Senior Program Manager

• Role Overview

General Insurance and Motor Insurance to lead and oversee multiple concurrent projects.

• Key Responsibilities

• Program Leadership & Governance

• Lead a multi-project program consisting of several concurrent IT projects within insurance, or financial technology domains.
• Provide direction, support, and performance management to assigned Project Managers.
• Establish program governance frameworks, reporting structures, and delivery standards.
• Ensure compliance with financial services regulatory requirements (e.g., AML, PCI-DSS, MAS/BNM guidelines depending on region).

• Planning & Delivery Management

• Develop and maintain integrated program plans covering timelines, dependencies, resources, risks, and budgets.
• Monitor project progress and drive corrective actions to address issues, delays, or deviations.
• Coordinate cross-functional delivery teams including business analysts, developers, QA, infrastructure, security, and vendor partners.
• Facilitate decision-making across stakeholders and escalate critical issues as needed.

• Stakeholder Engagement

• Serve as the primary point of contact for senior leadership and business sponsors.
• Present program status, dashboards, financial updates, and risk assessments.
• Build strong relationships with business units, operations, compliance, technology leads, and external vendors.

• Risk, Compliance & Quality Assurance

• Identify, assess, and manage program-level risks, dependencies, and constraints.
• Ensure project deliverables adhere to internal policies, cybersecurity standards, and regulatory expectations.
• Conduct program reviews, retrospectives, and continuous improvement initiatives.

• Financial & Resource Management

• Own program budget planning, forecasting, and cost control.
• Optimize resource allocation across multiple projects.
• Support procurement and vendor management activities, including contract negotiation and performance evaluation.

• Qualifications & Requirements

• Education & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Business, or related field; Master’s degree is a plus.

• 15+ years of experience in IT project/program management, 5 years in General and/or Motor Insurance domains with at least 3 years managing Project Managers.

• Experience in the financial services industry (banking, insurance, fintech, payments) is required.

• Technical & Domain Skills

• Strong understanding of SDLC methodologies (Agile, Scrum, Waterfall, Hybrid).
• Knowledge of financial systems such as core banking, digital channels, risk management systems, or payment platforms.
• Familiarity with regulatory frameworks and cybersecurity standards in financial services.

• Certifications (Preferred)

• PMP, PgMP, or PRINCE2
• Agile certifications (CSM, SAFe, PMI-ACP)
• ITIL Foundation

• Soft Skills

• Excellent leadership and people management skills.
• Strong communication and stakeholder engagement abilities.
• High level of analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making capability.
• Ability to thrive in a demanding, fast-paced environment.

• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• Program delivery on time, within budget, and aligned to scope.
• Stakeholder satisfaction and business value realization.
• Regulatory and audit compliance metrics.
• Team performance and engagement.
• Effective risk mitigation and issue resolution.

Added Advantage

Modern Architecture & Engineering Concepts

• Understanding of

  microservices architecture

  , APIs, and integration patterns.
• Familiarity with

  cloud platforms

  (AWS, Azure, GCP), including migration strategies (rehost, refactor, replatform).
• Knowledge of

  containerization & orchestration

  (Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift).
• Awareness of

  DevOps practices

  , CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code (IaC).
• Knowledge of

  application performance, scalability, and resilience

  concepts.
• Experience with modern programming frameworks and legacy stacks (Java, .NET, COBOL, mainframe, etc., depending on environment).

Legacy Systems & Transformation Challenges

• Understanding of monolithic architectures and technical debt.
• Experience with data migration, schema changes, and modernization of integration layers.
• Ability to work with SMEs to define modernization paths, carve-outs, and phased migrations.

Strategic Planning for Modernization

• Ability to define multi-year modernization roadmaps. Experience leading large-scale application modernization or digital transformation programs involving multiple application teams and parallel release streams.
• Skills in

  managing dependencies, sequencing workloads

  , and planning phased rollouts.
• Risk management around legacy instability, cutover planning, and downtime avoidance.
• Facilitate cross-squad coordination through Scrum-of-Scrums ceremonies, dependency mapping, and synchronized sprint planning across application, QA, DevOps, and architecture teams.