Arcadis is the world's leading company delivering sustainable design, engineering, and consultancy solutions for natural and built assets.

We are more than 36,000 people, in over 70 countries, dedicated to improving quality of life. Everyone has an important role to play. With the power of many curious minds, together we can solve the world’s most complex challenges and deliver more impact together.

Role description:

Location: Global scope/location, position can be filled in any Global GBA location.

Purpose: The Divisional Operations Director will drive Operational performance through the leadership of Operations and Project Services across the division and in the country. They will set a platform for the business to drive improvement on Direct Multiplier (DM), net contribution Margin (NCM), and improved working capital position. This will include driving the strategy for the following areas within the division:

• Global Excellence Centre Strategy
• Global Project Services Roadmaps including standardized & automated processes.
• Project Performance Improvement leading to increased Net Contribution margins.
• Management and control of contractual and commercial risk through the Pursuits and Deliver to Results (DtR) process.
• Improve operational performance through improved Financial Billability and Working Capital positions.
• Lead the Implementation of transformation activities and post-merger integration.
• Leading improvement in H&S culture across the GBA
• Implement best practices for the GBA to drive continuous improvement for overall performance and profitability in a sustainable way.

Reporting Lines: Reports directly to Divisional Director and indirectly reporting to GBA Operations Director and Divisional Director.

Role accountabilities:

Individual Accountabilities:

Drive GEC strategy development and GEC utilization optimization for improved business performance

• Develop and implement a streamlined strategy for the GEC to efficiently leverage best-in-class shared capabilities and drive profitability growth across the division.
• Develop an approach on how to optimize the GEC model to reduce staff downtime, drive billability, and improve the cost efficiency of service delivery.
• Establish a system for tracking and monitoring GEC business performance.
• Emphasize the drive for standardization and automation across the business.
• Develop business priorities to be carried out in the GEC, e.g. data analytics

Implementation of Global Service Roadmaps across the division

• Lead division service directors in the delivery of the Service Roadmaps
• Lead on implementation of Service standardization and automation initiatives throughout the division
• Foster a high-quality standardized service delivery to our clients across divisions.

Manage and track and improve operational performance and projects to improve operational efficiency:

• Manage the divisional operational performance, including oversight on driving top-line performance, optimizing staff utilization (incl. GEC and GSSC), proactively controlling overhead costs, free cash flow, managing DRO, ensuring project quality, and driving toward the highest bottom-line performance.
• Improvement projects related to operational efficiency (e.g., Make Every Project Count, Hackett, Full Potential) and implement project risk management framework (e.g., define risk criteria, sign-off thresholds, escalation mechanism).

Management and control of commercial and contractual risk through the process pursuit and during the Deliver to Results stage of the Arcadis Way

• Lead the commercial and contractual review of division & GBA Places pursuits.
• Lead the Deep dive of major project reviews and Steering groups for major key programs.

Role Model the Arcadis Way in the GEC

• Act as a visible steward of health and safety.
• Improve the health of the organization and ensure Arcadisis employer of choice (e.g., diversity, inclusivity, equality, employee satisfaction, retention).

Coordinate and collaborate to drive consistency and continuous improvement across the division and with GBA Places

• Work with leaders across the division to develop best practices for project implementation (e.g., how they define/interpret contracts, execute work, leverage GECs, and maximize margins) and create a best-in-class project management organization across the division.
• Implement best-in-class GEC and GSSC models integrated at the core of the GBA to drive improved business performance through competitive advantage and optimized deployment of capability and capacity.
• Collaborate with the Sustainability community within the division to embed sustainability in the core of operations. Track and report non-financial KPIs across the division.
• Drive best-in-class health and safety performance, working in collaboration with the health and safety community.

Key Shared Responsibilities:

Working as an effective and influential member of the GBA Places Management Team

• Driving the operational strategy for the division in conjunction with the GBA Places Management team With the Places Management Team, Develop strategy and business Planning process on yearly cycles and drive performance of the business on a Quarterly basis for the division.
• Coordinate the implementation of standardization & automation of key processes within the division, including the development of well-designed interfaces to work with the GECs to enable collaboration and resource optimization.
• Jointly with the GBA Solution Directors, GBA Technology Directors, and GEC and GSSC Directors, implement standardization & automation of key processes across the division.
• Together with Division BU Leaders, restore project profitability to unprofitable projects (including defining "intervention" team, providing tactical project support, project review, and risk management)
• Implement agreed project management excellence standards (including the MEPC program).
• With the division Sales Director in pursuit boards, work closely together to set projects up for success.
• With the GBA Places Operations Director, ensure consistency of standardization and automation, creating alignment across the division.
• With the division, GEC Directors implement the GEC strategy.
• With Finance teams drive improvement in financial billability and DRO across divisions.
• With the People, the team implements workforce planning initiatives and works in conjunction with the Talent team to drive capability needs across the division.

