real influence, responsible for setting change strategy, governing delivery, and ensuring that large-scale change lands effectively across the organisation. You will lead a team of change professionals and work closely with senior leaders to manage change risk, readiness, adoption, and benefits realisation.
Key Responsibilities
Change Strategy & Leadership
* Lead and embed a consistent, enterprise-wide business change framework aligned to the organisation's operating model and transformation strategy
* Own and continuously improve change methodologies, standards, and governance
* Act as a trusted advisor to senior leaders on change risk, organisational impact, and readiness
Portfolio Change Planning & Delivery
* Oversee portfolio-level change planning, actively managing capacity and change saturation
* Provide direction and challenge on initiative-level change plans to ensure quality and consistency
* Champion robust approaches to impact assessment, business readiness, adoption, and benefits tracking
* Establish clear and effective change reporting for senior stakeholders
Stakeholder Engagement & Communication
* Lead the enterprise approach to stakeholder engagement for change
* Ensure consistent, high-quality change and communication strategies across initiatives
* Act as an escalation point for complex stakeholder issues and resistance
* Promote transparency, engagement, and accountability throughout change delivery
Team Leadership & Capability
* Lead, coach, and develop a team of Business Change Managers and Analysts
* Define clear roles, responsibilities, and ways of working across the change function
* Build organisational change capability and foster a high-performing, collaborative team culture
Experience Required
* Extensive experience leading business change at portfolio or enterprise level
* Strong understanding of business architecture / operating model change
* Proven experience establishing and embedding change frameworks and governance
* (e.g. Prosci, ADKAR, Kotter, McKinsey or equivalent)
* Demonstrable experience leading and developing high-performing teams
* Background in large, matrixed organisations, ideally multi-site, retail, healthcare, or similarly complex environments
* Strong track record partnering with senior leaders and delivery teams
* Experience in the Healthcare or Retail experience would be highly advantageous
Skills & Attributes
* Excellent senior stakeholder management and influencing capability
* Strong strategic planning, prioritisation, and dependency management skills
* Exceptional written and verbal communication
* Calm, credible, and authoritative leadership style
* Pragmatic, outcomes-focused, and comfortable operating with ambiguity
* Politically astute, resilient, and adaptable
* Passionate about people-centred change
Why This Role?
This role offers the chance to:
* Shape how change is delivered at enterprise scale
* Influence senior leadership decisions
* Build and mature a permanent change capability
* Lead meaningful, organisation-wide transformation