Deputy General Manager - Product & Programme Office

This role provide end-to-end program governance and execution leadership that ensures NSDC's strategic digital initiatives and Government technology programs are delivered successfully through disciplined planning, cross-functional coordination, proactive risk management, and transparent stakeholder engagement. This role ensures that NSDC's strategic digital initiatives are executed with discipline, transparency, and accountability by creating an operating environment where risks are anticipated, dependencies are actively managed, stakeholders remain informed, and programme benefits are demonstrably realized. Integrated Programme Planning Lead the end-to-end planning and governance of NSDC's Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and Government Scheme platforms by establishing a single, integrated programme management framework that provides complete visibility into workstreams, milestones, dependencies, resources, budgets, and critical delivery paths. Own and maintain an integrated programme plan covering all active workstreams, milestones, dependencies, resource allocations, and critical paths across DPI and SIDH platforms, ensuring plans are updated regularly through approved programme management tools (e.g., Jira, MS Project, or equivalent). Govern programme initiation for all significant programmes and workstreams by developing or reviewing Programme Initiation Documents (PIDs), including scope, objectives, success criteria, milestones, budgets, resource requirements, risks, dependencies, governance structures, stakeholder maps, communication plans, and benefits realisation plans. Establish and maintain programme baselines for scope, schedule, and budget, ensuring all changes are governed through a formal change control process and that schedule and cost variances are continuously monitored and reported. Own and publish the enterprise programme calendar, consolidating key milestones, governance events, Ministry reporting timelines, scheme launch dates, regulatory submissions, vendor reviews, stage-gate assessments, and Board reporting requirements. Govern capacity and demand planning by maintaining a consolidated view of engineering, architecture, data, security, and vendor resource requirements against available capacity, proactively identifying conflicts and escalating resource constraints to leadership for timely resolution. Stage Gate & Milestone Governance Establish and enforce a disciplined programme governance framework that ensures all strategic initiatives progress through defined decision gates, achieve committed milestones, and are completed with clear accountability, measurable outcomes, and formal closure. Own and enforce the stage-gate governance model for all programmes above the defined investment threshold, ensuring programmes progress through formal phases including Initiation, Planning, Execution, Deployment, and Closure, with clearly defined entry and exit criteria, governance reviews, and executive recommendations. Govern milestone attainment across all active programmes through regular monitoring and performance tracking, proactively identifying milestones at risk, analysing potential impacts, and driving recovery plans to maintain delivery commitments. Establish and maintain a delivery confidence framework that provides an evidence-based assessment of programme predictability and future delivery outcomes, enabling leadership to anticipate and mitigate potential risks before they impact execution. Govern programme closure by ensuring all deliverables are formally accepted, benefits realisation baselines are established, lessons learned are documented, governance artefacts are archived, and resources are formally transitioned or released. Budget & Financial Governance Own programme budget governance by tracking approved budget, committed spend, actual spend, and forecast-to-complete (FTC) for each programme on a monthly basis; escalate budget variances exceeding 10% to the Head, PPO and Finance within 5 working days, along with root cause analysis and corrective actions. Lead programme financial forecasting through quarterly re-forecasting of programme expenditure to completion, ensuring alignment with delivery plans and communicating all material changes to the CTO and key stakeholders. Govern Earned Value Management (EVM) for programmes above the defined complexity threshold by monitoring Schedule Performance Index (SPI) and Cost Performance Index (CPI) as quantitative indicators of programme performance and publishing a consolidated monthly dashboard. Establish cost control mechanisms by ensuring all programme scope changes undergo a formal cost impact assessment before approval and that no scope additions are implemented without sponsor approval and documented financial implications. Maintain programme change governance by keeping an up-to-date change log that captures scope decisions, cost impacts, dependencies, approvals, and implementation status. Drive financial transparency and accountability by conducting regular budget reviews with Finance, programme teams, and sponsors to identify risks, optimize resource utilization, and implement corrective actions proactively. Ensure financial discipline across the programme portfolio by enforcing governance standards, maintaining accurate financial reporting, and enabling informed decision-making to support successful programme delivery within approved budgets. Integrated RAID Management Own and maintain the integrated RAID register across all DPI and SIDH programmes, ensuring a single live repository of Risks, Assumptions, Issues, and Dependencies with clearly defined descriptions, categories, owners, status, mitigation actions, due dates, and review dates; conduct weekly reviews with all programme workstream leads. Govern risk management by implementing a probability × impact assessment framework with defined escalation thresholds (Critical: CTO within 24 hours; High: Head PPO within 48 hours; Medium: managed by SPM with weekly reviews; Low: monitored), while ensuring risk owners remain accountable for mitigation actions. Lead assumption management by documenting all programme assumptions at initiation, assigning owners, validation dates, and impact statements, and reviewing assumptions at every stage gate; convert invalid assumptions into risks and escalate appropriately. Govern issue management by triaging issues based on severity, escalating Priority-1 (P1) issues that impact programme delivery or create regulatory/Ministry exposure to the Head, PPO and CTO within four hours, and tracking resolution actions through to closure within defined SLAs. Own and manage the dependency register by documenting all inter-workstream, inter-programme, and inter-tower dependencies, including ownership, milestone linkages, required dates, status, and associated risks, and conducting weekly dependency reviews with all workstream leads. Drive proactive programme governance by identifying emerging risks, unresolved issues, and dependency bottlenecks early, implementing corrective actions, and ensuring timely stakeholder communication and decision-making. Ensure transparency and accountability across programmes by maintaining accurate RAID reporting, enforcing governance standards, and providing leadership with timely insights to safeguard programme delivery objectives. Cross-Tower & Cross-Programme Dependency Management: Map and govern all DPI–SIDH shared dependencies, including infrastructure, shared engineering squads, data pipelines, integration architecture, API contracts, and regulatory compliance activities, ensuring dependency conflicts are identified early and resolved with the Head, PPO before impacting programme delivery. Govern cross-tower dependencies across Engineering, APO, ETS, DAO, ATO, CISO, and TGAO by assigning clear ownership, confirming delivery timelines, assessing risks associated with delays, and conducting monthly dependency review meetings with all relevant tower h