Senior Project Manager

The Senior Project Manager is accountable for the successful delivery of complex strategic and business change initiatives across the organisation. The role provides leadership to project teams, ensuring projects are delivered in accordance with agreed scope, time, cost, quality and governance requirements. In this role you will have the opportunity to make a significant contribution on our organisation by managing large-scale projects that drive change across the business.
Working closely with Executive Sponsors, Business Leads, Portfolio Leads and third-party suppliers, you will lead various impactful business and technology initiatives that underpin the organisations future business and IT strategy, whilst adhering to regulatory requirements. You will manage stakeholder relationships, provide confidence in delivery and drive the continuous improvement of project management standards and practices. The successful candidate will demonstrate prior experience of delivering large, complex initiatives within a financial services environment and will require leading complex projects from inception to completion. Whilst the role will not have direct line management responsibility but will require managing and coordinating multiple project teams across different disciplines, reporting to senior management and Executive stakeholders.

Key Accountabilities

• Lead the end-to-end delivery of complex change initiatives from mobilisation through to implementation and benefits realisation aligned to the agreed Change Framework.
• Develop and maintain integrated project plans, schedules and delivery roadmaps.
• Ensure projects are delivered within agreed scope, budget, timescales and quality parameters.
• Manage project budgets, forecasts and financial controls.
• Oversee project governance activities including steering committees, working groups and executive reporting.
• Drive delivery through effective management of dependencies, assumptions, risks and issues.
• Provide clear reporting and management information to support informed decision-making.
• Ensure project controls are implemented and operating effectively throughout the project lifecycle.
• Build strong relationships with Executive Sponsors, senior leaders and key stakeholders.
• Influence decision-making and secure stakeholder commitment to project outcomes.
• Facilitate cross-functional collaboration across business, technology and third-party suppliers.
• Manage and resolve escalations while maintaining stakeholder confidence.
• Promote best practice, knowledge sharing and lessons learned across the change community.
• Maintain consistent reporting across workstreams using standard templates and cadence Provide updates to Portfolio Leads and change governance forums and escalate key risks/issues
• Ensure alignment with central PMO standards, controls, and delivery assurance
• Establishing teams, in consultation with other parts of the organisation, to ensure the efficient delivery of projects (such teams to be either real or virtual)
• Responsibility for the efficient running of these teams by setting project objectives and working within a matrix management environment.
• Responsibility for the day-to-day task management of Business and Operational Analysts assigned to projects.

Knowledge, Skills & Experience

• Extensive experience (7+ years) of delivering complex change initiatives within Financial Services.
• Sound understanding of risk management and regulatory compliance in a financial services context
• Proven experience managing multiple projects and competing priorities.
• Strong understanding of project governance, risk management and controls.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills, including Executive and C-suite engagement.
• Experience working with both Agile and Waterfall delivery methodologies.
• Strong financial acumen, including budget management and business case development
• Excellent communication, facilitation and presentation skills.
• Ability to influence without direct authority.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities.
• Experience working with outsourced service providers and technology partners.
• Good IT skills including all elements of Microsoft Office
• PRINCE2 Practitioner, APM PMQ, PMP or equivalent qualification.

Key Competencies

• Strong leadership to provide clear direction, creating accountability and developing high-performing teams.
• Strategic thinking and understands organisational objectives, aligning delivery activity to strategic outcomes.
• Builds credibility and gains commitment from senior stakeholders across the organisation.
• Resilience and adaptability in a highly regulated, deadline-driven environment
• Strong negotiation and influencing skills
• Commitment to high standards of governance and client outcomes
• Drives projects to successful outcomes whilst balancing risk, quality, time and cost.
• Delivers clear, concise and impactful communication tailored to different audiences.
• Challenges existing approaches and drives improvements to processes, frameworks and ways of working.
• Ability to flex time management responsibilities and stay calm under pressure.
• Self-motivated and able to act on own initiative

A little about us 
We’re the Nucleus Financial Platforms group and we help make retirement more rewarding. People come first - whether it’s our colleagues, or the advisers and customers we support, we know that working in partnership and collaboration leads to the best outcomes. Together, we’ve shaped the platform to how it is today. We work hard, and we celebrate hard too.  Our ambition is to create a platform with a difference, putting the customer centre stage meant tearing up the rule book and starting from scratch. We’ve come a long way since then, but our mission remains just as focused. That’s why our culture, values, and social responsibility are things we keep at the top of our agenda – because we know they matter and have a big impact.  Our culture is one of the many things that sets us apart from the pack. We want to have an environment where our people feel that they can make a real difference, know they’ll be rewarded for their efforts and more importantly, enjoy themselves at work.  Are we a perfect match?
Inclusion and diversity at Nucleus 
As with most things in life, who cares, wins. We really care about inclusion.  For us it’s not a tick box exercise; inclusion and diversity are embedded in our culture and everything we do. It’s a commercial imperative. It isn’t about being PC. It’s about being future-relevant and durable. We owe it to ourselves and the industry to ensure we are playing our part in creating a fair, balanced and transparent financial services sector.  More diversity means broader experience, a wider set of perspectives and a better collective ability to problem-solve. And it means being more representative of customer groups, which supports areas such as product development.  At Nucleus, we offer a generous blend of benefits for the things that really matter to our people, including a non-contributory pension, bonus, enhanced parental leave, paid time off for emergencies, health and wellbeing initiatives and flexible working options.