Description
My client, a globally recognised, leading Financial Services organisation has a fantastic opportunity for a Programme Manage (Strategic Pricing) to join on a contract basis.
12 month contract initially, competitive day rate available.
Please note that a technical background (ideally systems implementation knowledge/experience) is preferred over purely operational experience.
Background:
This division is responsible for managing the acquisition, validation, maintenance and distribution of market reference and pricing data globally across multiple Group business entities. It has 350 staff worldwide, with primary operations in 2 offshore sites and 3 onshore sites.
The organisation is investing in a multi-year, multi-million $ programme to build and deliver a centralised Strategic Pricing Platform to maximise processing for source, load, validation and 'gold copy' intra-day and EOD 'snap' price distribution. The aim is to enable significant cost reductions, cost avoidance, control improvements and much more cost effective consumption of Vendor pricing data. In addition it will free up bandwidth in the operational pricing teams to allow greater focus on providing an improved service to internal and external clients. The Strategic Pricing Program Manager will manage the delivery of the strategic pricing platform and associated business process change and lead the adoption of this new system across various parts of the organisation.
Key Responsibilities:
This role will be responsible for the leading & managing the multi-year programme which encapsulates design and delivery of the core product, evolving processes and organisation, and adoption of the product across multiple systems.
Key responsibilities of this role are:
- Definition, ownership and delivery of the strategic pricing product roadmap
- Define and agree a phased product implementation approach with key stakeholders to manage delivery risk and provide opportunity for early benefit realisation
- Lead and manage the implementation and ensure product is delivered on time and budget
- Ensure that the delivered solution is robust, scalable & extensible, easily supportable, performant to current and future business requirements.
- Manage the delivery relationship with the chosen product vendor
- Drive the detailed functional analysis with global analyst team and secure required sign offs to build & deliver the defined product phases. Work across all departments of GDS, ensuring that requirements from each area are met and their considerations included.
- Establish and chair appropriate governance forums which include representatives across various business areas.
- Participate in relevant Steering Committee's to inform key stakeholders within the business lines of progress on business driven initiatives
- Establish a BAU and third line support capability in the team; ensure the platform is supported in production during the early phases and later successfully handover to the Production Support team.
Previous knowledge/experience:
To be considered for this excellent opening, candidates are expected to have a solid track record in successful project delivery:
- Solid understanding of the Financial Services business, ideally with experience of Global Markets and Securities Services
- Experience of 3rd party product delivery and software vendor management.
- Strong delivery management background gained in Financial Services IT.
- Thorough understanding of market and reference data, in terms of both its acquisition, management and distribution, as well as its use, criticality and the typical issues it causes across the different environments, markets, asset classes and instrument types within each.
- Understanding of valuation & typical pricing requirements for Investment Banking products including Equity, Exchange Traded Derivatives, Collective Investment Schemes, Fixed Income and FX
- Solid understanding of the theory and practice of delivering structured change in a comparable environment.
- Strong relationship building and maintenance skills and track record of successful engagement with senior business and technology stakeholders.
- Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written, and a demonstrable track record of successfully interacting, influencing and communicating at all levels with due regard to the nature of the audience.
- Proven ability to successfully lead and motivate others.
- Good negotiation and conflict resolution skills with the ability to drive and champion change within an environment of comparable size & complexity.
- Experience of Agile delivery techniques, having delivered using Agile methodology in previous roles.
If you are ready for your next assignment and recognise this as the excellent opportunity that it is, then please submit your CV ASAP and call me.
McGregor Boyall is an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate based on race, religion, gender, age, sexuality, gender identification, or physical ability.