Cys - Gcap Joint Venture Headquarters - Chief Architect

Leonardo is a global industrial group, among the main global players in Aerospace, Defence and Security that realises multi-domain technological capabilities in Helicopters, Aircraft, Aerostructures, Electronics, Cyber Security and Space. With over 60,000 employees worldwide, the company has a solid industrial presence in Italy, the UK, Poland and the US. It also operates in 150 countries through subsidiaries, joint ventures and investments. A key player in major international strategic programmes, it is a technological and industrial partner of governments, defence administrations, institutions and companies.

**Within the GCAP Joint Venture, in the GCAP Technical Leadership UO, we are looking for a Chief Architect for GCAP HQ in Reading (UK).**

The Head of Architecture is the senior technical authority accountable for defining and delivering Edgewing’s next-generation digital architecture in support of a complex, multinational defence programme. This role provides strategic architectural leadership to ensure the seamless integration of digital engineering, secure collaboration, platform interoperability, and long-term capability growth.
Reporting to the Chief Digital and Information Officer (CDIO), the Head of Architecture will shape and lead an architecture function that enables modular, scalable, and federated digital services across national boundaries, partners, and suppliers. They will define the architectural vision, lead a cross-functional architecture team, and drive coherence across digital, engineering, and mission domains through a modern, outcome-driven governance model.

**Key Capability Accountabilities**

- Strategic Architecture Leadership: Define and continuously evolve the enterprise and solution architecture strategy to enable the Joint Venture’s mission, focusing on modular open systems, digital engineering, zero trust security, and federated operations.

- Future Vision and Innovation Alignment: Partner with the Head of Technology to shape the forward-looking architecture roadmap, ensuring our digital strategy remains adaptive, innovative, and aligned with future threats, technologies, and mission needs.

- Team Leadership and Capability Development: Build and lead a high-performing architecture team, fostering deep collaboration with value stream leads, engineering authorities, and security teams. Provide mentorship, standards, and leadership to ensure architectural excellence across the organisation.

- Product-Platform-System Alignment: Work closely with the Chief Engineer to ensure seamless integration of digital, product, platform, and mission system architectures, aligning digital and physical design domains into a unified engineering strategy.

- Challenging the Norms: Actively challenge traditional defence design approaches, bringing fresh thinking, commercial best practice, and emerging technologies to reimagine how defence architectures are designed, integrated, and evolved.

- Federated, Mission-Driven Design: Champion a federated architecture approach that respects national sovereignty while enabling interoperability and collaboration at pace across three nations and multiple industrial partners.

- Outcome-Oriented Governance: Establish and lead architecture governance processes that focus on mission outcomes, value delivery, and design integrity. Act as chair of the Architecture Review Board and lead technical assurance forums.

- Secure and Sustainable Design: Lead the definition and integration of Zero Trust principles and mission-assured architectures that meet the highest security and export control standards.

**Objectives**

- Establish and embed a coherent, scalable, and secure digital architecture strategy for the Joint Venture.

- Enable delivery of a digital engineering backbone and secure collaboration capabilities by Initial Operating Capability (IOC).

- Shape a future-ready architecture with the Head of Technology, driving continuous innovation and evolution.

- Build an architecture function that partners seamlessly with engineering, security, and value stream delivery.

- Drive an architecture-led culture of innovation, modularity, and delivery confidence.

- Achieve architectural coherence across PLM, ERP, cloud, data, and secure communications systems.

**Seniority**:
Master (15+ anni).

**Essential Skills, Experience and Qualifications**:

- 15+ years of experience in solution architecture roles in complex, multidisciplinary digital or engineering programmes.

- Proven track record leading architectural transformation across large-scale defence, aerospace, or critical national infrastructure domains.

- Strong understanding of digital engineering environments, including PLM, MBSE, ERP, and digital twin architectures.

- Expert knowledge of architecture frameworks and methodologies (e.g. TOGAF, MoDAF/NAVAF, Zachman) and modern DevSecOps practices.

- Exceptional leadership and communication skills, with the ability to influence senior stakeholders and