Director of Consulting & Delivery Leadership – ABS

Key Responsibilities

• People leadership standards across ABS Consulting.
• Consulting performance expectations and professional behaviours 
• Career frameworks, progression paths, and leadership development 
• Talent deployment standards, particularly on major or strategic programmes 
• Organisation‑wide adoption of modern delivery practices, including AI‑enabled ways of working 
• Visible leadership engagement with employees and customers 

• Lead and set the benchmark for consulting professionalism, behaviour, and leadership maturity across ABS 
• Establish clear performance expectations and ensure they are consistently applied 
• Create a safe but disciplined environment where under‑performance and capability gaps are surfaced early and addressed 
• Own consulting and delivery career pathways, progression criteria, and leadership capability models 
• Actively develop Programme Managers, Delivery Leads, and senior consultants into stronger leaders 
• Ensure teams operate with clarity of role and responsibility and remain within defined professional boundaries 

• Act as a senior, credible, and visible client‑facing leader across strategic accounts and complex engagements 
• Build customer confidence through leadership presence, consistency, and clear decision‑making 
• Act as a senior escalation point for complex or sensitive delivery situations, working in partnership with the CDO 
• Support programme boards, governance forums, and delivery recovery situations where leadership intervention is required 

• Contribute to improved delivery outcomes through leadership quality, staffing judgement, and early intervention, not through ownership of delivery governance or PMO controls 
• Work closely with the CDO to identify leadership‑related delivery risk and act decisively to address it 
• Ensure senior delivery roles are filled by the most appropriate and capable leaders for the complexity of the work 

• Actively support the organisation‑wide rollout of AI‑enabled delivery practices developed by Master Practitioners 
• Ensure AI‑enabled delivery becomes the default way of working across ABS teams, not optional enhancements or specialist techniques 
• Translate innovative delivery approaches into practical, repeatable standards for teams 
• Reinforce expectations that AI improves delivery quality, productivity, and consistency across the organisation 
• Expected to use delivery telemetry and tooling outputs (e.g. Azure DevOps) as input into coaching, capability development, and performance management, ensuring AI adoption translates into measurable improvement. 

• Maintain senior oversight of strategic and high‑risk engagements from a people, leadership, and standards perspective 
• Identify recurring organisational friction points, leadership gaps, or capability weaknesses 
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives that strengthen consulting maturity, delivery quality, and organisational resilience 
• Contribute to leadership planning, organisational design, and scale‑readiness initiatives 

• CEO / Practice Director (ABS) 
• Chief Delivery Officer (CDO) / Head of PMO 
• Master Practitioners (Architecture, AI, and Technical Excellence) 
• Head of Operations 
• Programme Managers and Delivery Leads 
• Sales and Account Leadership 

• Executive customer stakeholders 
• Programme and governance boards 
• Public thought‑leadership audiences via regular leadership contributions on Codec’s LinkedIn and social channels 

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

• Senior leadership experience within a professional services or consulting organisation operating at meaningful scale 
• Proven experience leading large, multi‑disciplinary delivery teams 
• A track record of owning people performance, leadership development, and career frameworks 
• Strong executive‑level customer presence and stakeholder credibility 
• Experience operating in complex delivery environments with high customer expectations 
• Commercial understanding of fixed‑price models 

• Naturally extroverted, visible, and energised by engaging with people 
• Comfortable spending significant time with teams and customers 
• Confident challenging poor practice and enforcing standards 
• Calm, credible, and decisive under pressure 
• Pragmatic, resilient, and improvement‑oriented 
• Emotionally intelligent, with strong leadership presence 
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity and organisational change 

• Consulting and delivery teams feel clearly led, supported, and held to account 
• Performance issues are addressed early and constructively 
• Clear career paths and leadership standards operate across ABS 
• Strategic programmes are staffed with appropriate, high‑quality leadership 
• AI‑enabled delivery practices are consistently adopted across teams 
• Customer confidence improves through visible senior leadership 
• ABS scales with stronger professionalism, consistency, and resilience