Freelance Programme Manager

Hogarth is the Global Content Production Company. Part of WPP, Hogarth partners with one in every two of the world’s top 100 brands including Coca-Cola, Ford, Rolex, Nestlé, Mondelez and Dyson. With a breadth of experience across an extensive range of sectors, Hogarth offers the unrivaled ability to deliver relevant, engaging, and measurable content across all channels and media - both established and emerging. The number of channels at our fingertips; the need for speed; and the drive for mass personalisation, all mean that brands need different solutions. Our global team of over 7,500 craft and technology experts brings together creative, production and innovation to help clients navigate this exciting and ever-changing world of today’s content experience. WPP is the creative transformation company. We use the power of creativity to build better futures for our people, planet, clients and communities. Working at WPP means being part of a global network of more than 100,000 talented people dedicated to doing extraordinary work for our clients. We operate in over 100 countries, with corporate headquarters in New York, London and Singapore. WPP is a world leader in marketing services, with deep AI, data and technology capabilities, global presence and unrivalled creative talent. Our clients include many of the biggest companies and advertisers in the world, including approximately 300 of the Fortune Global 500. Our people are the key to our success. We\'re committed to fostering a culture of creativity, belonging and continuous learning, attracting and developing the brightest talent, and providing exciting career opportunities that help our people grow. We believe the best work happens when we\'re together, fostering creativity, collaboration, and connection. That\'s why we’ve adopted a hybrid approach, with teams in the office around four days a week. If you require accommodations or flexibility, please discuss this with the hiring team during the interview process. Overview You will lead programme delivery for an AI‑assisted production platform that blends workflow integration and applied AI to reduce production cycle time, improve consistency, and minimise rework. You will create the operating rhythm that helps a cross‑functional team ship predictably in a security‑constrained enterprise environment. A core part of the role is coordinating multiple teams and parallel workstreams (for example: UX/UI, integrations, applied AI, etc.), who might have different working rhythms and preferences. It’s your role to keep them aligned on shared milestones while managing dependencies, sequencing, and trade-offs. You will not be doing this alone. You will join a collaborative, high‑calibre team of engineers, applied AI/ML experts, product partners, and domain specialists. Your role is to help the team do its best work by improving clarity, coordination, and delivery flow. This role is about making delivery predictable and calm. Success means fewer surprises, faster decisions, and a team that can focus on building a trusted product. What You’ll Do Own the programme plan and delivery cadence Build and maintain an integrated delivery plan across discovery, build, rollout, and adoption. Run an effective cadence of ceremonies and forums (planning, dependency reviews, risk reviews, stakeholder updates). Ensure milestones, deliverables, and decision points are clear, tracked, and actively managed. Stakeholder and client engagement Serve as the programme‑level point of contact for clients and senior stakeholders. Provide regular, clear communication on delivery status, milestones, risks, and decisions. Support and lead governance forums, steering committees, and executive updates. Delivery assurance and quality Work with technical and delivery leads to ensure appropriate testing, integration, and release practices are in place. Coordinate release readiness (go/no‑go), rollout plans, and post‑release follow‑up. Agile leadership and facilitation Lead and facilitate agile ceremonies for one or more teams (stand‑ups, sprint planning, backlog refinement, sprint reviews, retrospectives). Use agile delivery tools (for example: Jira, Confluence, Azure DevOps, Trello) to manage backlogs, track progress, monitor metrics, and generate reports. Identify and help resolve conflicts within the team, promoting healthy communication and collaboration. Drive crossfunctional alignment and execution Coordinate engineering, applied AI, and business stakeholders to keep scope, timelines, and dependencies aligned. Translate ambiguity into a practical delivery approach: phases, releases, pilots, and go‑live readiness. Keep the team focused on outcomes and remove friction that slows delivery. Manage scope, dependencies, and change Track dependencies across systems, integrations, data availability, and environment readiness. Manage change requests with clear impact assessment on timeline, cost, and risk. Support the Product Manager in balancing new asks with roadmap commitments. Own RAID, governance, and reporting Maintain an up‑to‑date RAID log (risks, assumptions, issues, decisions) and ensure owners and mitigations are active. Produce concise, decision‑oriented reporting for stakeholders and leadership. Establish escalation paths and keep decisions moving. Support quality, readiness, and operationalisation Coordinate readiness activities: access, environments, logging/audit needs, monitoring, runbooks, and support processes. Ensure acceptance gates are understood and met, including evaluation plans for automated or AI‑assisted outputs. Drive release planning and cutover activities across teams. Improve delivery systems and ways of working Introduce lightweight processes that increase clarity without adding unnecessary overhead. Facilitate retrospectives and continuous improvement. Promote a culture of transparency, accountability, and psychological safety. What You’ll Bring Programme / delivery leadership experience 5+ years leading delivery for complex software programmes with multiple stakeholders and dependencies. Proven ability to run delivery across discovery, build, and rollout with measurable outcomes. We value a hybrid work model and collaborative culture, with accommodations discussed during interviews. WPP is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to particular characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers. 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