Continuous Improvement Lead

Job Purpose

The Group Business Services (GBS) strategy is to create a customer centric Continuous Improvement (CI) culture across the GBS to embed end-to-end process transformation, which includes embedding CI principles in the GBS operations, as well as across value streams. The Continuous Improvement (CI) Lead: GBS drives the development of a continuous improvement centric CI culture across the GBS; an integral part in leading the people, customer and transformation agenda. The CI lead: GBS is the single point of accountability for the development and deployment of continuous improvement initiatives across the GBS.

To deliver this, the CI lead is expected to operate at GBS, Central and OU Senior Management level, whilst also engaging and working across the organisation hierarchy. The person will partner with GBS functional heads to define and continuously evolve the continuous improvement (CI) strategy and priorities. This includes championing the organization-wide adoption of world-class CI principles, ensuring alignment across customer experience, operational excellence, and cost transformation goals.

Key responsibilities include deploying and sustaining CI practices across teams, while actively engaging and coaching leadership to reinforce a culture of continuous improvement and build a strong CI deployment pipeline. The person will also be expected to build CI capabilities within GBS and identify end-to-end process improvement opportunities that can be addressed through the application of CI methodologies.

Principal Accountabilities

CI Delivery & Operational Management

• Work with senior leadership and senior management to determine the strategic priorities for CI deployment and other interventions in line with the GBS’s foremost customer and business challenges.
• Partner with respective GBS leadership to identify and deliver CI deployments, ensuring alignment with Customer Experience and Transformation goals, and to sustainably underpin and budget challenges.
• Build and drive CI deployment roadmaps across GBS to achieve full coverage and engagement over the next 2-3 years.
• Defining a Sustain strategy which outlines requirements both during CI deployment, and also wider organisational mechanisms, roles and behaviours which need to be in place to truly embed and maintain a CI culture.
• Define and deliver the pathway to Silver and ultimately Gold CI maturity for GBS.
• Define and build direct CI team resourcing requirements in line with deploy and sustain strategies.
• Contribute to the assessment, on-boarding and training of new Coaches.
• Support coaches as a technical subject matter expert in Lean, SixSigma and Change Management techniques.
• Responsible for all GBS CI tracking and reporting of benefits through the hierarchy.
• Sustaining CI post wave and supporting the GBS to consistently deliver year-on-year benefits of up to 5% after the initial wave.
• Keeping up to date with market trends and bringing in external best practice.
• Identify method innovations and evolve the CI model as appropriate.

Coaching

• Provide coaching to GBS CI coach teams on a day-to-day basis.
• Coordinate and align CI cultural change and development by supporting the GBS CI teams in setting up and maintaining the required governance mechanisms.
• Recruit, train, and retain a high-performance workforce, ensuring continuous professional development.
• Driving engagement, collaboration, accountability and service excellence.

Governance & Compliance

• Ensure compliance with legal and regulatory requirements in operational processes.
• Ensure audit outcomes of the business processes meet full compliance, and address non-compliance with corrective measures.

Requirements

Job Knowledge, Skills & Experiences

• Bachelor’s degree/NQF 7 qualification.

• On learning pathway to becoming an Advanced Lean Practitioner and Six Sigma Blackbelt.

• 5 Years’ proven experience in Continuous Improvement

• Proven strong leadership and/or management capability; ability to inspire and develop a high-performance culture and to grow talent for GBS.

• Ability to lead, influence and deliver results at a team leadership level and in a fast paced, matrixed environment.

• Experienced coach, with an ability to empower individuals and teams to think for themselves, and proven leadership capability.

• Recognised Subject Matter Expert in CI with extensive practical experience with Lean/ Six-Sigma programmes/ deployments, Lean ways of working and coaching leadership in role modelling the respective behaviours.

• Excellent communicator and well developed interpersonal, negotiation and conflict resolution skills.

• High degree of change orientation, willingness to challenge current thinking in constructive ways which build support and develop new approaches to complex issues.

• Previous experience of senior level stakeholder management.

• Strong commercial, financial and analytical skills, working with the business to identify practical, performance improvement opportunities.

• Relevant experience with complex programmes and driving impact from these programmes.

Desirable (if required)

• Shared Services expertise is a preference.

Closing Date: 31 August 2026