Financial Services
Programme Recovery
£90m portfolio
6 months
Rescuing a regulatory remediation programme nine months behind schedule
The challenge
A top-10 UK retail bank's regulatory remediation programme had slipped by three quarters against the regulator's deadline. The board had lost confidence in the incumbent programme director, whose focus had moved from risk management to status presentation. Three vendor delivery partners were briefing the steering committee independently and presenting inconsistent positions. PMO reporting had grown to sixty pages per week and was no longer being used to inform decisions.
Our approach
A two-week independent diagnostic established that the programme could not be delivered on the existing baseline. The regulatory deadline was renegotiated on the basis of a defensible revised plan. We assumed interim programme leadership, restructured the vendor model into a single integrated delivery view, and reduced the weekly PMO pack to six pages aligned to the three decisions before the board. The incoming permanent director was coached through the engagement from month four onwards.
On timeDelivered against revised regulatory deadline
£14mVendor cost reduced through re-scoping
From 3 to 1Steering committees consolidated
9 monthsTo full client self-sufficiency
FinTech / Capital Markets
PMO Set-Up
Series C scale-up
4 months
Standing up a PMO in a 300-person FinTech post-funding
The challenge
A capital markets FinTech had raised a substantial Series C to fund an ambitious product and geographic expansion roadmap. The engineering organisation had grown from sixty to three hundred staff in nine months. The CEO had no visibility beyond the current sprint, the CFO was unable to reconcile programme spend, and three regulatory licence applications were at risk because no single owner held the cross-functional view across product, engineering, and compliance.
Our approach
We designed and established a lightweight portfolio PMO within six weeks. A single source of truth was created across delivery commitments, the financial baseline, and the dependency map. A fortnightly portfolio review was introduced for the executive team, with decisions formally logged. We recruited and onboarded a permanent Head of PMO and coached the CEO and CFO through the first three review cycles before exiting the engagement.
6 weeksFrom start to first live portfolio review
3/3Regulatory licences obtained on plan
22%Programme spend variance reduced
0Strategic initiatives left without an accountable owner
Global Insurance
PM Framework Rollout
1,800 delivery community
9 months
Rolling out a single PM framework across a global insurer
The challenge
A global insurance group operated fourteen country PMOs, each with separate methodologies, terminology, gating, and reporting standards. The COO could not make meaningful comparisons of programme health across markets. A previous standardisation attempt had stalled, having produced a 240-page methodology document that achieved limited adoption. Internal audit had raised a related finding the previous year.
Our approach
The engagement began from the principle that any framework heavier than the existing one would also fail to gain adoption. Working with delivery leads from five of the most mature country PMOs, we co-designed a one-page lifecycle, a six-page playbook, and four gate templates. A pilot was run in three markets, with adoption tracked weekly and points of friction resolved within fourteen days. The framework was then rolled out market by market, each with a named PMO sponsor. The internal audit finding was closed in month seven.
14 of 14Markets adopted within nine months
One pageComplete lifecycle on a single page
ClosedInternal audit finding resolved
92%Delivery lead satisfaction in post-rollout survey