Project Investment Manager

Want to help us bring happiness to the world? Want to join an ambitious and fast growing global biscuits and confectionery business investing heavily in iconic global brands, infrastructure and people? Then this is the place for you.

As proud bakers and chocolatiers and custodians of iconic global brands, we don’t compromise on the quality of ingredients in our products or on the people we hire. We are looking for entrepreneurial spirits who share our passion for bringing happiness to our consumers and who embody our Winning Traits.

To succeed at pladis you need to be purpose-led, resilient and positive because we expect pace and agility, we insist on collaboration and demand accountability. If that is your thing, then pladis offers global ambition, a clear Vision and roadmap for success, challenge, and unrivalled opportunities to learn and make an impact.

Covering the Southern sites in the UK&I - Manchester, Harlesden, Wigston, High Wycombe, Chiswick Park

Why join our team?

pladis, our recently established global biscuit and confectionery company, has operations in 120 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the Americas. It combines three centuries of baking and confectionery expertise by bringing together our iconic Godiva, McVitie’s and Ulker brands. Through pladis, we have created a global network which understands local needs well and operates through different geographies, giving to the communities where we currently reside. We will continue to strengthen our family around the world while supporting equal opportunities and providing a diverse and inclusive environment following a shared culture. Our dedication to innovation and quality is our commitment to our consumers!

Achieving the pladis' ambition requires us to have the agility and responsiveness to service local market needs, make the best use of our capability and capacity to give us the best possible cost base. The Supply Chain team is responsible for ensuring we act as “one” to meet demand, drive the opportunities to maximise our harmonies, prioritising how we spend capital for the good of the business and enabling effective and efficient local operational management of supply and service.

What will this role achieve?

The role of the Project Investment Manager is a key role within the Central Project Investment Team for the UK & Ireland. The role will be responsible for ensuring successful evaluation and delivery of capital projects led by the Capital Investment team. This will include the full lifecycle project engineering best practice sharing and benchmarking.

To deliver our pladis vision of being a premier confectionary business requires its Supply Chain to consistently deliver unbeatable service and cost. It is imperative that we handle investment with rigor, ensuring that cost, time to deliver, Engineering quality and risk are all effectively controlled. We require significant standardisation and optimisation of our project processes, systems, resources, and outputs to reduce complexity and maximise the return our investment, and this role is fundamental in delivering this through flawless implementation of capital projects.

This is an excellent opportunity for an enthusiastic and dynamic Senior Project Engineering professional to drive standards of excellence across the UK Supply Chain. This is a high-profile central position and will require interaction and collaboration with colleagues across the business to deliver capital projects, with key partners being Factory General Managers and Site Engineering Managers. This requires a solid track record of Engineering experience and Procurement competence.

What are your key deliverables?

• Covering the Southern sites in the UK&I - Manchester, Harlesden, Wigston, High Wycombe, Chiswick Park
• End to end engineering project management responsibility
• Cash CAPEX control, prioritisation & delivery (not accepting of project drift), robust delivery of projects to support the UK business units.
• Responsible for the deployment of business tools - CAPEX, SAP
• Biscuit Industry Specific Skills i.e. experience in designing, procurement, installation and commissioning of production lines, factory & office buildings, automations systems, build in the innovation coming in ‐ proposing ideas
• Would work very closely with several factory teams to deliver their investment plans
• Strong project management skills
• To manage the process of project feasibility studies through a number of project engineers.
• To evaluate feasibility studies and make be responsible for the detailed output and recommendations, including budget time plan and technical solution
• Review, update key Project delivery tools and templates. Including the integration of these tools into pladis electronic project management system.
• Build understanding of UK manufacturing capability.
• This role requires sound judgement and complex decision making where few precedents and considerable ambiguity may exist
• This role requires to be able to quickly understand often complex issues and be able to challenge pre-held assumptions and opinions. The ability to have his own critical judgement and to work under tight timelines and stressed conditions is essential for this role
• The ability to propose conceptual and high-level designs or challenge and alter such design proposals

Key accountabilities & deliverables

• Reports to the UK’s Projects and Investments Director with links to Global Investments and Implementation Office,
• Oversee and be responsible for the delivery of various capital projects throughout the UK ensuring the complexity, cost, time‐constraints are fully understood and managed.
• Continually monitor progress to ensure meeting of specific deadlines.
• Responsible for ensuring the correct delivery of all stages of projects from development through to post implementation reviews, including, URS creation, tendering and supplier selection, Resource, time and cost management, Control of contractors with CDM, Contract management, FAT, SAT and formal hand back and project closure.
• Ensure projects are delivered to a high quality of engineering and technical standard and drive world class specification and standard use throughout the Investment team
• Flawless management of changes to the scope and schedule of the project.
• Provide a risk management strategy for the project and implement associated processes and tools to ensure effective identification, monitoring and management of project risks
• Lead project update meetings, and document project status and issues.
• Appraise senior managers and of project status, issues and concerns.
• Actively pursue issue resolution and communicate project status/issues to business partners and operational management.
• Possess a robust knowledge of most technical and business resources and use them to effectively deliver key projects.
• Provide the necessary supporting documentation for the business to evaluate, prioritise and determine the cost effectiveness of initiatives.

Bring your experience

• Active experience at professional level in engineering and engineering project management.
• Proven capability within a Blue-Chip Organisation including the ability to positively engage at senior level.
• Strong Project Management skills.
• Strong engineering thinking.
• Hands on user experience of AutoCAD.
• FMCG or Bakery (Preferred)
• This is not a home based role - Manchester Base
• BSc ‐ Degree or equivalent experience in Engineering (Mechanical, Electrical, Electronics, Process or similar)
• Lean Six Sigma Black Belt or Project Management certification, e.g. Prince2. are preferred.

Personal Attributes Required:

• Developed strategic problem solver able to balance short- and long-term goals and is comfortable to take risks for the benefit of the business.
• Strong engineering leadership skills and client focus with attention to delivering sustainable results that exceed customer, sponsor and partner expectations.
• Communication skills – verbal and non-verbal with the ability to positively engage, motivate and influence an audience.
• Natural networker with strong interpersonal skills and the ability to deal with all types of people both internally within an organisation and externally.
• Personal resilience in environments which are open to change and challenge.
• Ability to lead and develop Project Engineers
• Ability to develop and implement new ways of working.
• The ability to travel within region (70-100%).

Our Purpose

Bring happiness with every bite.

It’s a purpose that every one of our colleagues, all around the world believes in. And while we’re all unique, we also share the same values.

Each of our values is important on its own. In combination they’re incredibly powerful.

Living our pladis values is a key part of success, look out for questions in your interview that link to these key pladis values.

Our Values

Purpose led – We’re energised and guided by our purpose to bring happiness with every bite.

Agile – We’re ever evolving, we never stand still, always improving for our customers and our consumers.

Positive – We’re highly motivated optimistic, courageous, and we inspire each other to be better.

Resilient - We’re persistent in the face of setbacks, quick to adapt, learn and move forward.

Collaborative – We gain strength from operating as one pladis, winning and succeeding together.

Best mix of ingredients

pladis is an equal opportunities employer, like every great recipe we’re a thoughtful mix. A happy and inclusive place to work that’s as diverse as our consumers and the communities we support, live and work in, all around the world. Where every voice is heard, and difference is celebrated. Where fresh perspectives and new ideas help us grow and thrive.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform key job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.

pladis is an Equal Opportunity Employer, committed to hiring a diverse workforce. All openings will be filled based on qualifications without regard to race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, marital status, veteran status, disability, age, religion or any other classification protected by law.