Johannesburg: Complex Program Delivery Lead

The Project Delivery Executive leads end-to-end delivery of a multi-year integrated planning program spanning service, network, fleet, yard, and crew planning. The role is accountable for program governance, scope and schedule integrity across phased releases, proactive risk and issue management, and the quality and formal acceptance of deliverables through the implementation cycles. Key Responsibilities The Executive ensures all services and deliverables are executed against agreed timeframes, quality standards, and acceptance criteria, coordinating written proposals for permissible amendments through defined change procedures. They lead planning and execution across program phases and releases, overseeing value delivery and adherence to defined durations and deliverables, including functional and technical specifications, implementation packages ,traceability matrices, installation notes, training materials, and user acceptance test results. They define and document the Quality Management Plan, agree it with stakeholders, and baseline it; initiate and maintain the delivery register; and apply implementation and quality methodologies and tools to monitor status, quality, and completion with formal handover. They own the integrated schedule with tasks, durations, milestones, resources, and dependencies, keeping it current. They document risks, issues, and actions, plan mitigations, and maintain a live register throughout all phases. They define stakeholders, roles and responsibilities, and expectations; prepare for and conduct project, steering, and executive committee meetings; manage and report actions and decisions; and document the program organization and governance charter. They apply a structured change control procedure for deviations that affect scope, schedule, charges, or other terms. Qualifications and Experience This role requires proven leadership of large, multi‑phase enterprise programs delivering complex planning and scheduling solutions, including timetabled service planning, network access planning, fleet and crew planning, and yard planning within the Freight Rail Industry (Trains). Experience in program governance, quality management planning, and formal acceptance processes aligned to defined completion criteria is essential. The Executive should have led integration programs with multiple external integration points, and master data governance across contributing and consuming systems. A strong track record in risk and issue leadership, executive steering forums, and quarterly financial reviews tied to payment schedules is required, along with exceptional stakeholder management, communication, and change leadership, including onboarding and training of client and provider teams. Prior involvement in release‑based delivery with formal completion criteria and traceability from requirements to architecture and build is required. Experience with Dassault’s Quintiq solution will be advantages Collaboration and Governance The role partners closely with enterprise architects, solution architects, and IT stakeholders (systems, storage, database, monitoring, network, disaster recovery) to ensure the architecture is resilient, secure, and performant. They provide architectural guidelines to Business Domain teams, coordinate with data teams on master and transactional data mapping from legacy to the target solution, and support project, steering, and executive committees with clear architectural status, risks, and decisions. They ensure that architectural assumptions and constraints are understood by build and test teams and that deviations are addressed through structured change control with appropriate impact analysis.  Key Competencies The Executive brings strong analytical and decision‑making capabilities, clear communication across business and technical stakeholders, and the ability to balance standard product leverage with targeted configurations. They demonstrate rigor in gap analysis, integration design, data flow rationalization, and non‑functional architecture, with a disciplined approach to baselining and change control. They are outcome‑oriented, aligning architecture to release milestones, test readiness, and acceptance quality gates, and they foster collaboration and mentorship across teams to embed best practices and consistency throughout the program. Experience 15 years experience in delivery large complex programs