Commercial Director

Job Title: Commercial Director

Location: This role can be based at any of the WSUK sites (Barrow, Filton, or Sheffield) and may require some travel, primarily UK-wide, but occasional international travel.

Salary: £90,000 – £100,000 depending on experience

What you’ll be doing:

1. Providing leadership for the Commercial function across WSUK
2. Acting as the Commercial Authority for WSUK
3. Ensuring effective and efficient application of commercial and estimating policy
4. Providing authorisation (including delegation of authority) for commercial (bid submission, contract signature, export licence application) functional activities
5. Leading commercial and estimating functional capability development
6. Ensuring effective and efficient application of the Life Cycle Management Framework
7. Promoting commercial & estimating professional standards within the business’s commercial population, aligned with appropriate commercial & estimating Professional Institutions (e.g. WorldCC, ACostE)
8. Ensuring application of appropriate company policies and guidance
9. Ensuring the provision of enabling commercial & estimating capability within the business, including:
1. Efficient and effective commercial and estimating processes, tools, infrastructure, organisation, guidance documentation;
2. Suitably qualified experienced people (SQEP) through ensuring appropriate talent and resource management for selection, appointment, training, development and succession planning of project, programme and portfolio managers
10. Providing guidance on complex terms and contracts / agreements that have a significant business impact and reviewing the work of others in the function
11. Responsibility for the business management system for the commercial function and accountability for governance and compliance across WSUK
12. Responsibility for the development and deployment of the business commercial strategy and contributing relevant areas to the required (both from a BAE Systems and UK/US regulatory perspective) business reports
13. Providing functional representation for WSUK (or delegates appropriately) for commercial at BAE Systems sector, Inc. and Group levels

Your skills and experiences:

1. Experience of leading Commercial teams/ functions
2. Excellent commercial domain experience across a broad spectrum of commercial activities (e.g. Contract management, legal, export control, cost & pricing)
3. Ideally some understanding of contracting models in multiple countries (ideally UK MoD & US DoD)
4. Entrepreneurial approach to adapt to the competitive environment within our sector, and an ability to develop innovative solutions and strategies

Benefits:

As well as a competitive pension scheme, BAE Systems also offers employee share plans, an extensive range of flexible discounted health, wellbeing and lifestyle benefits, including a green car scheme, private health plans and shopping discounts – you may also be eligible for an annual incentive.

The Weapon Systems UK team:

Weapon Systems UK is recruiting a Commercial Director to lead all commercial activities across the business, ensuring capability is available to deliver commercial services to meet programme and campaign requirements. These commercial services include business winning activities, bid approval & submission, contract agreement & awards, contract execution & closure phases, and opportunity identification & exploitation.

As Commercial Director, you’ll lead the commercial function and be a key part of the WSUK senior leadership team. You’ll develop commercial strategy for the business and be a major contributor to the development and delivery of the WSUK IBP. Your role will include leadership of the central Commercial and Estimating teams for the deployment of effective corporate processes across WSUK; and Export Control to ensure compliance with US, UK, and other export control regulations. You will also provide the Commercial Authority for WSUK, managing the RBA process on behalf of WSUK, and authorise bids as the highest point of DoA for commercial activity.

This is a critical senior leadership role within the organisation, coming at an exciting time for Weapon Systems UK. We’re opening our new manufacturing facility in Sheffield later this year to restart production of some of our key products, and this role offers you the opportunity to gain exposure across the full spectrum of commercial activities within a fast paced, competitive landscape.

Why BAE Systems?

This is a place where you’ll be able to make a real difference. You’ll be part of an inclusive culture that values diversity, rewards integrity, and merit, and where you’ll be empowered to fulfil your potential. We welcome candidates from all backgrounds and particularly from sections of the community who are currently underrepresented within our industry, including women, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities and LGBTQ+ individuals. We also want to make sure that our recruitment processes are as inclusive as possible. If you have a disability or health condition (for example dyslexia, autism, an anxiety disorder etc.) that may affect your performance in certain assessment types, please speak to your recruiter about potential reasonable adjustments.

Please be aware that many roles at BAE Systems are subject to both security and export control restrictions. These restrictions mean that factors such as your nationality, any nationalities you may have previously held, and your place of birth can restrict the roles you are eligible to perform within the organisation. All applicants must as a minimum achieve Baseline Personnel Security Standard. Many roles also require higher levels of National Security Vetting where applicants must typically have 5 to 10 years of continuous residency in the UK depending on the vetting level required for the role, to allow for meaningful security vetting checks.

Closing Date: 10th December 2024

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.