Senior Project Manager

Job description

Role – Senior Project / Program Manager

Experience – 10+ Years

Role Summary

An experienced Senior Project / Program Manager responsible for end-to-end delivery of multiple enterprise initiatives across customer operations, policy administration, underwriting, CRM, digital channels, and technology. The role establishes integrated plans and governance, aligns business and technology teams, controls risks and dependencies, and provides executives with reliable visibility of progress, decisions, customer impact, and release readiness. It applies Agile, Waterfall, or hybrid methods according to delivery needs.

Key Responsibilities:

Enterprise Delivery & Program Control

• Own concurrent initiatives from scope definition and mobilization through design, build, testing, implementation, stabilization, and operational handover.

• Develop integrated WBS, milestone and critical-path plans, delivery calendars, resource assumptions, and owner-level action plans.

• Translate strategic outcomes and customer needs into executable work packages with clear deliverables, acceptance criteria, dependencies, and decision points.

• Drive recovery plans where scope, resources, approvals, defects, or dependencies threaten committed milestones.

Stakeholder, Governance & Portfolio Management

• Align executive, business, operations, product, customer-experience, compliance, and technology stakeholders in a matrix environment.

• Lead governance and delivery forums; maintain RAG reporting, RAID and decision logs, milestone tracking, forward outlook, and executive escalations.

• Coordinate prioritization, estimation, capacity, sequencing, and delivery trade-offs across multiple business units and technology teams.

• Prepare gate submissions, closure reports, lessons learned, and benefits-realization assessments with complete supporting evidence.

Product, Technology & Release Delivery

• Partner with Product Owners and business leads to validate customer journeys, roadmaps, scope, backlog priorities, and release plans.

• Coordinate delivery across APIs, backend services, CRM, policy-administration systems, batch ingestion, data remediation, mobile/web applications, and third parties.

• Govern SIT, UAT, regression, defect triage, retesting, deployment, cutover, rollback, operational support, and go/no-go readiness.

• Integrate privacy, legal, compliance, operational-risk, information-security, audit, and app-store requirements throughout delivery.

Agile, Risk & Commercial Management

• Facilitate delivery syncs, planning, refinement, reviews, retrospectives, workshops, and focused war rooms where these improve execution.

• Remove or escalate impediments and distinguish start blockers from dependencies that must be resolved before testing, release, or customer use.

• Support budget and funding confirmation, cost-benefit assessment, procurement follow-up, vendor coordination, and benefits tracking.

Key Measurables

• Delivery against approved scope, milestones, quality standards, and release commitments, with transparent variance management.

• Accurate and timely integrated plans, executive reporting, RAID records, governance evidence, and decision follow-through.

• Effective risk mitigation, dependency control, stakeholder alignment, and recovery planning.

• Controlled releases with acceptable defect leakage, minimal customer disruption, and prompt stabilization.

Mandatory Skills

Primary Skills

• 10+ years of project, program, portfolio, or enterprise delivery experience, including complex end-to-end initiatives in matrix organizations.

• Proven management of multiple concurrent initiatives, integrated workstreams, cross-functional teams, and complex dependencies.

• Strong command of WBS and schedule development, critical-path control, RAID management, delivery recovery, and executive governance.

• Advanced stakeholder management, influencing, negotiation, facilitation, decision framing, and escalation capabilities.

• Practical experience with Agile, Waterfall, and hybrid delivery and the full SDLC.

• Working knowledge of APIs, system and data integration, non-functional requirements, SIT, UAT, regression, deployment, and stabilization.

• Proficiency with Jira, Confluence, Microsoft Project, Microsoft 365, Teams, and equivalent delivery and reporting tools.

• Excellent written communication, presentation, analytical reasoning, prioritization, and structured problem-solving skills.

Secondary Skills

• Budget planning, cost-benefit analysis, benefits tracking, procurement follow-up, vendor management, and commercial awareness.

• Business-process and customer-journey analysis, operational-readiness planning, and change coordination.

• Ability to balance strategic thinking with detailed execution under compressed timelines.

Domain Experience

• Life insurance, banking, or regulated financial-services transformation across customer operations and technology.

• Policy administration, underwriting, straight-through processing, CRM, digital self-service, and mobile/web customer channels.

• Privacy, legal, compliance, operational risk, information security, fraud prevention, audit, and regulatory readiness.

• Customer authentication, trusted-device controls, data handling, analytics, digital disclosures, APIs, core systems, and third-party services.

Education & Certifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience; demonstrated delivery capability is more important than field of study.

• PRINCE2 Practitioner, PMP, or an equivalent project-management certification is preferred.

• Agile, Scrum, SAFe, Kanban, product-delivery, CRM, technology, risk, or change certification is advantageous.

Preferred Candidate Profile

• Collaborative and calm; creates clarity and accountability without relying on positional authority.

• Constructively challenges unrealistic plans, distinguishes genuine blockers from manageable dependencies, and recommends credible options.

• Results-oriented and detail-aware while retaining sight of customer impact, quality, risk, sustainability, and wider portfolio outcomes.

Success Criteria

• Initiatives operate against credible baselines, aligned ownership, timely decisions, controlled execution, and transparent reporting.

• Business, technology, regulatory, security, testing, operations, and support teams are ready at each delivery gate.

• Production transitions are controlled, customer disruption is minimized, and post-release issues are stabilized promptly.

• Benefits and operational outcomes are assessed and lessons learned become practical delivery improvements.