Operations Project Manager

Job Title: Project Manager

Location: Jersey City, NJ
Contract: 12 + Months Contract

Job Description:
DRIVE Project Implementation Americas seeks a Senior Project Manager with deep expertise in Global Banking and Capital Markets. The ideal candidate will manage multiple high-impact projects (e.g., strategic change management, new business/product initiatives, process re-engineering, and control framework establishment) and lead cross-functional initiatives requiring comprehensive company knowledge and a strong understanding of key business functions. Strong quantitative, analytical, and project management capabilities are essential.

Responsibilities:
Project Management:
• Manage and lead assigned projects to completion with delivery of agreed objectives
• Ensure that all projects follow Group Policies and Procedure – including proper Project Governance and reporting to senior management & stakeholders
• Create and lead appropriate project governance
• Identify and stabilize the scope of business topics to be addressed / resolved
• Identify and obtain the buy-in from the Primary Project Stakeholders and Sponsor
• Secure the resource plan and prioritization / funding of those resources
• Leverage expertise and problem-solving skills to propose solutions during each phase of the project
• Drive the delivery effort by maintaining project lists, organizing follow up meetings, creating and distributing meeting minutes
• Identify risk and dependencies that could jeopardize project execution.
• Ensure clear communication of goals, budget, risks, efforts involved, as well as on the progress of the project
• Work closely with all functions - Front office, Operations, Finance, IT, Compliance, Legal, Risk etc. to ensure successful delivery of project objectives.
• Manage situations of conflict and constraints to ensure the success of the project.

Business Analysis:
• Elicit business requirements using interviews & subject matter expertise
• Document requirements, business process descriptions, use cases, scenarios, task and workflow analysis
• Critically evaluate information gathered from multiple sources, reconcile conflicts, & decompose high-level information into details
• Abstract up from low-level information to a general understanding, and distinguish user requests from the true underlying needs
• Proactively communicate and collaborate with external and internal customers to deliver the following artifacts as needed: (1) Business Requirements Documents, (2) Test & Use Cases
• Challenge business users on their assumptions & how they expect to successfully implement requirement

Contribute to the building of maximum efficiency within the Firm:
• Analyse the current procedures and make change proposals to improve productivity, efficiency and risk control
• Work closely with the Operations and IT managers to properly measure the impact of new systems/processes on the staff's workload and determine the new staffing requirements where applicable.

Contribute to the successful implementation of new systems:
• Work with various users to clearly identify business requirements – from Front Office to Finance.
• Collaborate with IT to ensure that the system functionalities meet the user requirements.
• Propose procedural changes to take advantage of the new system functionalities.
• Facilitate the planning between IT and users to ensure all phases of the project are on track and that the appropriate level of testing is carried out.

Minimum Required Qualifications:
• Bachelor's degree from accredited university with focus on Finance, Economics, Business Administration or other relevant field of study.
• 6 – 8 years of relevant industry experience.
• Expertise in Front Office and Operations (functional or in a project capacity), with knowledge of Banking and Capital Market activities
o A keen focus on 'Process and Risk' awareness is a KEY CRITERIA for this position.
• Deep knowledge of & experience executing all project management concepts.
o Project planning, documentation experience, & stakeholder management is essential

Minimum Required Qualifications Cont'd:
• Excellent level of knowledge of MS Project, Excel, Word, and PowerPoint.
• Business Analyst experience is valuable
• The candidate:
o Must have an in-depth understanding of project life cycle and what each phase implies.
o Must have excellent communication and reporting skills – Both written and oral.
o Must be able to professionally and efficiently manage situations of conflict and work with collaborators to arrive at a solution.
o Needs to demonstrate the ability to adapt and learn new processes quickly.
o Needs to show ability to multi-task and shift gears for various topics and perimeter during the project life cycle (i.e. Knowledge of FO Products and processes, Operations, IT, Finance etc.).
o Must be able to demonstrate the ability to delve into complicated situations (issues, people, processes etc.), sort out the information and propose the solution/next steps.