Programme Manager

• Gain top‑level visibility working with senior leaders and key institutions.
• Shape Europe's digital financial future with a flagship DLT settlement programme

About Our Client
The client is a major
European public authority
with responsibility for financial stability, monetary oversight, and the operation of core financial market infrastructures across the euro area.

Its market infrastructure unit runs key European payment and settlement platforms and drives innovation in digital finance, tokenisation, and DLT-based settlement models.

The organisation is multicultural, mission-driven, collaborative, and strongly committed to advancing Europe's financial and technological autonomy.

Job Description

• Full end-to-end accountability for the strategy and execution of a newly created wholesale digital settlement programme leveraging DLT.
• Lead an integrated programme model bringing together two major initiatives that historically existed in separate streams, ensuring they now interact fluidly and inform one another continuously.
• Oversee transversal design and delivery leads who operate across both initiatives, not in silos, ensuring alignment, coherence, and acceleration.

Detailed Responsibilities
The Successful Applicant

• Strategic Leadership & Vision Setting
• Define programme direction jointly with top leadership and hold day-to-day responsibility for its execution.
• Translate long-term public-policy objectives into a cohesive strategy and roadmap.
• Act as a senior representative of the programme, articulating its vision, purpose, and strategy to market actors, public institutions, and internal stakeholders.
• Ensure the programme contributes meaningfully to Europe's strategic autonomy in financial market infrastructure.
• Programme Set‑Up, Integration & Operating Model
• Build and structure a new integrated programme model that dissolves previous silos between two large initiatives.
• Ensure the two workstreams inform, reinforce, and interact with each other naturally and frequently, rather than being developed in parallel with only occasional touchpoints.
• Define team structures, operating rhythms, decision-making processes, and governance mechanisms.
• Oversee transversal roles (Product Design Manager and Product Delivery Manager) operating across all programme domains.
• Technology Strategy & Architectural Direction
• Provide strategic guidance on which DLT frameworks, architectures, and technology components best serve the programme's objectives.
• Evaluate alternatives and steer the team toward technically sound and policy-aligned decisions.
• Ensure high-level architecture remains coherent across both integrated workstreams.
• Oversee the definition of deliverables, interdependencies, and a realistic technical roadmap.
• Stakeholder Leadership & Relationship Management
• a) Market Stakeholders (Public-Private Partnership)
• Lead engagement with financial institutions, infrastructure operators, and technology providers.
• Understand market incentives and needs while guiding participants toward solutions consistent with public policy objectives.
• Inspire market actors to collaborate constructively in shaping next-generation settlement capabilities.
• b) Governance & Decision-Making
• Navigate complex, multi-layered governance structures within a large European institutional environment.
• Prepare and escalate decisions, propose solutions, and ensure alignment across senior committees and leadership bodies.
• c) National Authorities
• Manage relationships with multiple national institutions who serve both as future users and as developers/providers of parts of the settlement infrastructure.
• Balance institutional priorities, foster compromise, and maintain cohesion across countries with differing perspectives.
• Negotiation, Institutional Acumen & Political Sensitivity
• Manage delicate institutional dynamics and differing stakeholder incentives.
• Apply strong negotiation skills to align actors with competing mandates.
• Understand "political" considerations in the institutional sense: governance dynamics, influence patterns, priorities, and sensitivities.
• Ensure solutions remain feasible, acceptable, and strategically aligned for all stakeholders.
• Communication & External Representation
• Represent the programme credibly in market discussions, conferences, and strategic forums.
• Provide a clear narrative, vision, and explanation of the programme's objectives and progress.
• Serve as a public-facing figure complementing senior leadership and supporting external communication efforts.

Core Expertise & Background

• Senior leader with deep experience in financial market infrastructure, payments, tokenisation, or digital asset ecosystems.
• Proven track record managing complex multi-stakeholder programmes combining technology, policy, and operational transformation.
• Strategic understanding of DLT architectures and digital settlement models (not hands-on coding, but high-level architectural literacy).
• Experience working with regulated environments, governance bodies, or large multinational institutions.

Leadership Attributes

• Strategic thinker and decisive yet collaborative programme leader.
• Strong institutional and political awareness in navigating multi-country, multi-stakeholder environments.
• Excellent negotiation, communication, and consensus-building capabilities.
• Ability to represent the programme confidently and credibly at senior levels.
• Mission-driven mindset aligned with European public-purpose objectives.

Origins of Suitable Candidates

• Likely from innovation or digital asset divisions of major financial institutions,
• Market infrastructure operators or global banks with strong DLT initiatives,
• Public institutions or regulatory bodies with digital transformation portfolios,
• Hybrid profiles bridging technology strategy and financial market operations.

Motivation & Values

• Genuine commitment to contributing to Europe's public good.
• Appreciation of both the mission-driven nature of the role and its substantial long-term career advantages.
• Alignment with the institution's values and its vision for European integration and technological sovereignty.

What's on Offer
Shaping Europe's financial future
This role drives one of the most significant innovation programmes in European finance, defining how wholesale digital settlement instruments will function using distributed ledger technology. You will directly influence the next-generation architecture underpinning Europe's financial market infrastructure.

High‑level strategic exposure
You work closely with senior leadership, sit above multiple pioneering workstreams, and play a pivotal role in aligning technology, policy, market stakeholders, and national institutions-giving you unmatched visibility and authority.

• Lead a newly established flagship programme from its foundational moment.
• Shape Europe's digital financial future in a high-impact, high-visibility role.
• Engage with top-tier leadership, national authorities, technology providers, and global financial actors.
• Work in a diverse, mission-driven, collaborative environment.
• Build unique career capital at the intersection of technology, finance, and policy.
• Fixed-term appointment until 31 December 2028, with potential future opportunities depending on organisational decisions.

Contact:
Quote job ref: JN