Rand Mutual Assurance requires the services of a Senior Programme Manager to work within their Project Management Office for an initial 6 to12 months, with a strong possibility of extension. This role is hybrid with their offices being in Parktown, Johannesburg.

The Programme Manager is responsible for the end-to-end management and coordination of large projects and programmes and change initiatives to achieve beneficial change. The ideal consultant is expected to be comfortable operating at both project and programme levels guided by the requirement. Additionally, the ideal consultant is an experienced professional who is able to operate independently, able to deal with ambiguity and a strong leader that can work well with executives.

Knowledge and experience in financial, insurance and asset management industries is ideal, with a mixture of business, technology and regulatory project experience. The ideal consultant must have expertise in additional services required by project and programmes, such as: portfolio management, change management, benefits realisation and project interfaces.

Key Responsibilities of the role include:

• Planning and designing the project and programme and proactively monitoring its progress, resolving issues and initiating appropriate corrective action
• Ensuring the delivery of new products or services from projects is the appropriate level of quality, on time and within budget, in accordance with the programme plan and programme governance arrangements
• Defining the programme's governance structures in line with the organisation, PMO, programme and project and any other structures
• Ensuring effective quality assurance and the overall integrity of the project and programme – focusing inwardly on the internal consistency of the programme, and outwardly on its coherence and interfaces with other programmes and corporate or technical initiatives
• Adopting solid financial management principles in managing the programme's budget on behalf of the Sponsor. This includes providing input into the business case development process, managing and actively monitoring expenditure and costs against the approved budget, providing support to the business post the programme to ensure that the benefits committed in the business case are tracked and realised
• Support the business in obtaining services or products required by the project and programme from external service providers in line with RMA’s procurement processes
• Managing appointed third party (internal teams and external suppliers) contributions and deliverables to the project and programme
• Ensuring there is allocation of common resources and skills within the programme's individual projects, as well as any other related initiatives in the PMO and organisation
• Managing communications with all stakeholders
• Managing both the dependencies and the interfaces between projects and programmes
• Managing risks that could impact the programme's successful outcome
• Working with the relevant business, technical and change stakeholders on the transition to the new business as usual position
• Initiating extra activities and other management interventions wherever gaps in the programme are identified or issues arise
• Reporting the progress of the programme, covering both quantitative and qualitative reporting, at regular intervals to the required and various governance forums.

Additionally, the programme manager will be required to:

• Have relevant domain knowledge to successfully guide the programme direction
• Have the ability to operate at a detailed project level to ensure delivery.