Business Engagement Leader

Company:

Description:

What you can expect:

This is a senior leadership role responsible for the business-funded organisation within the overall Innovation Engineering group.

The Business Engagement Leader is the Innovation Centre's equivalent of a client partner in a consulting firm. They own the relationships with business sponsors, keep a close eye on financials and resourcing, and make sure the work landing with our squads is the right work. Critically, because they sit across the whole portfolio, they see the bigger picture — joining the dots between teams, surfacing patterns, and making sure we're always focused on what matters most. The Business Engagement Leader reports to the Innovation Centre Senior Director.

This role is open to internal candidates who are ready to lead at scale.

We will count on you for:

Organisational Leadership

• Act as the senior point of contact for business sponsors across all squads, building trusted, long-term relationships

• Maintain a clear view of staffing across the portfolio — flagging gaps, imbalances, and risks early

• Own hiring, onboarding, performance management, and succession planning, i.e. Assume line management as well as functional leadership duties.

• Have a clear understanding of the squad funding model and raise risks / issues in a timely manner.

• Work closely with the Innovation Engineering Leader to ensure the organisation is set up to deliver — the right people, on the right things, at the right time

• Handle escalations with composure — de-escalating where needed, resolving issues quickly, and making sure the right people are in the room when it matters

• Foster a culture of transparency and accountability, where problems surface early and are dealt with constructively

Technical Direction & Architecture

• Maintain enough understanding of what each squad is building to have credible conversations with sponsors and stakeholders

• Spot patterns across the squads so that solutions can be created once as opposed to many times.

• Challenge use cases at intake — is this technically feasible? Is it the right scope? Is it solving the right problem?

• Ensure that solutions are designed with production and long-term support in mind from the outset, not as an afterthought

• Work with the Engineering Leader and architecture team to flag where portfolio-level patterns suggest a shared or reusable approach makes more sense than a one-off build

• Push back constructively when a proposed use case isn't ready, isn't suitable, or isn't aligned with the broader direction

Delivery & Business Impact

• Understand our business areas and the purpose of the work that they do.

• Own the end-to-end journey of a use case — from intake and prioritisation through to production and handover. Work closely with product management to ensure use cases are well defined, scoped, and ready before engineering effort begins

• Ensure there is a clear, well-managed handoff to the business technology team so that what we build gets properly supported and doesn't become an orphaned product

• Track delivery progress across the portfolio and provide honest, timely reporting to sponsors and leadership — good news and bad

• Identify dependencies and blockers early, and take ownership of resolving them rather than waiting for them to land on the engineering team

• Continuously review the portfolio to ensure investment is going where it will have the most impact — and have the difficult conversations when it isn't

Stakeholder Engagement & Collaboration

• Serve as the primary relationship owner for business sponsors — keeping them informed, managing expectations, and maintaining their confidence in the team

• Build strong working relationships with product management, the business technology team, and others to ensure smooth transitions from innovation to production

• Act as a credible, trusted voice between the business and the engineering organisation — translating between the two without losing the nuance of either

• Represent the Innovation Centre's portfolio to senior leadership, providing clear and honest updates on progress, priorities, and risks

• Work in close partnership with the Innovation Engineering Leader — the two roles are designed to complement each other, and the best outcomes come when they operate as a unit

• Bring a commercial mindset to every conversation — always asking whether what we are doing is delivering real value, and whether we could be doing it better

What success will look like:

• Business sponsors who are engaged, informed, and confident in the team

• A portfolio that is focused, commercially sound, and delivering real value to the business

• Clean, well-managed handoffs to production with no orphaned products or support gaps

• Escalations that are handled quickly and don't derail the team

• A strong, joined-up relationship between the Innovation Centre, business technology, and product management

• An organisation that knows what it's working on, why it matters, and how it's tracking

Why join our team:

• We help you be your best through professional development opportunities, interesting work and supportive leaders.
• We foster a vibrant and inclusive culture where you can collaborate with talented colleagues to create new solutions and have impact for colleagues, clients and communities.
• Our scale enables us to provide a range of career opportunities.

This role is based in the MMC Innovation Centre in Dublin, and the successful candidate is expected to be in the office 3 days per week.

Research shows that while men apply to jobs when they meet an average of 60% of the criteria, women and other less represented groups tend to only apply when they check every box. So, if you think you have what it takes, but don't necessarily meet every single point on what is needed, please still get in touch.

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