Business Solutions Manager - GPI
Hybrid-with at least 3 days out of 5 per week onsite at our Quedgeley offices
Salary to be discussed on application + excellent benefits including car cash allowance, company bonus, private health care and generous pension scheme
The Kohler EMEA IT function partners with a diverse portfolio of businesses across the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, as well as Kohler’s Global Product Innovation (GPI) teams.
The EMEA IT team is responsible for delivering business-facing technology solutions, supporting day-to-day operations, and driving digital and technology-enabled transformation across a complex and varied landscape of markets, functions, and brands.
Within EMEA IT, Business Solutions Managers (BSMs) act as the primary interface between the business and IT, working closely with stakeholders to shape demand, prioritise initiatives, and deliver value through technology.
Global Product Innovation (GPI) represents a critical and high-impact area for Kohler, focused on product development, innovation and delivering differentiated customer value. The nature of demand within GPI often spans early-stage ideation through to scaled delivery, requiring close alignment between business ambition and technology capability.
This BSM role is responsible for partnering directly with GPI stakeholders to shape, prioritise and deliver technology-enabled innovation. Working across Enterprise IT teams and the broader EMEA IT function, the BSM will operate in a highly collaborative, matrixed environment to ensure that innovation initiatives are effectively translated into scalable, integrated and value-driven solutions.
Role Purpose
The Business Solutions Manager, Global Product Innovation (GPI), is a senior IT leadership role responsible for partnering with the GPI organisation to ensure technology is effectively embedded within product innovation and development initiatives to deliver measurable business outcomes. Working closely with business, product and delivery teams, this role provides end-to-end accountability for aligning innovation priorities with technology strategy, architecture and execution.
Focused on high-value and strategically important initiatives, the role ensures that opportunities are clearly defined, prioritised and delivered with strong alignment to enterprise standards and capabilities. The BSM acts as the primary IT point of accountability for GPI, working across Regional IT and Enterprise teams to translate innovation ambition into scalable, integrated and value-driven technology solutions.
Core Accountabilities
1. Business Partnership & Relationship Ownership
·Acts as the primary IT point of accountability for assigned business areas, owning the overall health and effectiveness of the business–IT relationship.
·Embeds with senior business leadership as a trusted advisor, contributing to business strategy discussions and representing IT perspectives.
2. Technology Strategy & Roadmap Ownership
·Accountable for creation, maintenance and communication of a clear, prioritised multi‑year technology roadmap aligned to business strategy, enterprise architecture standards and delivery capacity.
·Translates business strategy into coherent capability roadmaps spanning digital, ERP, data, AI, commercial and operational platforms.
3. Demand Shaping & Prioritisation
·Leads the shaping, constructive challenge and prioritization of new business demand, ensuring focus on initiatives that deliver the greatest business value.
·Partners with business leaders, Enterprise Architecture and PMO to sequence demand based on value, dependencies, risk and capacity.
4. End‑to‑End Ownership of Business Outcomes
·Accountable for ensuring that approved technology initiatives deliver their intended business outcomes and benefits.
·Works across business, delivery and operational teams to proactively identify risks, remove blockers and address issues that threaten value realisation.
5. Portfolio Oversight, Risk & Issue Escalation
·Provides end‑to‑end oversight of the business technology portfolio.
·Owns escalation and resolution of portfolio‑level risks, issues and dependencies affecting business outcomes.
·Ensures senior stakeholders have transparent, accurate views of progress, trade‑offs and decisions required.
6. Operational Accountability & Service Performance Visibility
·Accountable for ensuring business stakeholders have visibility of IT operational performance, service health, risks and impacts.
·Works with Service Management, vendors and platform teams to prioritise, escalate and resolve high‑impact or recurring operational issues.
7. Investment, Business Case & Value Management
·Partners with business and finance teams to shape technology investment cases, articulate expected value and agree success measures.
·Tracks and reports on benefits realisation for major initiatives to ensure value commitments are met.
8. Vendor & Partner Management
·Manages key technology and service partner relationships relevant to the portfolio.
