Position Overview
Our client, a leading financial services organization, is seeking an experienced Senior Program / Project Manager to support a significant Finance modernization initiative.
This individual will work across Finance and Technology to help structure, coordinate, and drive complex transformation initiatives from planning through execution. The role requires more than traditional project tracking. The successful candidate will bring strong business judgment, enough Finance and insurance knowledge to understand the work being delivered, and the executive presence to navigate a complex stakeholder environment.
The ideal candidate combines program management discipline, Finance transformation experience, insurance industry knowledge, and strong interpersonal judgment. They should be comfortable identifying issues before they become obstacles, bringing structure to ambiguity, and communicating effectively with both working teams and senior leaders.
Key Responsibilities
- Support the planning and execution of a multi-workstream Finance modernization program.
- Establish and maintain program plans, milestones, dependencies, risks, issues, and decision points across multiple initiatives.
- Coordinate activities across Finance, FP&A, Technology, Data, Actuarial, and other business stakeholders.
- Translate between Finance and Technology teams, helping ensure business requirements, priorities, and intended outcomes are clearly understood.
- Identify cross-functional dependencies and potential execution risks and proactively drive issues toward resolution.
- Develop clear, concise program reporting and communications for senior leadership.
- Prepare materials for steering committees, leadership discussions, and program reviews.
- Facilitate working sessions and executive meetings, ensuring decisions and actions are clearly documented and followed through.
- Partner with workstream leaders to maintain accountability against agreed milestones and deliverables.
- Support change-management and stakeholder-engagement activities associated with the transformation.
- Bring structure and discipline to evolving work while remaining flexible as priorities and sequencing develop.
Required Qualifications
- 8+ years of experience in program management, project management, PMO, Finance transformation, or a related discipline.
- Demonstrated experience supporting or leading complex, cross-functional transformation programs within insurance or financial services.
- Working knowledge of Finance processes such as FP&A, financial reporting, planning and forecasting, actuarial/valuation, capital, or related insurance Finance functions.
- Experience working across both Finance/business and Technology teams.
- Strong program-management fundamentals, including planning, governance, dependency management, risk and issue management, and executive reporting.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills.
- Demonstrated ability to work with senior executives and appropriately manage up, challenge assumptions, and escalate issues.
- Strong situational awareness and interpersonal judgment.
- Ability to operate effectively in an ambiguous, evolving environment with limited direction.
- Hands-on orientation and willingness to drive work personally rather than simply coordinate others.
Preferred Qualifications
- Direct experience with life insurance or annuity Finance.
- Experience supporting Finance modernization, data modernization, management reporting, or cloud/data-platform initiatives.
- Change-management or organizational-transformation experience.
- PMP, PgMP, Prosci, or comparable certification is beneficial but not required.
Ideal Candidate Profile
The strongest candidate will not be a conventional PMO administrator. They will be a business-oriented transformation practitioner who understands enough about insurance Finance and Finance technology to engage credibly with subject-matter experts while bringing the program-management discipline required to keep a complex transformation moving.
They should be equally comfortable working through a detailed issue with a Finance or Technology team and distilling it into a concise decision or risk for an executive audience.
About Korn Ferry
Korn Ferry unleashes potential in people, teams, and organizations. We work with our clients to design optimal organization structures, roles, and responsibilities. We help them hire the right people and advise them on how to reward and motivate their workforce while developing professionals as they navigate and advance their careers. To learn more, please visit Korn Ferry at www.Kornferry.com
