French Speaking Programme Manager

Are you a bilingual Programme Manager with a passion for driving large-scale data engagements?

Location: Remote first in UK or France

Start date: January 2027

Contract length: 9 month contract

Day rate: Competitive

At Colibri Digital, we are seeking an Engagement Lead to take programmatic ownership of a mission-critical programme within a complex, francophone environment.

This is a role for a strategic operator who thrives in the details of delivery-from RAID management and forecasting to high-level governance. As the first tier of our escalation path, you will work side-by-side with the client Project Manager, facilitate monthly Steering Committee sessions chaired by the Programme Sponsor, and act as a senior voice for the programme alongside the Chief Data Officer.

Because our domain-covering public procurement, land, planning, construction, corporate registry, and press data-is entirely in French, this role requires more than just oversight; it requires fluency. To be successful, you must be capable of chairing governance forums, navigating complex commercial and contractual discussions, and authoring client-facing documentation to a professional standard in French. You will be the bridge between our distributed team across the UK and France and the heart of the client’s data initiative.

Key Responsibilities

• Programmatic Delivery Leadership: Own the end-to-end delivery plan, acting as the single source of truth while sequencing 40+ concurrent data product workstreams.
• Strategic Governance: Run the full cadence of project governance, from daily stand-ups and sprint ceremonies to monthly Steering Committees and phase-gate reviews.
• Cross-Functional Assurance: Maintain the joint RAID log, manage change control, and ensure all project artefacts (architecture, non-functional requirements, test strategy) are current.
• Capacity & Resource Management: Oversee the full resourcing lifecycle-from mobilisation to ramp-down-while tracking effort, forecasting completion, and managing parallel embedded squads.
• Risk & Dependency Oversight: Own the end-to-end risk register and manage critical cross-programme dependencies, particularly across cross-border, multi-country initiatives.
• Bilingual Stakeholder Management: Serve as the primary point of contact for client leadership, facilitating communication, governance forums, and documentation in both French and English.
• Translation of Business Domains: Bridge the gap between the francophone business domain and UK-based delivery capability, ensuring technical and business requirements are aligned.
• Cross-Border Team Culture: Foster a cohesive, remote-embedded team culture across France and the UK, proactively managing time-zone friction and coordination.
• Knowledge Transfer & Quality Ownership: Execute the knowledge transfer plan, ensure adherence to quality gates at every phase, and oversee final project closure and acceptance.
• Regulatory & AI Compliance: Apply sustainability and Responsible AI assessments where applicable, ensuring all regulatory obligations are met through diligent governance.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

• Full professional fluency in English and French (spoken and written).
• Recognised programme management certification - MSP, PRINCE2 Practitioner, PMP or equivalent.
• Agile certification - Scrum Master, SAFe or equivalent. The engagement runs two-week sprints with full agile ceremonies.
• Eight or more years managing complex, multi-workstream technology programmes, with at least three at genuine programme rather than project level.
• Proven delivery of data platform or large-scale data migration programmes - Databricks, Spark or comparable lakehouse estates.
• Track record running supplier-led governance from within a consultancy or systems integrator, accountable end-to-end to a client executive rather than reporting into a client PMO.
• Demonstrable ownership of Time and Materials commercials: capped T&M, drawdown arrangements, burn tracking, day-rate resource models and timesheet-evidenced billing.
• Formal change control end-to-end - raising Change Requests, producing impact assessments to a five-day service level, and taking changes through Board and Steering to signature.
• Leading remote, cross-border delivery squads across at least two countries, with the cultural and time-zone judgement that requires.
• Establishing governance from a standing start - building the cadence, artefacts and reporting rhythm on a new engagement rather than inheriting a running one.