Senior Project Manager

Are you an experienced Senior Project Manager with defined benefit pensions experience? As a Senior Project Manager, you will be working on a wide range of large and complex projects in a client-facing role. Projects span across the Pensions Administration and Consulting remit, including implementations, benefit changes, Pensions Dashboard, GMP and de-risking. This role can be aligned to any Aptia Office in the UK and on a hybrid-working basis.

Responsibilities

• End-to-end management of complex projects ensuring work is delivered on time, within budget, delivering client and business outcomes to a high level of client satisfaction.
• Build client, third-party and internal stakeholder relationships on the projects to become a trusted adviser to support decision-making requirements during the project lifecycle.
• Provide advice and guidance in the management of complex pensions initiatives.
• Understand client specific needs and strategic journeys and deliver project outcomes that support those needs.
• Work closely with and manage dependencies of multiple third parties including vendors and other pension providers in delivering to the overall client outcomes.
• Lead enhanced collaboration between multiple service lines and multiple providers.
• Define project roles and responsibilities across the business and third parties.
• Develop and maintain detailed, robust, high-quality project governance, plans and control artefacts such as risk plans and project plans including resources, scope, cost, assumptions and dependencies.
• Implement and lead project governance.
• Undertake regular work-stream and project meetings, documenting and following up on actions and risks identified.
• Control project scope. Understand the impact of scope changes and adjust project plans and communication accordingly using agreed change-management processes.
• Review significant project proposals of high complexity and high-visibility with identifiable business risk, validate all project requirements, and provide recommended changes to the proposal as appropriate.
• Manage cross-departmental resource allocation, negotiate resource requirements, and manage internal and conflicting priorities.
• Support project delivery leads in resource supply and demand management.
• Lead internal and third-party client-facing project communication, ensuring progress, risks and issues are communicated clearly and with a solutions-focused approach.
• Assign work to entry-level and support team members as required, ensuring support adheres to departmental standards and procedures.
• Support and contribute to the development of enhanced and new project delivery propositions.
• Contribute to a culture of continuous improvement, actively recommending new standards and procedures based on project experience and results.

Qualifications

• Experienced pensions professional with deep working knowledge of DB, DC and insured pension schemes. Combined experience of trust and insurance-based work would be ideal.
• Experience managing pension projects.
• Excellent relationship-building and communication skills at all levels, both internally and externally.
• Structured and organised, able to prioritise simultaneous workloads effectively across multiple deadlines.
• Willingness to learn new skills and adapt to a changing environment.
• Strong business acumen with existing client-facing experience.
• Understanding of DB and DC pension scheme strategies and obligations such as Pensions Dashboard, GMP, de-risking and data.
• May have a project-management qualification (desirable) or be interested in working towards one.
• Strong working knowledge of MS Office, including Word, PowerPoint, Project and Excel.

Aptia is committed to creating a diverse, inclusive and equitable work environment. We are an equal-opportunity employer and aim to attract and retain the best people without attention to age, background, disability, ethnic origin, family duties, political affiliation, race, religion, gender and sexual orientation. If there are any reasonable adjustments we can make to the recruitment process to ensure it is accessible to you, we encourage you to reach out to us.