Senior Technology Project Manager

About the role

The Senior Technology Project Manager will be part of a client-facing team engaged in strategic initiatives. It is an integral part of the firm's strategy to build scalability and efficiently deliver program management capabilities. This role will partner with senior leadership and delivery teams to lead program planning and execution across various functions, driving programs to achieve mission-critical outcomes for our clients.

Responsibilities

• Partner with team and clients to drive program inception, defining tangible outcomes, scope, and prioritization; distill workstreams and deliverables, and key metrics milestones, and success metrics.
• Translate business needs into actionable efforts and delivery roadmaps.
• Ensure end-to-end and cross-workstream understanding of the program objectives.
• Establish governance, roles and responsibilities, communications and reporting approach and cadence, and ways of working with client and ZS teams and leaders.
• Provide leadership to select, tailor, setup, and drive buy-in for a robust PMO framework for effective delivery and execution.
• Ensure that the delivery approach is realistic and optimized, and aligned with deal economics.
• Lead end-to-end planning and execution for large programs, with multiple projects or workstreams, including technology transformation, system implementation, digital enablement, and data/analytics initiatives.
• Drive the program efforts to ensure the program generates early traction and maintains forward momentum.
• Identify areas of complexity within the program, and proactively engage with stakeholders to define success criteria and direction to address challenges, pivoting as needed to achieve successful outcomes.
• Participate and lead unstructured problem solving with the team and client on issues which arise during the course of a large program.
• Lead program delivery for key workstreams across strategic initiatives, drive the program activities to ensure the program generates early traction and maintains forward momentum.
• Partner with senior program leaders and client stakeholders to plan, and lead key initiatives.
• Enable successful delivery of the client engagements.
• Continuously seeks areas of opportunities to improve project management practices and add value to teams.
• Conducts regular periodic meetings with all PMOs and project leads.
• Advise leadership and/or business leaders about the project portfolio, status and resource planning for delivering strategic business Initiatives.
• Manage PMO resource allocations and ensure that the scope and budget are in control.
• Ensures that project status, issues and successes are communicated and documented.
• Performs regular project performance updates (e.g., financials, utilization, SLA metrics).
• Manages and documents any risk management processes, proactively identify and highlight risks and develop appropriate contingency plans or escalate as needed.
• Lead junior PMO team members engaged in the program.
• Responsible for mentoring junior PMO team members and providing the direction required for meeting the project objectives.
• Partner with senior program leaders and client stakeholders to plan, and lead key initiatives.
• Serve as a critical point of contact for project sponsors and leadership.
• Build a strong network and trusted relationships with key client stakeholders to foster long-term partnerships and future opportunities.
• Add value by incorporating best of the class practices, models, ideas.
• Engage with client counterparts on delivery or project management issues, including tools/processes that are jointly led by ZS and client.
• Work directly with client counterparts to update and share performance summaries (financials, utilization, SLA metrics) with key stakeholders.
• Collaborate with the client team to set up meetings, workshops & seminars.
• Facilitate workshops, status meetings, executive updates, and decision-making forums.
• Partner with ZS PMO organization, and more broadly with ZS teams, to identify opportunities for follow on or adjacent engagements.

Requirements

• Graduate/post-graduate in any discipline with 6 to 8 years of relevant experience in Project Management.
• Prior experience with program and PMO activity for large business transformations, or implementation of Technology or Digital strategy; experience managing large PMO vertical and client accounts.
• Prior experience in a consulting or client-facing role is a must-have; communication, facilitation, and executive presence are critical for success in the role.
• Lifescience, Healthcare, or Pharma experience is preferred – Adjacent regulated industry delivery experience may also be considered.
• Thorough understanding of project management phases, techniques, and tools & reporting.
• Strong proficiency and hands-on experience with project management methodologies, including Agile, Waterfall, and hybrid.
• Strong knowledge of PMI and Agile project management standards and PMI/PMP, Prince2, or SAFe/Agile certification desired.
• Strong understanding of project KPIs and SLAs.
• Experience managing multiple projects at once and ensuring priority of issues and risks.
• Strong ability to implement project delivery processes, excellent oral and written communication skills, leadership skills and self-motivation, polished interpersonal skills, and customer focus.
• Proactive, identifies opportunities/challenges, and takes initiative.
• Comfortable with ambiguity and willing to roll up his/her sleeves to achieve project success, thrives on unstructured projects and problem-solving.
• Keen focus on running program management like a business, and ability to embrace and elevate program management in a client-facing, management consulting context.
• Fluency in English.
• Client-first mentality.
• Intense work ethic.
• Collaborative spirit and problem-solving approach.