Senior Project Manager

Empowering Africa’s tomorrow, together…one story at a time.

With over 100 years of rich history and strongly positioned as a local bank with regional and international expertise, a career with our family offers the opportunity to be part of this exciting growth journey, to reset our future and shape our destiny as a proudly African group.

Job Summary

The purpose of the Senior Project Manager role is to lead and manage the successful end-to-end delivery, coordination and implementation of business transformation & change projects that enable the HL business to achieve its strategic goals and objectives.

Job Description

Key Accountabilities:

Accountability: Project Delivery

• Facilitate business case formulation that clearly articulates the product value proposition,
• Study all aspects of the defined business strategy to ensure that there is clarity on the requirements of identified strategic initiatives and a high degree of alignment.
• Drive end to end delivery of the assigned projects through a robust project planning and reporting to ensure that overdue items are brought back in line or with renegotiated delivery timelines.
• Coordinate project activities and their interdependencies in pursuit of the desired goals by providing leadership, influencing and directing the transition.
• Ensure that required steering committee reporting is facilitated.
• Provide high level conceptual input into the business design of the area.
• Ensure smooth transition of the project to business as usual with a focus on continued delivery after closure.
• Achieve the project objectives within the given cost and schedule constraints and with the allocated resources.
• Make the required decisions or facilitate decision making to ensure that the agreed objectives will be achieved.
• Manage impact on the project objectives, when scope changes and project changes that have time, quality or cost implications occur.
• Perform effective project planning and estimating, as well as co-ordination of requirements with other support groups and team.
• Ensure effective allocation of resources and optimum utilisation thereof.
• Establish effective communication network.
• Manage team dynamics including resolution of conflicts.
• Ensure successful integration of the solution into the business through appropriate organisational change management interventions.
• Report project status to senior management, sponsor and key stakeholders.
• Develop contingency plans and exception handling to ensure effective management of deviations and future threats.
• Manage users’ involvement with the Project and delivery teams by securing availability of critical time inputs.
• Produce and maintain all Project Control Documents as required by the delivery management processes aligned with Absa’s standardized Product Development Life cycle (SDLC) framework
• Ensure all project work products are subjected to best-practice Quality assurance and Configuration Management processes and standards.
• Ensure that benefits defined in business cases are realised and that potential shortfalls or changes in the environment are highlighted to steering committees. Make recommendations to realign the project or stop it should it becomes apparent that intended benefits will not be realised.
• Participate in the funding negotiations for each of the initiatives/projects under management. Ensure that separate cost centres and systems reference numbers are allocated and that all costs for the project are accounted for.
• Recommend project expenses for approval within budget and up to the assigned limit. Escalate other items through to the project sponsors.
• Support project team members on the technical aspects of their delivery including business analysis, design and change management skills.
• Review the performance of project team members against project timelines, agreed outputs and defined quality standards. Ensure that proper consequence management is put in place for poor delivery.
• Ensure that the defined engagement model and business rules are implemented and adhered to in the area of responsibility and create corrective actions where required.
• Drive a culture of proactive compliance within projects to support compliance objectives of the business area.
• Complete attestations to testify to the adequacy of controls on request review audit logs to ensure adequate attention.
  
  

Accountability: Project Governance

• Define and manage Project Governance.
• Ensure all projects undertaken by the business area conform to the Group's change methodology and review project documentation/evidence for each component prior to requesting quality assurance reviews on the work completed. Ensure that findings raised on quality assurance are addressed.
• Action and drive a culture of proactive compliance in the function.
• Conduct root cause analysis, design and implement mitigation plans to ensure Group is prepared for future disruption in production.
• Ensure the development of project update reports according to the frequencies determined by key stakeholders.
• Ensure all risks and issues are properly identified, evaluated, logged, classified and escalated as required.
• Review project risk logs to identify high impact high probability items and work with team leaders to ensure that adequate risk mitigation and risk acceptance takes place.
• Ensure that the team maintains an adequate log of project activities and report items to group change where required.
• Review the work prepared or executed by members of the project teams to ensure adequate quality and completeness.
  
  

Accountability: Risk Management

• Monitor all business risk activities (including business assurance and operational risk management) within the operating environment through obtaining feedback and providing guidance for tactical plans to ensure compliance to Group standards.
• Drive a culture of proactive compliance and risk management within the executive team and the function as a whole.
• Implement risk and conformance management structures and reporting frameworks to proactively manage business risks and provide an early warning system on an EXCO level.
• Review the risk management and compliance practices of the function as a whole and highlight areas that require improvement to leaders in the team. Ensure that they understand their responsibility for risk ownership.
• On a quarterly basis, evaluate of the status of Operational and Principle Risks within the business area and complete the required attestations to confirm control status.
• Present the business area requirements in various forums.
  
  

Accountability: Relationship and Stakeholder Management

• Liaise and engage with various internal Stakeholders to secure their respective support in the implementation of transformation strategies and also ensuring capacity exists to implement the change.
• Review and report transformation performance and trends to the respective exco as well as other stakeholders.
• Manage and influence wider team individuals to deliver transformation projects and keep to the agreed timelines and commitments.
• Maintain and develop awareness of remediation management requirements, issues and changes across the business.
• Interact with executive management to appraise them of developments and progress in implementing transformation frameworks, processes and standards.
• Manage key stakeholders across the business by ensuring their issues, objectives and priorities are reflected in the agreed solutions, both individually and through delegation and management of subordinates.
• Support business in the conversion of data extracts into relevant reports and data sets as required (which includes compiling Management Information and ad-hoc queries) by converting underlying raw data into useful information according to business requirements while adhering to agreed deadlines.
  
  

Education And Experience Required

• Degree/ Honours.
• Project Management Diploma or Certification.
• Essential – 8 to 10 years project management experience, preferably in a financial services environment.
• Preferrable – 4 or more years’ of digital transformation experience managing the delivery of strategic initiatives and/or business process efficiency improvements.
  
  

Skills

• Planning and Execution (Advanced)
• Financial Management (Advanced)
• Risk Management (Advanced)
• People Management (Advanced)
• Understanding of business process (Advanced)
• Extensive Project Management Skills (Advanced)
• Networking and relationship management (Advanced)
• Influencing senior stakeholders (Advanced)
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills (Advanced)
• Strong influencing and negotiating skills (Advanced)
• Relationship management at executive level (Advanced)
• Commercial awareness (Advanced)
• Manage activities with varied complexities (Advanced)
• Effective Leadership of teams across business clusters/functional areas (Advanced)
  
  

Education

Bachelor`s Degrees and Advanced Diplomas: Business, Commerce and Management Studies (Required)

Absa Bank Limited is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. In compliance with the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998, preference will be given to suitable candidates from designated groups whose appointments will contribute towards achievement of equitable demographic representation of our workforce profile and add to the diversity of the Bank.

Absa Bank Limited reserves the right not to make an appointment to the post as advertised