Chief Customer Officer

The post holder will be a full member of the UKHO’s Executive Leadership Team, contributing to the UKHO’s wider strategic direction and leadership, helping to shape the digital future of the organisation. 

The role leads the customer-focused commercial strategy, including business development, customer experience and product strategy, satisfying our defence customer needs, whilst fulfilling our public task. 

This role will sustain a healthy level of commercial returns from our established merchant shipping market, whilst developing adjacent markets that build out from core ADMIRALTY navigation business. We will exploit the potential of our data assets and expertise as we evolve into a fully digital service provider and data-centric organisation.

• To bring commercial insight, experience and expertise to the UKHO Executive Leadership Team and contribute fully to the overall strategic management of the UKHO, especially in all areas of customer, market and ADMIRALTY business development.
• To provide empowering and inspiring leadership, creating a culture of trust as a platform for promoting innovation, creativity and diversity of thought; and building, developing and motivating a high-performing team.
• To deliver the UKHO’s sales revenue and gross margin targets, enhancing the UKHO’s ADMIRALTY digital products and services to ensure our trusted brand remains the choice of the world’s mariners, remains competitive, and continues to adapt to reflect the developing needs of a maritime sector that is undergoing a rapid digital transformation.
• To be the lead ‘Customer Champion’ for the UKHO, ensuring that our customers are at the centre of everything we do, in a way that embeds a customer-focused culture throughout the organisation.

Essential experience criteria: 

• Experienced customer leader, at a senior level, with a track-record of collaborative accomplishment in commercial functions, notably in sales, marketing, digital service delivery, and business development.
• Experience of operating in a digital-first organisation, recognising the importance of building a customer-centric culture, working in multi-disciplinary teams, promoting an entrepreneurial growth mindset, and championing diversity and inclusion.
• Experienced in delivering high-quality information products and services to meet and excite market needs, delivering new and existing revenue and profit streams through the application of digital products and services.
• Experienced in driving and delivering sales and meeting challenging sales targets, both in terms of establishing new business and maximising existing market potential. 

Leadership behaviours:

• A high-performing executive level team player, who works collaboratively and engenders co-operation, at all levels.
• Change management experience within organisations that have undergone substantial digital transformation.
• Outstanding communication, influencing and negotiating skills; able to build trust and credibility quickly across multiple stakeholder groups.
• Experience of building dynamic multi- disciplinary teams to create new business capability at the intersection of customer insight, technology and commercial operations.
• Building and leading teams, role modelling an innovative, entrepreneurial spirit, creative thinking with a questioning mindset.

Alongside your salary of £110,000, Ministry of Defence contributes £31,867 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides. 

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

Green Park is managing this competition on behalf of the MOD. To apply for this post, please submit the following to the advertised site no later than 23:59 Sunday 12th October 2025. 

• A CV setting out your career history, with key responsibilities and achievements. Please ensure you have provided reasons for any gaps within the last two years and include contact details for two referees.
• A supporting statement of suitability (maximum 1000 words) that outlines your interest in this particular organisation and role, and your fit against the essential experience criteria set out in the person specification and role description.
• A completed ‘Diversity monitoring and conflicts of interest’ form found via the PDF attached to this job advert (Page 10). All information is anonymous and is not used as a part of your application.
• If you would like to apply under the Disability Confident Scheme, the Veteran’s Scheme, or the Redeployment Interview Scheme, please fill out the form found via the PDF attached to this job advert (Page 10). 

Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use. 

External candidates who join the MOD and are new to the Civil Service will be subject to a six-month probation period. 

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment. 

This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years. An assignment duration is the period of time a Senior Civil Servant is expected to remain in the same post to enable them to deliver on the agreed key business outcomes. The assignment duration also supports your career through building your depth of expertise. 

As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above. This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.