Head, Digital & Change Enablement

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Job Summary

• Translate the Bank’s strategy into a coherent, multi-year digital transformation roadmap with clear outcomes, priorities, dependencies and measures of success.
• Lead the identification, assessment and prioritization of opportunities to digitize customer and colleague journeys, simplify processes, automate work and improve service delivery.
• Partner with business executives and product owners to shape digital propositions and ensure transformation initiatives address defined customer or business needs.
• Ensure digital initiatives are aligned to Group and ARO strategic platforms, architecture principles and relevant local market requirements.
• Monitor external developments, customer expectations and emerging technologies, and recommend practical opportunities that strengthen competitiveness, resilience or efficiency.
• Promote a digital-first, customer-centered and outcome-focused culture across the organisation.

• Establish and maintain an integrated view of the strategic change portfolio, including scope, investment, milestones, risks, dependencies, capacity and expected benefits.
• Lead portfolio prioritisation and sequencing based on strategic alignment, customer value, regulatory need, risk, affordability, capacity and return on investment.
• Define and maintain fit-for-purpose portfolio and project governance standards in line with approved Absa methodologies and local governance requirements.
• Provide transparent portfolio reporting and decision support to executive and governance forums, highlighting delivery confidence, exceptions, trade-offs and required interventions.
• Ensure sponsors, accountable executives, programme managers and project managers have clear mandates, decision rights and escalation routes.
• Challenge underperforming or low-value initiatives and recommend corrective action, re-scoping, re-prioritisation, pause or closure where appropriate.
• Facilitate effective management of cross-programme dependencies, resource constraints and competing priorities.

• Define the Bank’s enterprise change enablement approach, including stakeholder engagement, communication, training, readiness, adoption and reinforcement.
• Ensure each material change has a proportionate change impact assessment and an approved plan for business readiness and adoption.
• Partner with leaders and change sponsors to build visible sponsorship, manage resistance and embed accountability for adoption within affected business areas.
• Oversee readiness assessments before implementation and ensure material people, process, policy, control and capability gaps are addressed.
• Monitor adoption and usage after implementation and coordinate interventions where intended ways of working are not being embedded.
• Build change capability through practical standards, coaching, communities of practice and knowledge transfer.

• Provide strategic direction for enterprise architecture, ensuring business, data, application, integration, infrastructure and security architecture support the Bank’s strategy.
• Ensure proposed investments and solution designs are assessed against approved architecture principles, standards, roadmaps and strategic technology platforms.
• Promote re-use, interoperability, simplification and rationalisation to reduce unnecessary complexity, duplication and long-term operating cost.
• Oversee architecture governance and ensure material exceptions, technical debt and lifecycle risks are explicitly assessed, approved and tracked.
• Partner with Technology, Information Security, Risk and business leaders to ensure solutions are scalable, resilient, secure and fit for purpose.
• Maintain visibility of the target-state architecture and the transition roadmaps required to move from current to future state.

• Establish a structured mechanism to capture, assess, test and scale ideas that address customer, control, cost, revenue or colleague experience opportunities.
• Promote responsible experimentation with automation, analytics, artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies within approved risk and governance frameworks.
• Lead end-to-end process redesign and simplification, focusing on removal of manual steps, duplication, avoidable hand-offs and failure demand.
• Ensure pilots have defined hypotheses, success measures, controls and clear decisions on scaling, revising or stopping.
• Create channels for colleagues and cross-functional teams to contribute ideas and share lessons from transformation initiatives.
• Build partnerships with Group teams, suppliers, fintechs and industry participants where these can accelerate strategic outcomes.

• Ensure transformation and change activity complies with applicable laws, regulations, internal policies, change standards, architecture requirements and risk appetite.
• Maintain effective oversight of strategic, operational, technology, cyber, data, conduct, third-party and delivery risks arising from the change portfolio.
• Ensure appropriate stage gates, assurance reviews, risk acceptances, testing, implementation readiness and post-implementation controls are completed.
• Escalate material risks, issues, control weaknesses, cost pressures and delivery exceptions promptly to the appropriate governance forum.
• Ensure audit, regulatory and assurance findings relating to the function are addressed through sustainable and evidenced remediation.
• Promote a culture in which delivery pace is balanced with customer protection, operational resilience and effective control.

• Coordinate preparation and management of the digital and strategic change investment plan in partnership with Finance and accountable business owners.
• Ensure investment decisions are supported by clear business cases, affordability assessments, delivery estimates and expected outcomes.
• Monitor portfolio expenditure, forecasts, commitments and variances, and drive timely corrective action where required.
• Provide strategic input into sourcing decisions and ensure supplier engagements support architecture, delivery, value and control objectives.
• Hold delivery partners and suppliers accountable for agreed outcomes, quality, timelines, cost and knowledge transfer, working through approved Procurement and Vendor Management processes.
• Promote efficient use of internal capability, strategic platforms and existing assets before committing to additional investment.

• Act as a trusted adviser to the Chief Information & Enablement Officer and executive stakeholders on digital transformation, strategic change and enterprise architecture matters.
• Build strong relationships across Business, Technology, Operations, Risk, Compliance, Finance, Procurement, People and Culture, Group and ARO teams.
• Chair or contribute to relevant portfolio, change, architecture and investment governance forums as delegated.
• Communicate complex transformation matters in clear business language, enabling timely decisions and shared accountability.
• Influence senior stakeholders to resolve conflicts, remove barriers and sustain commitment to agreed transformation outcomes.
• Represent the Bank in relevant Group, regulatory, supplier or industry engagements where required.

• Provide clear strategic direction, priorities and performance expectations for the Digital and Change Enablement function and associated delivery community.
• Lead, coach and develop direct reports and matrix teams, creating an inclusive, accountable and high-performance environment.
• Define capability requirements across portfolio management, project delivery, change management, business analysis, architecture, innovation and benefits realisation.
• Build succession, resilience and knowledge continuity for critical roles and specialist capabilities.

• Bachelor’s degree from a recognized university in Business, Technology, Engineering, Economics, Finance or a related discipline.
• Postgraduate qualifications in Business Administration, Digital Transformation, Change Leadership, Technology Management or a related field would be advantageous.
• Relevant professional certification in Programme or project management, such as PMP, PRINCE2 or MSP.
• Relevant certification or demonstrated practitioner capability in change management, enterprise architecture, agile delivery, process improvement or business analysis would be advantageous.

• A minimum of 10 years’ relevant experience across digital transformation, strategic change, programme delivery, technology or business transformation, with substantial leadership accountability.
• Demonstrated experience leading a portfolio of complex, cross-functional change initiatives in a regulated financial services or similarly complex environment.
• Proven ability to translate strategy into executable roadmaps, prioritised investments and measurable business outcomes.
• Experience in organisational change, stakeholder adoption, business readiness and benefits realisation.
• Experience overseeing enterprise architecture or technology investment governance and working with senior technology and business leaders.
• Strong commercial and financial management experience, including business cases, portfolio investment, budgeting, forecasting and supplier oversight.
• Experience engaging executive committees, governance forums, regulators, auditors, Group stakeholders and external partners.
• Proven people leadership, coaching and capability-building experience across multidisciplinary or matrix teams

Education