Ports, Minerals & Coastal Infrastructure Director

Advert Close date: 19th October 2026

Purpose of Role: Lead the strategy, performance and growth of The Crown Estate's Ports, Coastal Infrastructure & Marine Minerals portfolios. Accountable for sector strategy, budgets, portfolio performance, customer relationships, programme delivery and team leadership, supporting delivery of TCE, Marine and Infrastructure & Energies priorities whilst enabling energy system integration and sustainable growth.

As a senior leader in TCE and a member the Marine Leadership Group (MLG), contribute to leadership of the wider Marine business and support delivery of Marine priorities and cross-business outcomes. This includes supporting the implementation of the Marine Delivery Routemap and the TCE strategic priorities and values, providing leadership to your team and beyond to support TCE’s values, behaviours and operating model.

Main accountabilities:

• Strategic Leadership

  • Develop and evolve the Ports, Coastal Infrastructure & Marine Minerals strategy based on market insights, policy developments, customer needs and technology trends, in alignment with TCE, Marine and I&E strategy

  • Position The Crown Estate as a leader across ports, coastal infrastructure and marine minerals and help shape market and policy development

• Performance, KPIs & Commercial Outcomes

  • Own sector performance, setting clear KPIs/OKRs and ensuring delivery against financial, commercial and sustainability objectives

  • Ensure decisions are evidence-led and optimise long-term value creation

• Budget & Investment Responsibility

  • Hold accountability for sector budgets and resource allocation

  • Lead the development of business cases to support new opportunities and enabling actions

  • Work with Commercial, Finance, Investments and Legal colleagues to progress opportunities through the appropriate governance processes

• Portfolio & Asset Management

  • Provide oversight of the Ports, Coastal Infrastructure & Marine Minerals portfolio, ensuring effective lifecycle management, risk mitigation and value optimisation

  • Prioritise opportunities, assets and resources to support delivery of strategic objectives

• Programme Delivery

  • Lead delivery of the Ports, Coastal Infrastructure & Marine Minerals programme pipeline, ensuring clear governance, milestones and cross-business alignment

  • Work with SD&O, Commercial, Delivery teams and specialist colleagues to ensure effective execution

• Contract & Partner Management

  • Oversee key partner, supplier, customer and managing agent relationships

  • Ensure strong commercial discipline, performance management and value for money

• Stakeholder & Customer Leadership

  • Build and maintain strong relationships with customers, regulators, government, system operators and industry stakeholders

  • Own customer strategy and drive partnership-based solutions that unlock new opportunities, innovation and long-term relationships

  • Develop and maintain a pipeline of future opportunities through customer engagement, market insight and strategic partnerships, supporting long-term sector growth and value creation

• Team Leadership

  • Lead and develop a high-performing team, fostering an inclusive, collaborative and commercially minded culture

  • Build capability, succession and strong cross-functional working across the business

• Risk, Safety & Sustainability

  • Demonstrate visible leadership in health, safety and wellbeing

  • Ensure robust governance, compliance and risk management

  • Embed sustainability, net-zero and nature-positive outcomes into decision making and delivery

• One TCE

  • Contribute to Marine, Infrastructure & Energies and Enterprise priorities

  • Actively contribute as a member of the Marine Leadership Group

  • Lead or support cross-business initiatives and promote collaboration across The Crown Estate

  • Lead or support strategic initiatives across The Crown Estate beyond the role's immediate portfolio, deploying expertise and capability where required to meet evolving organisational priorities

Most important skills based requirements:

• Proven leadership experience within ports, coastal infrastructure, marine minerals, infrastructure, marine or related sectors

• Strategic leadership experience within infrastructure, marine, energy or related sectors

• Strong commercial, financial and customer leadership capability

• Experience developing sector strategies, partnerships and complex programmes

• Strong stakeholder management, influencing and negotiation skills

• Entrepreneurial and innovative mindset, with the ability to identify emerging opportunities and respond to changing market, policy and customer needs

• Experience operating within complex matrix organisations

• Experience leading diverse technical and commercial teams

• Commitment to health, safety, sustainability and responsible business practices

Our Offering / benefits:

As well as a competitive salary, pension and performance related bonus offering, we have a wealth of benefits available ranging from flexible working; market leading family policies and shopping discounts in the West End, to private healthcare; life and critical illness cover and 28 days holiday with the option to buy more. We value work life balance and your wellbeing highly, enabling you to be your best self to work.

Disability Disclaimer:

We are a proud disability confident employer and operate the offer of interview scheme Disability Confident employer scheme - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

We are happy to offer alternative application methods or formats and can be flexible on our process to enable you to have the best opportunity.

If you have any questions about our recruitment process or would like to talk about adjustments, please contact us directly, or at careers@thecrownestate.co.uk

Please note that if we receive a high volume of applications, we may close this advert early. We encourage you to apply as soon as possible.