Manager – Transformation Office

Manager – Transformation Office

We are building a Transformation Office to drive a portfolio of operational, digital, capital and people projects across our sites. We need someone to make that portfolio run with discipline: clear scope, honest status, visible risks and decisions made at the right level.

THE ROLE

• Reports to: Chief Transformation Officer

• Base: Mumbai, with around 20% travel to our sites and supplier or technology partners (more during project launches)

• Scope: individual contributor or small-team role, with authority to coordinate projects across functions. Department heads keep line authority; you keep the portfolio honest.

You will give the CTO and project sponsors a current, evidence-based view of scope, milestones, risks, decisions, resources, spend and benefits, and you will make sure missed commitments are seen and resolved at the right level.

WHAT YOU WILL DO

Set up and control the portfolio

• Maintain one authoritative portfolio of active, proposed, paused and completed transformation projects

• Confirm objective, scope, benefit, sponsor, leader, dependencies, resources and success measures for every proposal

• Apply agreed prioritisation criteria and prepare portfolio options for CTO decisions

• Spot duplicate initiatives, conflicting timelines and resource overload across sites and functions

Define and plan projects

• Build charters and business cases with technical and operational owners

• Create work breakdown structures, milestone plans, Gantt charts, RACI matrices and stage gates, scaled to each project's size and risk

• Make acceptance criteria, assumptions, exclusions and dependencies explicit before execution starts

• Set schedule, cost and benefit baselines after sponsor approval

Track execution and escalate

• Collect evidence-based updates and keep milestone, action, RAID, decision and change-control records current

• Run several projects at once and separate genuine critical-path risk from routine activity

• Follow up firmly on overdue commitments and record revised dates, consequences and recovery actions

• Escalate unresolved constraints with facts, impact, options and the decision required

Run governance that respects people's time

• Plan kick-offs, working reviews, steering committees, stage-gate reviews and closures

• Issue focused agendas and pre-reads, record decisions, and publish actions with owners and due dates

• Design workflows for initiation, approval, change control, benefit validation and closure

• Replace repetitive status meetings with dashboards and exception-based reviews

Make the portfolio visible

• Build concise visual views of portfolio health, critical paths, dependencies, shortfalls and decisions needed

• Maintain dashboards with consistent status definitions and drill-down to evidence

• Reconcile project figures with Finance, Operations, HR, IT and Engineering, and flag anything unverified

• Prepare management presentations that separate results, forecasts, risks and requests for decision

WHAT YOU WILL BRING

Must have

• Bachelor's degree in engineering, operations, business, finance or a related discipline

• 3–5 years of relevant experience, including at least 3 years managing or governing multiple cross-functional projects

• At least 2 years in manufacturing, industrial operations or a closely related environment

• Proven ability to influence across functions without direct authority

• Strong command of project chartering, WBS, critical-path analysis, RAID and decision logs, change control, stage gates and benefit tracking

• Strong Excel and PowerPoint; working knowledge of Power BI and MS Project or equivalent

• Concise written and spoken English

Good to have

• Postgraduate qualification in operations, business or project management

• Experience supporting a senior transformation, operations or programme leader

• Portfolio management across capital, digital, operational and people workstreams

• Experience coordinating analysts or project coordinators

• High-mix, labour-intensive or precision manufacturing exposure

• Jewellery, diamond, luxury or precious-material operations experience (not mandatory)

• Hindi or Gujarati, for site coordination

WHO WILL THRIVE HERE

Someone who follows up persistently and respectfully, including with senior colleagues; communicates in facts and is confident enough to challenge unsupported claims; knows when to resolve an issue directly and when to escalate it; and is meticulously organised. You will be a neutral facilitator across competing priorities, clear on the line between coordinating work and owning it.

If you want to be the engine room of a major transformation in one of India's leading jewellery groups, we would like to hear from you. Apply through this post.