Strategy & Projects Manager
£44,000 - £55,000+ (dependant on Experience) + Bonus + Benefits + subsidised restaurant, PHI
City

THE COMPANY

They are an expanding bank with an excellent reputation and a strong collegiate culture and friendly and team orientated working environment. Despite the pandemic they continue to be profitable. They are currently undergoing a change the bank process and this a new role created as part of that ongoing process.

SKILLS EXPERIENCE AND QUALIFICATIONS

  • Experience in the financial services industry and banking products and services (desirable);
  • Proven track record of strategic thinking, leading projects and managing change;
  • Evidence of overseeing change where change was successful;
  • Expertise in project management methodologies and associated reporting e.g. Prince2 / PMP, APM, Agile, Lean, Six Sigma etc would be an advantage;
  • Excellent MS Office skills, particularly Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint;
  • Experienced in dealing with internal and external Legal, Compliance and Audit departments;
  • High degree of self-efficacy, pragmatic, willing and able to get hands dirty
  • Demonstrable experience of influencing business leadership teams, strategic thinking and prioritization;
  • Candidate should ideally be educated to degree standard;
  • Project management qualification is desirable e.g. APM Project Professional Qualification (PPQ), Prince2 practitioner

THE ROLE

Reporting to the Banking Chief Operating Officer (COO), the Strategy & Projects Manager will be responsible for supporting the COO in developing strategy and leading projects for the department. This will include ensuring that the department has a clearly communicated strategy; tracking progress against strategy for internal stakeholders[; delivering benefits for the banking department through new processes, systems or ways of working; setting the department up for success with pro-active steps taken to make improvements and providing assurance for stakeholders that projects are being driven forward and the agreed benefits will be delivered. Specifically:

Strategy

  • Support the COO with the development of departmental strategy
  • Lead on the presentation and communication of strategy with clear objectives and develop templates to track progress / report performance
  • Explore and research the market to identify potential strategic opportunities whether acquisitions or new products or thematic change
  • Apply strategic theory /models to assess and priorities initiatives including:
    • Cost / benefit analysis, applying different scenario / sensitivities
    • business impact and risk assessment with appropriate mitigations
  • Work closely with other departments to understand developments in regulation, or technology to ensure the department remains abreast of change.

Lending Interface Project

  • Lead the department's new lending user interface project to automate and enhance end to end lending processes
  • Own & approve business design and requirements, delivery road map, sprint goals and outputs, as well as any change to this scope
  • Provide guidance to the wider delivery team, hosting a weekly working group to monitor progress and provide direction on issues as and when they arise
  • Work with the project manager to ensure stakeholders are well informed of progress with presentations at the monthly Lending SteerCo meetings
  • Work with the Banking Change team to oversee business readiness

Other Projects

  • Represent the department on a series of bank-wide projects
  • Drive change within the department by challenging the status quo and considering potential for commercial benefits, efficiencies or risk mitigation.
  • Streamline the process for portfolio reviews (Anti-money laundering reviews, customer exposure reviews and relationship reviews) to achieve efficiencies through smart sequencing logic and integration within a Managers dashboard
  • Leverage technology (such as robotics) to achieve efficiencies