Program Director at Crown Interactive - 2 Openings

Crown Interactive delivers innovative, cost-effective, service aggregation solutions to the Telecom, Media and Technology-based sectors. Starting in 2005, this London-based business has gained ground-breaking expertise integrating business systems with evolving information technology.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Program Director

Locations: Abuja and Lagos

Job Objective

• Are you passionate about driving large-scale digital transformation programmes within critical national infrastructure sectors? Do you possess the leadership capability to oversee complex technology portfolios across the power sector while managing high-level stakeholder and regulatory relationships? Are you ready to lead strategic programme delivery at an executive level?
• At Crown Interactive, we are seeking an experienced and results-driven Programme Director to lead a portfolio of strategic technology programmes across the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI). This role is critical to delivering high-impact digital solutions spanning regulatory systems, commercial platforms, customer information systems, metering technologies, and operational field systems while ensuring governance excellence, stakeholder confidence, operational efficiency, and sustainable sector transformation.

Key Roles and Responsibilities
Portfolio leadership:

• Carry executive accountability for the delivery of all active technology programmes across the power-sector portfolio.
• Set programme management standards across the portfolio: planning, governance, reporting, acceptance, and handover.
• Provide direction and quality oversight to programme and project managers leading individual engagements.
• Chair the firm's internal portfolio review forum; align resourcing, sequencing, and capacity across concurrent engagements.

Client, sponsor, and regulator relationships:

• Serve as the firm's senior delivery counterpart to executive sponsors at national and state regulatory bodies, and to C-suite leadership at value-chain counterparts.
• Represent the firm in steering committees, ministerial engagements, and sector forums; build the firm's standing as a trusted delivery partner across the NESI value chain.
• Maintain the firm's credibility with multilateral funders, public-sector procurement structures, and sector regulators across the engagements in scope.

Programme governance and assurance:

• Own the portfolio-level risk register; intervene on programmes where delivery, commercial, or reputational risk warrants executive attention.
• Approve milestone-completion submissions, acceptance packs, and variation requests before they go to the client.
• Govern the acceptance-and-payment cycle across engagements, including milestone evidence quality, variation discipline, and timely invoicing.
• Ensure delivery activities comply with the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 and the contractual data-governance obligations attaching to each engagement.

Pipeline and business development:

• Convert sector relationships and delivery track record into a sustained pipeline of opportunities with national and state regulators and NESI value-chain counterparts.
• Lead bid strategy and shape proposals for major opportunities; provide technical and delivery credibility in client pursuits.
• Identify adjacent opportunities surfaced through delivery — extensions, follow-on phases, and new use cases — and convert them into engagements.

Capability and team development:

• Build the delivery capability of the firm's programme and project management cadre; coach programme managers and senior delivery leads.
• Establish reusable delivery assets: programme templates, governance playbooks, risk frameworks, and acceptance pack standards.
• Sponsor capacity-building activities for client and counterpart teams as part of engagement handover and transition periods.

Required Experience

• 12+ years of programme and portfolio leadership experience, including 5+ years at director or senior-leadership level on complex technology engagements.
• Demonstrable track record delivering technology programmes in the power sector, with direct experience of one or more parts of the NESI value chain (regulator, generation, transmission, distribution, metering, or commercial systems).
• Established relationships with executive sponsors at national and state regulators, distribution companies, or other sector counterparts.
• Strong record of running concurrent engagements: setting standards, governing risk, and intervening where delivery, commercial, or reputational stakes warrant it.
• Fluent in milestone-based commercial structures, acceptance regimes, and formal contractual variation procedures common to public-sector and quasi-public engagements.
• Experience operating in environments governed by data-protection legislation (NDPA 2023, GDPR, or equivalent).

Required Skills:

• Executive presence — comfortable representing the firm in front of regulators, ministerial sponsors, and C-suite counterparts.
• Strong commercial judgement — able to interpret contractual clauses on scope, acceptance, variation, and transition, and translate them into delivery and commercial decisions.
• Fluency with the full delivery lifecycle: planning, execution, acceptance, handover, and post-go-live support.
• Risk-register ownership at portfolio level, with the judgement to intervene early and proportionately.
• Confident negotiator across technical, governance, legal, and commercial touchpoints.
• Strong written communication — able to produce and review steering-committee-grade documents, acceptance packs, and proposal content.
• Sector fluency across the NESI value chain, including regulatory structures, market rules, tariff frameworks, and metering and revenue dynamics.

Desirable:

• Prior engagement with multilateral funders or development finance institutions active in the African power sector.
• Familiarity with the regulatory architecture of the Nigerian electricity sector, including the post-2023 transition to state-level regulation.
• Experience leading bid pursuits and delivery on World Bank, AfDB, or comparable procurement frameworks.
• PMP, PRINCE2, or MSP certification at a senior level.

Key Outcomes:

• Active engagements delivered on time, on scope, and against the agreed acceptance regime, with milestone payments converted promptly.
• Portfolio-level governance standards adopted across all live engagements, with consistent risk, reporting, and acceptance disciplines.
• Strengthened relationships with executive sponsors at national and state regulators and across the NESI value chain.
• A measurable pipeline of new and follow-on opportunities developed and converted into engagements.
• A strengthened internal delivery cadre, with programme and project managers operating to a consistent standard.

Engagement Terms:

• Contract type: Rolling consulting engagement with an initial fixed-term period and renewal by mutual agreement.
• Fees: Retainer or day-rate, with performance-linked elements tied to portfolio milestones and pipeline conversion. To be agreed at contract.
•  Termination: In line with standard consulting terms, with notice provisions to be agreed at contract.
•  Confidentiality: Strict confidentiality obligations apply across all client and counterpart engagements.

Application Closing Date
Not specified.

Method of Application
Interested and qualified candidates should submit their CVs nd a one-page statement evidencing portfolio leadership experience in the power sector, with at least three contactable references from sponsor-level or C-suite counterparts to: careers@crowninterative.com or recruitment@cicod.com using the Job Title as the subject of the mail.