Innovation Project Manager

What’s in it for you

We’re all about the little helps. That’s why we make sure our Tesco colleague benefits package takes care of you – both in and out of work. Click Here to find out more!

• Annual bonus scheme of up to 20% of base salary
• Holiday starting at 25 days plus a personal day (plus Bank holidays)
• Private medical insurance
• 26 weeks maternity and adoption leave (after 1 years’ service) at full pay, followed by 13 weeks of Statutory Maternity Pay or Statutory Adoption Pay, we also offer 4 weeks fully paid paternity leave
• Free 24/7 virtual GP service, Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) for you and your family, free access to a range of experts to support your mental wellbeing

About the role

At Tesco, we believe in the power of spending more time together, face to face, than apart. So, during your working week, you can expect to spend 60% of your time in one of our office locations or local sites and the rest remotely. We also recognise that life looks a little different for each of us. Some people are at the start of their careers, some want the freedom to do the things they love. Others are going through life-changing moments like becoming a carer, nearing retirement, adapting to parenthood, or something else. That’s why at Tesco, we always welcome a conversation about flexible working. So, talk to us throughout your application about how we can support.

Group Innovation forms part of the wider Group Strategy & Innovation team, which sits centrally as part of our group structure. We have a clear purpose:

1. We find and develop innovations that will differentiate and accelerate our long-term strategic ambitions
2. We will be a simple point of access for internal and external innovation approaches, making Tesco a destination for innovation
3. We will co-ordinate and govern the overall portfolio of innovation projects globally, ensuring that our investments are focused on delivering our 10-year strategy

The Role

Our Project Managers lead high priority, cross functional, complex pieces of innovation work across the business. They are responsible for taking innovation opportunities forward from being conceptual ideas, potentially supported by an external partner, to functional trials we can assess the benefits of.

As project experts they need to be able to mobilise and run virtual teams across business functions and respond to challenges that are often new for everyone involved.

This role presents an opportunity to work directly with Directors in all functions. Any year will see multiple programmes and a shifting focus as one piece of work is completed and another starts.

The role is therefore ideal for somebody looking to build a broader network and gain experience working across multiple functions. It will also provide a great opportunity for somebody to hone their project management skills - bringing clarity and structure where no precedent exists, flexing their leadership style through leading peers and more senior colleagues to deliver critical business priorities.

There is also the opportunity to shape and develop initiatives to enhance the wider innovation funnel.

You will be responsible for

• Define and scope the projects / programmes you lead, establishing clear direction and alignment by ensuring a clear vision, objectives and plan are in place
• Construct business cases to understand the potential future benefit of innovation opportunities
• Mobilise cross functional project /programme teams and establish and embed ways of working
• Establish and facilitate the appropriate levels of governance to provide oversight and direction for the projects/programmes
• Engage and align colleagues across all levels to deliver
• Manage interdependencies and impacts across projects / programmes
• Drive progress in a consistent, transparent way, and to identify and manage issues and risks, and opportunities
• Support subject matter expertise and development both within the team and across the Programmes, Projects and Change community

You will need

• Solid track record of delivering projects / programmes, and working cross functionally
• Experience of managing project teams, and building and maintaining positive relationships with a broad group of colleagues
• Experience influencing senior colleagues, facilitating governance sessions and NWTs, and confidently engaging senior business leaders
• Ability to embrace uncertainty, relishing the opportunity to bring clarity where none exists
• Your energy and positive outlook will ensure that teams around you always find a way to get the right things done, in the right way
• You will look for opportunities to take accountability, make decisions and drive progress
• Able to work as part of a motivated, enthusiastic team and be prepared to contribute to building a high performing team culture

• #LI-Hybrid
• #LI-MW1

About us

Our vision at Tesco is to become every customer's favourite way to shop, whether they are at home or out on the move. Our core purpose is ‘Serving our customers, communities and planet a little better every day’. Serving means more than a transactional relationship with our customers. It means acting as a responsible and sustainable business for all stakeholders, for the communities we are part of and for the planet.

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) at Tesco means that whoever you are and whatever your background, we always want you to feel represented and that you can be yourself at work. In short, we’re a place where Everyone’s Welcome. We’re proud to have been accredited Disability Confident Leader and we’re committed to providing a fully inclusive and accessible recruitment process. For further information on the accessibility support we can offer, please click here.

We’re a big business and we can offer a range of diverse full-time & part-time working patterns across our many business areas, which means that we can find something that works for you.  We work in a more blended pattern -combining office and remote working.  Our offices will continue to be where we connect, collaborate and innovate.