Project Manager (ICT PMO, SDLC Delivery, Regulatory Change)

Something bought from a vendor, something built in-house, something that has to integrate with a system nobody here controls, and something carrying a date a regulator has set — all running at the same time, drawing on the same engineers and landing on the same operations teams. Holding that together is the job. A regulated financial services business runs this work through an ICT project management office, and wants a project manager who has managed that kind of mixed portfolio before.

You are the single point of accountability for all of it, and most of your leverage is influence rather than authority — the analysts, engineers and architects doing the work do not report to you, and neither do the vendors. How delivery gets done here is still being written down rather than handed to you, so you get a genuine hand in it rather than a set of templates to fill in.

What you’ll do

• Own and drive the full project lifecycle across technical, operational and regulatory programmes — initiation and planning through execution, go-live and closure.
• Manage software procurement, vendor implementations, system integrations and in-house development, coordinating business analysts, developers and system architects through structured SDLC delivery.
• Manage relationships across business operations, ICT and PMO leadership and external vendors; facilitate steering committees, workshops and regular project meetings.
• Manage scope change rigorously, and own the RAID log — risks, assumptions, issues and dependencies — with mitigation and escalation ahead of the problem rather than after it.
• Coordinate external software vendors, system integrators and service providers, and hold third parties accountable to their contractual deliverables, service levels and quality standards.
• Manage structured intake and prioritisation of business-as-usual enhancement requests and significant incidents escalated from the operations teams.
• Lead delivery of regulatory change projects, working closely with compliance, legal and ICT so obligations are met inside the prescribed timelines.
• Produce accurate, timely status reports, executive dashboards and portfolio-level management information for technology leadership.
• Identify and actively manage project and cross-project risks, flagging interdependencies across the ICT portfolio early and in a structured way.
• Embed a proper lessons-learned process at closure, and contribute to the PMO’s own standards, templates and delivery practice.

What you’ll need

• At least 8 years as a project manager within ICT, supporting fund services, asset management, wealth management or broader financial services operations in a technical capacity.
• A demonstrable track record of delivering technology-driven, operational and regulatory projects through the full lifecycle.
• A practical, working understanding of fund services processes: fund accounting, transfer agency, settlements, custody, corporate actions, NAV calculation and fee billing.
• Experience managing SDLC projects — software procurement and selection, vendor implementations, system integrations, application development and post-implementation support transitions.
• Enough technical literacy to coordinate engineering teams, engage credibly with system architects, review integration specifications and spot technical risk yourself without being walked to it.
• Solid experience of resource planning across multidisciplinary teams and structured RAID management.
• Proven ability to produce high-quality governance artefacts: project and delivery plans, RAID logs, status reports, change requests, steering committee packs and lessons-learned documentation.
• Experience working inside regulated financial services environments, and a track record of managing stakeholders at every level, operational and technical teams and outside vendors alike.
• A bachelor’s degree in finance, business, computer science, information systems or a related field.
• Formal certification: PRINCE2 Practitioner or PMP, and Agile or Scrum. At least one must be active; a combination of methodologies is preferred.

Nice to have

• Hands-on exposure to regulatory change programmes.
• Familiarity with APIs, middleware and ETL pipelines.
• Comfort using AI tools in your own workflow — reporting, documentation, risk analysis — with the judgement to check what comes out rather than take it at face value.

What’s on offer

• Range rather than repetition. Bought-in software, third-party integrations, in-house build and regulator-driven change all sit in one portfolio, so no two of your projects are run the same way.
• You are trusted to run your programmes end to end — managing complexity, clearing blockers and escalating on your own judgement rather than waiting to be told.
• You work inside the ICT function rather than at arm’s length from it: the people who specify, design and build these systems are colleagues, not a supplier you file tickets with.
• Work that lands where the business actually runs. The operations teams whose processes and systems you change are the ones you deal with directly, through delivery and through what they escalate.
• Governance taken seriously — a regulated, audit-conscious environment where planning, RAID discipline and proper documentation are expected rather than argued for.

Cape Town. Hybrid. Permanent.