Programme Manager – Culture & Change

About Withers

A law firm focused on people, performance, and collaboration.

For the past 130 years, we have supported some of the world’s most remarkable people and organizations at defining moments in their lives. 40% of our business comes from Europe, 40% from the US and 20% from Asia and we are one profit sharing partnership globally.

We are united in our commitment to integrity, quality and collaboration. We have a culture of high performance and deliver excellent service consistently across the firm. We provide tailored solutions built on trust and partner with our clients to achieve their goals.

Many of our clients are shaping the future and creating solutions to tackle some of the world’s most difficult problems. It makes for a fascinating and challenging practice.

Our role is to get to know each individual client, find out where they want to be, and help them to get there – whether they are building a business, buying a home or protecting and defending their interests.

To meet their unique needs we are exceptionally collaborative, working together across teams and time zones. And we are agile – focusing on strategy rather than rigid ideas and traditional hierarchy.

Join us to be part of a team that is always looking to the future. Where initiative, big ideas and bold moves are always encouraged. Where you can truly be yourself.

The Role

Aligned to a continuous drive to innovate, Withers has recently launched a new business strategy which focuses on reviewing and improving how our firm operates across all regions and divisions in order to optimise productivity through embedding high-performance principles (the 5 Star initiative), better use of technology, and ultimately deliver the best service to our clients. 

The firm has conducted a diagnosis of the current performance culture at Withers to identify strengths, weaknesses, and what needs to change. The firm has clearly defined what a high-performance culture at Withers will look like and is now in the process of developing and mobilizing the culture change programme to deliver it, embedding the high performance principles and behaviours in the firm.

In support of this, we are recruiting a critical role of Programme Manager - Culture & Change. Aligned to the firm’s strategic focus on continuous improvement and higher performance, this role supports the delivery of a portfolio of culture and change initiatives across the business. The Programme Manager – Culture & Change will be responsible for planning, coordinating and delivering defined workstreams within the firm’s culture and transformation agenda, ensuring initiatives are delivered on time, to quality, and with measurable impact.

Rather than setting the overall cultural direction, this role focuses on execution excellence: translating strategic objectives into structured programmes and projects, supporting senior leaders to deliver change, and ensuring adoption through effective governance, stakeholder engagement and tracking.

A high level of organisation, professionalism and delivery focus is essential, together with a practical, collaborative approach and the ability to manage multiple priorities.

The chosen candidate will work closely with the Chief Executive Officer (based in London), the Global Head of Learning & Development, the project team and the Senior Leadership team, to assist with delivery and execution of the firm's strategy in relation to culture and change. You will also be working alongside a team of global and regional divisional leaders and business services directors across global locations.   Your primary work base will be the London office, but travel may be required.

Tasks and responsibilities

Programme Leadership and Delivery

• Manage a portfolio of culture and change initiatives aligned to agreed strategic priorities (e.g. leadership behaviours, collaboration, ways of working, DEI, wellbeing, client centricity, technology adoption).
• Develop and maintain programme plans, milestones, dependencies, risks and issues.
• Track progress against agreed outcomes and escalate risks or delays appropriately.
• Coordinate multiple workstreams, ensuring alignment and avoiding duplication across functions and regions.

Stakeholder Co-ordination and Support

• Work with senior sponsors, partners and functional leads to support delivery of change initiatives.
• Prepare materials, briefing packs and progress updates for governance forums and leadership meetings.
• Support leader‑led interventions (e.g. workshops, pilots, engagement sessions) through planning, logistics and follow‑up.
• Act as a key point of contact for programme stakeholders, ensuring clear communication and issue resolution.

Change Implementation and Adoption 

• Apply structured change management approaches and toolkits to support adoption of new behaviours, processes and ways of working.
• Support readiness assessments, stakeholder mapping and engagement planning.
• Help embed changes into day-to-day processes, working with HR and other functions where required.
• Capture feedback and lessons learned to continuously improve delivery.

Communications and Engagement

• Work with Internal Communications to support delivery of programme communications and engagement activities.
• Coordinate content and timelines for updates, campaigns, roadshows and internal events.
• Ensure communications are clear, practical and aligned to agreed change messages.

Measurement and Reporting 

• Track agreed KPIs and delivery metrics for culture and change initiatives.
• Maintain programme dashboards and reporting packs.
• Support data collection from surveys, feedback and operational metrics.
• Highlight trends, risks and areas requiring intervention.

This list of duties and responsibilities is not exhaustive.  It is intended to describe the general content of, and requirements for the performance of this job, and as such, the role may also include the undertaking of additional tasks as required.

Skills, knowledge and experience

Programme and Project Management 

• Strong experience managing complex programmes or projects, ideally in professional services or similarly complex environments.
• Proven ability to plan, sequence and deliver multiple initiatives in parallel.
• Comfortable with governance, reporting, risk and dependency management.

Change Management

• Working knowledge of change management frameworks (e.g. Prosci, ADKAR, Kotter).
• Experience supporting business change initiatives from design through to implementation and adoption.
• Pragmatic approach to applying change toolkits in real‑world environments.

Stakeholder Management 

• Ability to work effectively with senior stakeholders while maintaining clear ownership of delivery.
• Confident communicator, able to tailor messages for different audiences.
• Collaborative working style, comfortable operating in matrix environments.

Data and Insight 

• Experience tracking delivery metrics and supporting impact measurement.
• Comfortable working with both qualitative and quantitative data.
• Strong attention to detail and analytical capability.
• Highly organised, proactive and delivery focused.
• Calm and resilient under pressure, with the ability to manage competing priorities.
• Professional and discreet, able to handle sensitive information.
• Practical, hands on mindset with a willingness to support where needed.
• Inclusive and collaborative approach, with cultural awareness.

Personal Qualities

• Highly organised, proactive and delivery focused.
• Calm and resilient under pressure, with the ability to manage competing priorities.
• Professional and discreet, able to handle sensitive information.
• Practical, hands on mindset with a willingness to support where needed.
• Inclusive and collaborative approach, with cultural awareness.

The Essentials

• 9.30am to 5.30pm but flexibility is a must
• Hybrid working policy with a minimum of 2 days per week in the office
• 12-week probation period
• 12-week notice period
• Flexible benefit package including pension, private medical insurance, denplan, season ticket loan, subsidised gym memberships, lifestyle discount scheme, the ability to buy and sell holidays, flu jabs, doctors consultation service, cycle to work scheme, on site café and more

Information for Recruitment Agencies

Withers endeavours to recruit and fill vacancies directly. However, when we do need to engage with agencies, Withers operates a preferred supplier list and will not be accepting unsolicited applications from non-PSL agencies for this role.

Equal Opportunities Employment Statement 

It is the policy of Withers to provide equal opportunities for all employees in relation to recruitment, training and promotion. Decisions in these areas will be made only by reference to the requirements of the job and shall not be influenced by any consideration of ethnic origin, religion, sex, age, sexual orientation or disability.