Senior Project Manager - Finance

At M&G, our purpose is to give everyone real confidence to put their money to work. With a heritage dating back more than 175 years, we have a long history of innovation in savings and investments, combining asset management and insurance expertise to offer a wide range of solutions.
Our two distinct operating segments, Asset Management and Life, work together to provide access to balanced, long-term investment and savings solutions.
Through telling it like it is, owning it now and moving it forward together with care and integrity; we are creating an exceptional place to work for exceptional talent.
We will consider flexible working arrangements for any of our roles and offer workplace adjustments to ensure you have the support you need to succeed in your role.

The Role:

Reporting to Head of Finance Change Portfolio, this role owns the end-to-end delivery of medium to highly complex projects. You will be responsible for driving the definition of the business case, project objectives, scope, resources and expected business outcomes, together with detailed project plans. You will be expected to implement and adhere to the required project management methodologies and governance and provide the project team with direction and confidence to deliver and leverage the expected benefits.

Key responsibilities for this role:

• Own the end to end delivery of medium to highly complex Finance projects, identifying key business stakeholders; leading on defining business case, project objectives, scope, resources and agreed set of expected benefits and outcomes.
• In conjunction with the Project Sponsor, communicate the outcomes/benefits of the project across the organisation to garner support and buy-in.
• Create and maintain high quality project plans (with built in risk mitigation strategies) and work packages that support delivery, ensuring that responsibilities are assigned to project resources.
• Evaluate delivery options and the team’s performance, providing feedback where necessary and adjusting plans at regular intervals against  the scope, schedule, budget, risks, outcomes and benefits.
• Provide regular forecasts of the future Change and BAU resources required for the project
• Provide the project team with direction and confidence to deliver and ensure that the project delivers the required benefits and outcomes within the specified tolerances of time, cost, quality, scope, benefit and risk.
• Undertake regular lessons learnt sessions during the life of the project, implementing agreed recommendations to ensure the project team learns from experience and proactively shares lessons with the broader Project Management community.
• Adhere  to governance standards, including Project Change Standard and guidelines, maintaining accurate RACI and RAID logs and Service Now records.
• Produce timely management information ensuring all mandatory documentation (e.g. business case, requirement documents/user stories, stage gates, test plans, change requests, closure documents) is completed and signed off at the appropriate stages during the life of the project and establish additional governance to reflect the complexity of the project as required.
• Forecast future external costs, understand the drivers of project cost variance and take actions to control costs to budgets or raise change control
• Monitor and report progress to the impacted stakeholders (e.g. sponsor(s), programme manager, Change Programme Directors, steering committee) including ongoing business case viability.
• Independently identify and take ownership of issues, risks and dependencies, making recommendations to mitigate the risk or to reduce/remove issues. Escalate where appropriate to maintain progress towards project delivery and act as an escalation point on behalf of the Project Sponsor.
• Complete handover to BAU, and business benefits realisation activities to close off projects.
• Manage resource planning and motivate the project team to ensure a high standard of output, focused on customer satisfaction and delivery through developing others through providing  ongoing guidance, mentoring or coaching
• Manage relationships with required teams e.g. Technology, external suppliers  and other business functions to achieve timely delivery.
• Assist the Programme Manager/Director and Change Programme Director with interviewing and hiring of resources
• Support the Lead Programme Management Officer in establishing appropriate governance and assuring that the Project Change Standard is appropriately applied.
• Conduct training workshops with Project Managers focused on improving both project and change management capabilities across the Project Management team
• Participate in improving the change capability across the firm through sharing project and change management disciplines with the wider business
• Mentor and coach project team members with the aim of improving delivery efficacy and supporting their personal development

Key Skills, Competencies & Experience:

Skills and Competencies

• Confident and effective communicator (both written and verbal) across all levels of the organisation. Confident in  facilitating medium to large sized workshops and meetings with stakeholders.
• Ability to motivate, influence and constructively challenge where appropriate.
• Ability to build and maintain strong relationships across the business and with external parties.
• Strong organisational and planning skills with the ability to manage multiple projects, resources, priorities and deliverables to tight deadlines.
• Passionate about developing a work environment that embraces and values diversity. 
• Attention to detail and the ability to articulate complex ideas/concepts to stakeholders.
• Ability to anticipate, prioritise and resolve issues using problem solving and analytical skills.
• Well-developed interpersonal skills, leading by example and exercising good judgment and decision-making skills.
• Strong programme budgetary control and financial management
• Commercial mindset to highlight risks covering contractual clauses including penalties.
• Advanced understanding and practical application of project management methodologies
• In depth understanding of the asset management, asset owner and asset servicing operating model and associated infrastructure. Specific domain knowledge e.g. Regulations, ESG specific (add as applicable to specific role)
• Placeholder for specific domain knowledge, if required.

Experience:

• Significant and demonstrable track record of end-to-end delivery of projects, including demonstrable experience of successfully turning around failing projects, building momentum, and buy-in to a new project.
• Experience of leading business transformation projects, working with both internal and external stakeholders within a Finance Function.
• Experience of working in a highly controlled and regulated environment
• Working effectively with stakeholders at different levels including executive and non-executive directors [C-Suite and NEDs] and external parties.
• Management and coaching of Project Managers, Business Analysts, Testers, Developers, SME (line and matrix)

Work Level: Manager / Expert

Recruiter: Hollie Doran

Location: Edinburgh (Hybrid 2 - 3 days in the office per week)

What we offer:

We’re dedicated to supporting your wellbeing and helping you thrive, both at work and beyond. Our benefits are designed to help you balance your professional and personal life, and financially plan for the future. Our UK benefits include:

• A valuable pension scheme of up to 18% (13% made up of employer contributions and 5% employee contributions).
• Access to our Share Save and Share Incentive Plan, alongside financial wellbeing and support services to help give you real confidence to put your money to work.
• Enjoy 38 days annual leave (including bank holidays), with the opportunity to purchase up to five extra days. Our Time Off When You Need It policy gives you the flexibility - to balance work and personal commitments.
• Our market-leading Inspiring Families policy includes comprehensive support and paid parental leave covering maternity, adoption, surrogacy, and paternity leave - because supporting families is an important part of our inclusive culture.
• Health & Protection cover includes Private Healthcare, Critical Illness cover and Life Assurance for you, with additional family options - for peace of mind.

To explore more about life at M&G and our full benefits offering, visit Life at M&G

At M&G we strive to have a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture, underpinned by our policies and employee-led networks that offer networking, support and development opportunities for the diverse communities our colleagues represent. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds – across gender, ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation and more – including neurodivergent individuals, career returners and those with military service experience.

M&G is proud to be Level 3: Disability Confident Leader under the UK Government Disability Confident employer scheme, and we welcome applications from candidates with disabilities and long-term health conditions. If you would like to participate in the initiative, you will have the opportunity to indicate this on your application.

We are committed to providing an inclusive recruitment process. All candidates have the opportunity to request reasonable adjustments when applying. If you need any additional support at any stage, please contact us at: [email protected]