HOD: Portfolio and Programming: Permanent: Pretoria

Head Portfolio & Program Management: Menlyn: Permanent

The client is a specialist company providing managed solutions to banking, telecoms, retail, travel, broader e-commerce, and financial services sectors.

They create opportunities for new players in the banking and payments space.

• 70% of all clearing and settlement banks in South Africa are customers.
• 21currencies supported by our platform.
• 30+ billion Rand per month processed.
• Second largest VISA processor in SEMEA region.

The client helps banks and companies that want to launch financial products to move past any legacy issues and rapidly deploy cost effective, sophisticated banking and payments systems for the future.

Requirements:

Head Portfolio & Program Management is a leadership role, accountable for managing the clients’ programs that are mapped to the Company Strategy of offering Banking as a Service, Payments as a Service and Embedded Finance products and services to Banks and Corporates. The candidate will be accountable to improve organizational performance, oversee and coordinate the various projects and other strategic initiatives throughout the company, assist to drive organizational change through agile transformations, including assisting with the implementation of DevOps practices and principles.

What we are looking for:

A Portfolio & Program Manager that has worked and gained extensive experience in agile organization’s and has successfully led, managed, and delivered Programs and projects for various large corporates. We see the portfolio with Programs and projects as a collection of trains running on different tracks, yet headed to the same station, or goal with you as the Head the station conductor, directing the various project trains. We would like you to:

• Be able to build relationships at client C-Suite level as well as to be able to manage their and senior management’s expectations throughout execution.
• Demonstrate business acumen, understanding of strategy and be able to link these to the expected benefits of the Programs and projects managed.
• Align program management practices and processes with agile values such as collaboration, team autonomy and empowerment, delivering value to customers, and adapting to change in the moment.
• Bring agile and DevOps to life for teams across the company’s programs or individual projects by tailoring programs to the specific requirements and opportunities of the business.
• Be an influential in the portfolio, Program, and project management technology choices, as well as the client product technology choices being made and to be made.
• Be a portfolio and Program manager that is a team builder, that starts with hiring, you are needed to drive the hiring process allowing your team to focus on project delivery.
• Act as a partner and mentor as you are adept at the fundamentals of management: one-on-one meetings, giving feedback, and coaching.
• Mentor your various change teams to bring greatness to the table: ideas, processes, risk management, communication, client services and culture. At times, the team will struggle with decisions ranging from mobilization, planning, execution, and closure activities. Adept managers know when to intervene, or let the team continue to struggle to learn.
• Act as a buffer between teams and C-level management.

Main accountabilities:

To balance delivering artifacts, engaging with strategic decisions, managing stakeholders, and mitigating risks across the portfolio and Programs. With the ability to solve, or connect to people who can solve, and plan to mitigate any problem that impacts the strategic initiative that must be achieved. The following is an expected view of accountabilities:

Evaluate the state of the portfolio:

• Review and evaluate the portfolio by connecting with teams to identify any risk mitigation or improvement opportunities
• To stay connected and engaged enough with project teams to work in lockstep towards shared goals and ensure the project managers are supported and unblocked
• Research the external environment, and where appropriate identify and recommend external partners for the delivery of best of breed portfolio, Program, and project management technologies suitable for product or service software development.

Manage risks:

• Risk management is a key element of portfolio management. Risks include a project timeline slipping, changing requirements, or the discovery of additional stakeholders
• Be aware of anything that could impact the progress or outcome of the Program and related projects
• Take corrective actions to reduce or manage risks in the portfolio.

Run the program:

• Managing budgets and resources in cooperation with project managers and other client Heads of departments and other client Executives
• Supervise resource allocation and availability to assure maximum use of available resources taking into consideration customer demand versus resource availability i.e. resource and capacity management
• Defining the operating parameters and controls
• Maintaining the core elements of the program that set the foundation for team charters and other establishing documents.
• Engage with stakeholders
• Connect regularly with stakeholders to get a sense of the wider context that surrounds goals
• Partner with stakeholders, to help guide project teams.

Refine the operating model:

• Shape the operating model to enable how teams progress toward their goals. This can include establishing communication channels and reporting methods, identifying goals, establishing priorities across the entire portfolio and Program
• Assist with and ensure that the portfolio and Program solutions being developed will also need to be extended into operations to support reliability, performance, and security. How, when and by whom will it be supported
• Continuously optimize the operating model to increase the likelihood of success and reduce the impact of risks.

Support decisions:

• Decision-making that can take many forms, from running a meeting with decision-makers, to compiling background information on what decisions are needed, or doing a comparative analysis of multiple options
• Review options and evaluate outcomes to identify opportunities for improvement in systems, processes, or results.
• You will be allowed to shape the specifics of how you would like to engage with these practices.

Other:

• Responsible for his/her own work planning against objectives set in agreement with the COO
• Ensure effective internal communications both within the various change teams and across the organization.

Financial Accountabilities:

• Accountable and responsible for effective financial management, planning and monitoring across the portfolio, Program, and projects
• Invoicing and Debtor management support to the Finance team
• Provide monthly information to enable the creation of financial results and forecasts for the above teams.

Team Accountabilities:

• Ensure that the skills and experience of the Portfolio and Program management team members is consistent with its scientific, technological, and business needs for providing quality in current and future services
• Establish clear organizational structures and succession plans aligned with appropriate accountabilities, responsibilities and personal development for all Portfolio and Program management team members in line with any anticipated growth
• Provide support to team members in keeping with the client values, policies and procedures
• Comply with all relevant policies and procedures
• Complete all documents required by the company policies and procedures.

Undertake additional tasks and responsibilities as may be reasonably expected from the role to achieve the objectives of the Portfolio and Program Management team and strategy

Skills:

• High level of personal integrity and ethics
• Work Accountability and ownership mentality
• Portfolio, Program, and project management
• Financial Management
• Company budgeting and forecast
• Business Development
• Pattern & Problem-solving Analysis
• Process analysis and/or process engineering including process optimization
• Strong understanding and experience with Agile software development life cycles and the management thereof
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Outstanding interpersonal skills

Experience:

• At least 5 years’ experience in the same or similar position
• Detailed understanding and knowledge of retail banking, national and international payment systems such as SWIFT, Mastercard, Visa and digital currencies and the associated back-office process thereof, will be an advantage
• Portfolio, Program and Project Management experience in an Agile environment. Experience in DevOps practices will be an advantage
• Demonstrable and substantial experience in leading and managing change teams, 30+, including Program, project, quality assurance and client relationship teams. In addition, showing experience where business strategy was connected an agile portfolio management process through the definition of themes, goals and metrics
• Strong experience in managing Business Critical, Financial Sensitive, Highly Secure, always on 24/7 software projects
• Performance and line management of highly skilled teams, showing how an agile mindset was cultivated by establishing the thought process that involves understanding, collaborating, learning, and staying flexible to achieve high-performing results
• Experience of successfully delivering to market, several concurrent running, sophisticated software product releases, deployed into various environments showing how processes and tools were researched, selected, assessed, and then implemented so that teams can adapt to the change and deliver incremental value to customers.
• Master’s degree in the field of Portfolio, Program and project management or equivalent experience

Recruitment Note:

Communication will only be with shortlisted candidates jino.

The Candidate is hereby referred to the Company’s privacy policy available at which the Candidate hereby agrees to