·Ensures vendors deliver against contractual, value and roadmap expectations and contribute to innovation and ‘art of the possible’ discussions.
Leadership & People Responsibilities
·Acts as a senior leader within a matrixed delivery model, working closely with Business Analysts, Architects, Project Managers and other IT specialists across Business Partnering, delivery and platform teams.
·Sets clear direction aligned to the technology roadmap and agreed business outcomes, influencing and aligning cross‑functional teams
·Leads through influence and collaboration, providing coaching and informal feedback to matrix team members and partnering with functional line managers to support effective delivery and development.
Skills/Requirements
- Proven experience (typically 8-12+ years) in IT, Digital or Technology roles, with a strong track record of delivering business-facing technology solutions in close partnership with business stakeholders
- Demonstrated ability to operate as a trusted business partner, building credibility and working closely with stakeholders to understand priorities, shape demand and deliver meaningful outcomes
- Experience developing and maintaining technology strategies and roadmaps, translating business direction into clear, prioritised and actionable technology capabilities
- Strong experience owning or contributing to end-to-end delivery of initiatives, ensuring alignment across business, architecture, delivery and operational teams, and driving through to realised business value
- Commercially minded, with the ability to evaluate and articulate business value, supporting prioritisation and ensuring outcomes are aligned to business objectives
- Proven ability to operate effectively in complex, evolving environments, where priorities may not always be fully defined and require active shaping and alignment
- Ability to build strong relationships and influence stakeholders across business, IT and external partners, driving alignment and progress within a matrixed organisation
- Experience providing oversight of technology portfolios, including identifying and managing risks, issues and dependencies, and ensuring transparency and timely escalation where required
- Strong understanding of IT service and delivery models, with the ability to engage effectively across both change and operational contexts, including supporting the business during high-impact incidents and service issues
- Experience working with external vendors and partners, ensuring delivery quality and alignment to expected outcomes
- Experience working in product-oriented, innovation or R&D-led environments, with an understanding of how technology supports product development, innovation pipelines or experimentation, is advantageous
We can offer you a lot in return!
We empower each associate to #BecomeMoreAtKohler with a competitive total rewards package to support your health and wellbeing, access to career growth and development opportunities, a diverse and inclusive workplace, and a strong culture of innovation. With a genuine commitment to creating better tomorrows, we’re driving meaningful change in our mission to help people live gracious, healthy, and sustainable lives.
About Us
At our EMEA Corporate Services we support Kohler businesses in our region, we have an excellent team of dedicated associates focused on delivering exceptional customer service and ensuring every interaction is a genuine, positive and rewarding experience for both our internal and external customers. We represent the Corporate Functions found in Kohler, Wisconsin here in the EMEA region – Finance, Tax, IT, Internal Audit, Procurement, Regional Operations for Global Shared Services, Environment Health & Safety, Legal, & HR. We all pride ourselves on adding value to the Kohler businesses we support in the region and work closely with our Kohler Corporate colleagues in Wisconsin on global initiatives and projects.
Beyond the competitive benefits and compensation, Kohler proudly offers a rich history, steeped in creativity and a commitment to our associates and communities. We invite you to learn more about our culture and company at www.kohlercompany.com/careers
Kohler is an equal opportunity employer. It is Kohler’s policy to recruit, hire, and promote qualified personnel in all job classifications without regard to gender, age, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status or race. If, as an individual with a disability, you require any adjustments during the recruitment process, please contact the HR department through talentacquisitionuk@kohler.com
Note for Recruitment Agencies – the Kohler Talent Acquisition team is responsible for managing all current vacancies through direct hiring and referrals wherever possible. We do work with recruitment agencies and where we require external support, we will formally release those vacancies to the agencies on our Preferred Supplier List deemed best placed to assist us. Speculative CVs sent by any agency to Kohler Co. without a specific request by our Talent Acquisition Team will not be accepted and with no introduction fee applicable.
#LI-RJ1
#LI-hybrid
