Key Roles and Responsibilities1. Project Delivery Leadership and Governance
- Provide strategic leadership and oversight of assigned projects and programs, ensuring delivery against agreed scope, timelines, budgets, quality standards and customer commitments.
- Establish delivery targets, governance frameworks, performance indicators and accountability structures for Project Managers.
- Monitor portfolio performance, including project progress, financials, resource utilization, dependencies, quality and customer satisfaction.
- Hold Project Managers accountable for delivery outcomes, effective team management, reporting and proactive risk mitigation.
- Review project plans, milestones, forecasts and recovery strategies, intervening when management decisions or escalations are required.
- Ensure effective project closure, customer acceptance, operational handover and lessons learned.
2. Project Manager and Business Analyst Leadership
- Lead, develop and manage the Project Manager and Business Analyst teams, establishing clear responsibilities, performance expectations and development objectives.
- Coach and mentor Project Managers in delivery management, governance, financial control, customer engagement and risk management.
- Guide Business Analysts in requirements gathering, process analysis, functional specifications, stakeholder engagement and solution validation.
- Establish consistent standards, methodologies and quality expectations for project management and business analysis deliverables.
- Ensure effective collaboration among Project Managers, Business Analysts, solution architects, technical teams and customers.
- Conduct performance reviews and capability assessments to identify skills gaps and development opportunities.
- Optimize Business Analyst deployment according to project priorities, complexity and required expertise.
- Strengthen alignment between business requirements, solution design and project execution to minimize scope creep, rework and delivery risks.
- Build a high-performing delivery organization that promotes accountability, collaboration and continuous improvement.
3. Resource Mobilization and Operational Efficiency
- Oversee resource planning and mobilization across projects, ensuring appropriate skills, capacity and seniority to meet delivery commitments.
- Work with Project Managers and functional leaders to forecast resource demand, assess capacity and prioritize resource allocation.
- Optimize resource utilization through resource sharing, cross-project deployment, workload balancing and redeployment.
- Maintain visibility of resource availability, utilization, competencies, assignments and future demand.
- Drive delivery cost optimization by improving resource allocation, reducing idle capacity and minimizing unnecessary external resource engagement.
- Evaluate the cost, quality, timeline and delivery risks of alternative resourcing strategies.
- Collaborate with Finance, HR, Procurement and delivery leaders on staffing costs, recruitment, subcontractors and external partners.
- Identify resource conflicts and capability gaps, recommending solutions to management.
- Monitor resource utilization, staffing costs and delivery productivity to improve operational efficiency.
4. Customer and Executive Stakeholder Management
- Build and maintain strong relationships with customer executives, including CIOs, CTOs, CDOs, business heads and steering committee members.
- Act as the senior delivery escalation point for strategic customers and critical project issues.
- Lead executive reviews and steering committee meetings, communicating project progress, risks, decisions and business outcomes.
- Ensure alignment between customer expectations, project scope, delivery plans, resource commitments and contractual obligations.
- Drive resolution of major issues and recovery initiatives to maintain customer confidence and satisfaction.
- Translate complex technical and delivery matters into clear business implications and recommendations for executive decision-making.
- Identify opportunities to strengthen customer relationships, support customer retention and generate additional business opportunities.
5. Management Reporting and Delivery Governance
- Provide regular executive-level reporting on project portfolio performance, financials, resource utilization, customer satisfaction and delivery risks.
- Consolidate Project Manager reports into clear management dashboards and performance updates.
- Highlight potential delays, budget overruns, resource constraints, scope changes, quality issues and contractual exposure.
- Present risk assessments, recovery plans, resource recommendations and decisions required from management.
- Establish consistent reporting standards, project health indicators and escalation procedures.
- Ensure timely escalation, ownership and resolution of significant delivery issues.
6. Risk, Issue and Change Management
- Establish effective risk management practices across the project portfolio.
- Review risk registers, dependencies, unresolved issues, assumptions and mitigation plans.
- Identify cross-project risks involving resources, technical dependencies, customers, vendors, security and contractual commitments.
- Ensure risks have clear owners, mitigation actions, target dates and escalation paths.
- Lead resolution of critical issues beyond the authority of individual Project Managers.
- Oversee recovery plans for projects facing delays, cost overruns or customer dissatisfaction.
- Ensure scope changes undergo proper impact assessments and approval, covering resources, costs, timelines and contractual implications.
7. Presales and Business Development Support
- Collaborate with Sales, Presales, Solution Architecture and Business Development teams on customer opportunities, RFI/RFP responses, tenders and implementation proposals.
- Work with suitable Project Managers and Business Analysts to develop delivery approaches, implementation plans, timelines and resource estimates.
- Review proposals covering scope, methodology, governance, milestones, deliverables, dependencies, resources, risks and acceptance criteria.
- Provide realistic implementation estimates, resource models, costing inputs and delivery risk assessments.
- Ensure proposed commitments align with delivery capacity, technical capabilities and commercial objectives.
- Participate in customer presentations, tender discussions and executive briefings to provide assurance on delivery feasibility and governance.
- Leverage project experience and lessons learned to improve proposal quality and estimation accuracy.
- Ensure effective handover from Presales to Delivery following project award, validating scope, assumptions, estimates, risks and commitments.
- Provide feedback to Sales and Presales on delivery feasibility, resource availability and commercial risks.
8. Financial, Commercial and Contractual Management
- Oversee project financial performance, ensuring effective budget management, cost control and financial forecasting.
- Monitor project costs, staffing expenses, delivery margins and commercial exposure across the portfolio.
- Work with Finance, Sales, Commercial teams and Project Managers to manage contractual milestones, billing, customer acceptance and change requests.
- Assess the financial impact of scope changes, delays, rework, resource overruns and third-party dependencies.
- Drive project profitability through accurate estimation, effective resource utilization and delivery cost optimization.
- Ensure delivery plans and resource models support commercial viability without compromising quality or customer commitments.
9. Cross-Functional Collaboration and Continuous Improvement
- Coordinate with Sales, Presales, Solution Architecture, Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, Operations, Finance, HR and Procurement to align business commitments with delivery capacity.
- Ensure smooth transition from presales to implementation with clear ownership of scope, estimates, assumptions and commitments.
- Drive consistent application of project management and business analysis methodologies.
- Promote continuous improvement through delivery reviews, root-cause analysis, lessons learned and process standardization.
- Ensure effective coordination of delivery teams across locations, functions, customers and external implementation partners.
- Identify opportunities to improve delivery productivity, scalability and organizational effectiveness.
Qualifications and Experience
- Typically 15 years or more of relevant experience in IT project management, program delivery, business analysis leadership or technology implementation.
- Proven experience leading Project Managers and Business Analysts across multiple concurrent projects or programs.
- Strong track record in project governance, delivery leadership, performance management and stakeholder engagement.
- Demonstrated experience in resource planning, capacity management, utilization optimization and delivery cost control.
- Experience supporting presales, RFI/RFP responses, implementation proposals, project estimation and customer presentations.
- Strong knowledge of business analysis practices, requirements management, business process analysis and functional specifications.
- Experience engaging CIOs, CTOs, CDOs and senior customer stakeholders.
- Good understanding of enterprise software implementation, systems integration, application development and cloud or on-premises environments.
- Strong leadership, communication, negotiation, presentation and problem-solving skills.
- PMP, PgMP, PRINCE2 Practitioner or relevant Agile certification is preferred. Business analysis certifications are an advantage.