Transformation Programme Manager

Salary up to: Competitive

Transformation Programme Manager

Reporting to:              Head of Operational Transformation

Base Location:          Putney (3 days a week - Hybrid)

About the role: 

Nando’s is a global restaurant business rooted in South Africa, with over 500 sites and 20,000 people across the UK and Ireland. Our purpose - Changing Lives Together - shapes how we think about our people, our customers, and the communities we are part of. We are a people-first business where the magic starts with the teams in our restaurants.

We are now embarking on one of the most ambitious transformations in our history using new ways of working, and emerging technology including AI to make the business sustainably more efficient while protecting what makes Nando’s special. The challenge is doing both at once - delivering significant change at pace without losing the culture and human connection that defines us.

The opportunity:

This is a senior role at the heart of a COO-sponsored transformation programme. You will lead the delivery of complex, cross-functional change across the business - from technology implementation to business process re-engineering and new ways of working.

The landscape is fast-moving. Priorities will shift. The stakeholder environment is senior, politically nuanced, and intellectually demanding. You will need to read the room as well as you read a plan, and know when to hold structure and when to flex.

You will not inherit a neatly scoped portfolio. You will help shape what needs to happen, build the case for it, and then make it land. If you need everything defined before you start, this is not the right role. If you thrive on making sense of complexity and turning ambiguity into outcomes, it is.

What you’ll be doing:

• Leading the delivery of one or more transformation programmes, taking them from early definition through to measurable business outcomes.
• Working across business functions and with Technology teams to design, plan, and execute change - operating as a bridge between strategic intent and practical delivery.
• Navigating a complex stakeholder landscape with influence, not authority. Building trusted relationships with senior leaders who have competing priorities and strong views.
• Establishing lightweight but effective governance - enough structure to maintain grip, not so much that it slows the work down.
• Using emerging technology including AI in your own work and helping the organisation build confidence in doing the same. You do not need to be a technologist, but you do need to be genuinely curious about what technology can do and actively learning.

• Coaching and supporting a Transformation Delivery Lead, helping them develop and deliver.
• Supporting the management and evolution of the organisation’s change portfolio - helping to prioritise, sequence, and govern the pipeline of change across the business so that capacity is protected and the right things land at the right time.

You will be someone who:

• Has 5-8 years+ proven experience leading complex, cross-functional transformation programmes from design through to implementation, in large, fast-paced, multi-site environments.
• Brings demonstrated experience embedding change and driving adoption of new processes, systems, or ways of working, ensuring benefits are realised and sustained over the long term.
• Delivers outcomes, not documents. You measure your success by what changed, not what was planned.
• Brings energy, curiosity, and a bias for action, underpinned by grounded, self-aware emotional intelligence. Attitude matters as much as aptitude.
• Is drawn to purpose as much as delivery - genuinely wants to be part of a people-first business, makes decisions like an owner, and can separate the truth from the emotion to manage outcomes across multiple stakeholders.
• Builds genuine relationships with senior stakeholders - engaging them as partners in the work, not just managing them as a risk category.
• Operates comfortably at the intersection of business and technology, translating between the two without oversimplifying either.
• Is skilled in programme governance, risk management, and benefits tracking, with a track record of delivering large-scale initiatives on time, within budget, and against strategic objectives.
• Thinks clearly under pressure and adapts when the context shifts. You hold the outcome steady while flexing the approach.
• Communicates with precision and confidence - to a board audience, a project team, or a sceptical subject matter expert.

• Uses emerging technology including AI as a daily part of how you work - not as a novelty, but as a genuine productivity accelerator. Be prepared to show us how in the interview process.

What the role offers:

• A genuine seat at the table on one of the most significant change programmes in Nando’s history, with direct exposure to board-level strategy and decision-making.

• The opportunity to work across technology implementations, business process re-engineering, and emerging technology including AI - not siloed into a single project type.
• A business that is large enough to be genuinely complex (500 sites, 20,000 people) but agile enough - as a privately held company - to move fast when conviction is there.
• We want people who will thrive here, not just stay here. If Nando’s accelerates your career - whether that takes you further within the business or beyond it - we consider that a success.

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