Decision Rights:

Owns on behalf of the division but in alignment with the Global Operations strategy:

• Delivery of all operational accountabilities across the division
• The delivery of the strategy for GEC in the division
• Delivery of the Global Services Roadmaps for the division
• Delivery of improved project performance to increase DM and NCM across the division.
• Control of commercial and contractual risk through the Pursuit process and in project delivery
• Delivery of transformation activities in line with the global operating model
• Operational efficiency tracking and improvement programs.

Influences:

• Overall division strategy and Business Planning Cycles.
• Division investments.
• Improvement of Financial billability in conjunction with Finance
• Improvement of DRO in conjunction with Finance

Qualifications & Experience:

The ideal candidate should have a bachelor’s or master’s degree and extensive client-facing operational experience in managing a sizeable business at the leadership level. They will have managed a large P&L and be able to demonstrate knowledge and experience in delivering core Services is also expected.

Ability to lead large teams, foster a culture of driving performance delivery, and understand multiple facets and departments across an engineering consultancy is key for this position. Knowledge and experience of the Places organization are desirable, but not essential.

For this role, Arcadis values professional experience across the following priority areas:

• Breadth of experience: Working internationally, across different industries and business lines and/or functions, managing projects impacting people/issues/solutions across organizational boundaries.
• Managing change: Managing change e.g. divestments or mergers/acquisitions, growing a start-up, or leading change into other markets/services or products, operating with new business models, turning around underperforming businesses, programs, or teams, and driving standardization and automation at scale.
• General management: Lead a significant P&L and operations, developing strategy and successfully driving accountability through KPIs and behavior.

Aligned to the Arcadis Leadership model we seek leaders with a strong fit to our leadership success profile, to build and drive our culture of inclusion, accountability, human-centricity, and sustainability. Successful leaders at Arcadis will possess strong learning agility, combined with a balanced mix of being curious, driving success, and igniting passion.

Be curious:

• Demonstrate and develop curiosity in oneself and others, bringing clients and Arcadians on a journey of discovery and co-creation.
• Have a global, strategic, and future-thinking mindset.
• Are digitally savvy, entrepreneurial, and innovative.
• Build organizational networks that are value-adding, engaging, and purposeful.
• Incorporate a human-centric, experimentation-led, and continuous learning mindset to lead innovation and transformation.
• Actively engage diverse points of view and manage healthy issues-based conflict.

Drive success:

• Create a sense of shared ownership and accountability balancing this with decisiveness and holding others to account for delivery.
• Take ownership for own responsibility, creating clarity and motivating and aligning others.
• Internalize organizational goals, making them one’s own personal stretch goals.
• Are outcomes-focused and tackle challenges head-on.
• Demonstrate commercial acumen in general, and specifically with regard to sustainable solutions.
• Actively shape the future of the organization.

Ignite passion:

• Personally, role model own commitment to improving quality of life and putting sustainability at the core.
• Apply an adaptive style to engagement that is culturally sensitive and appeals to the personal needs of others.
• Bring clarity and manage anxiety in others, through clear communication and inspiring storytelling.
• Integrate their work, helping others make the connection between their work and the bigger picture.
• Maintain personal resilience and rebound from setbacks and help others to do the same.
• Build trust through authenticity, demonstrating integrity and courage regarding own convictions.

Information and Application:

We ask interested colleagues to apply before 31st August via ORC (Oracle Recruit Cloud). Kindly attach a recent CV and a motivation letter is optional.

For more information, please contact Kathryn Whitehead (kathryn.whitehead@arcadis.com).

Why Arcadis?

We can only achieve our goals when everyone is empowered to be their best. We believe everyone's contribution matters. It’s why we are pioneering a skills-based approach, where you can harness your unique experience and expertise to carve your career path and maximize the impact we can make together.

You’ll do meaningful work, and no matter what role, you’ll be helping to deliver sustainable solutions for a more prosperous planet. Make your mark, on your career, your colleagues, your clients, your life and the world around you.

Together, we can create a lasting legacy.

Join Arcadis. Create a Legacy.

Our Commitment to Equality, Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging

We want you to be able to bring your best self to work every day, which is why we take equality and inclusion seriously and hold ourselves to account for our actions. Our ambition is to be an employer of choice and provide a great place to work for all our people.