Head of Change Absa Kenya

Job Description

Key Accountabilities

Change Delivery - (50%)

• Develop on-going plans for delivery activities in conjunction with the PMO.
• Accountable for the effective resource planning, management, reporting and coordination of projects, managing allocated resources to ensure that the team delivers committed tasks in line with business requirements.
• Lead and Direct change activities across the business in relation to project delivery and ensures best practices and processes across the team for the consistent delivery of projects.
• Responsible for delivery reporting to the Absa leadership, Product Owners, and key stakeholders.
• Assist business stakeholders in development of holistic Business Proposals and Documentation to maximize the delivery of project objectives.
• Conduct Impact Analysis on the level of change, readiness, key stakeholders, and influencers.
• Testing Support, aid the test team in the development of testing approaches / strategies and the agreement of Scope / Testing Acceptance Criteria. Includes, overseeing testing phases.
• Responsible for change communications strategies for all change programmes ensuring effective communication and feedback to all Stakeholders.
• People change support to aid the embedment associated with project/program roll-out.
• Impact Analysis, conducted on the level of change, readiness, key stakeholders, and influencers.
• Responsible for ensuring that all projects within the portfolio conform to Absa change Governance standards and that all apply appropriate management & control systems.
• Responsible for working and supporting Project Managers to ensure that new capability is embedded within the business line.
• Responsible for shaping new requests for work into interim work plans to be taken-forward by the allocated project manager.
• Responsible for maintaining the portfolio plan of projects; that all projects are effectively sequenced, and any inter-dependences are identified and managed appropriately.
• Responsible for identifying and managing dependencies of their portfolio against other portfolios of change.
• Responsible for the resolution of issues escalated to them by the In-country Chief Operating and Digital Officer (CODO), Sponsors within their portfolio of change that cannot be resolved by the respective Accountable Executive or Steering committee.
• Responsible for working with the Chief Operating and Digital Officer (CODO), Sponsors, ARO/Group Heads of Change and Project managers to ensure that new capability is embedded within the business and associated benefits are discharged to the business area accepting the change.
• Responsible for directly managing local change activities within CTA commitments permit.

Leadership - (25%)

• Responsible for facilitating Project Definition workshops within own cluster, planning, and completing ad hoc project health checks including the completion of the corrective action with the Project managers.
• Responsible for managing and resolving all programme level risks and issues in their Country or region as appropriate.
• Responsible for taking and encouraging others to take informed risks and new approaches that enhance the delivery of projects.
• Responsible for adherence to the quality and integrity of the portfolio of projects / programme.
• Responsible for providing support for project management governance to the Accountable Executives of projects within their portfolio including the attendance at CMC meetings, and management of Steering Committees.

People Management - (25%)

• Develop and agree individual and team performance objectives, standards, and targets.
• Perform regular review of individuals and team performance against agreed objectives.
• Responsible for the provision of coaching & support to the Senior Project Managers, Project Managers and Project Professionals within the portfolio to increase their skills and the quality of their respective projects.
• Manage individual development plans for direct reports.
• Responsible for the development and embedding of change management best practice models to optimize the delivery and governance of change.

Qualifications

• Proven Senior Management experience in programme management – at least 5 years extensive project management experience.
• A consistently high record of delivering large projects and programmes to budget, timescales and quality.
• Proven experience of regular communication with Senior Executives.
• PMP certification
• Leading and Rewarding Performance and Performance Management
• Experience in a project governance environment
• Experience of working in partnership with senior change practitioners to deliver large change
• MS project online /Project Management Planning tools with ability to train/coach others.

Experience

• Effective leadership and team development skills to manage change resources, potentially between different countries/culture
• Understands the best combinations in terms of specific attributes or capabilities as well as team behaviours required to produce high performing teams and team cohesion through challenging times
• A learning mindset with proven capability to rapidly assimilate complex business issues, to quickly solve problems in a structured manner or pre-empting issues that may arise where there is limited precedence.
• Effective negotiating skills to secure both internal resources and deal with external service providers
• Expert capability for facilitating project definition workshops and performing project health checks
• Highly skilled in influencing and stakeholder management to ensure the successful delivery of change projects. Confident and able to influence Senior Executives at Country Level.
• Able to adopt and/or coach the use of a variety of methods to keep projects on schedule and within budget.
• Expert knowledge of techniques for planning, monitoring and controlling complex portfolios of change to ensure projects are sequenced to maximize the delivery and to reduce dependencies through

Knowledge & Skills

• Detailed knowledge of the Absa Game-plan and Strategic Transformation Plan
• An understanding of Absa products and services to assess the impact of change
• Expert knowledge of the Absa change governance and policy framework is essential
• Practical knowledge and application of project /programmes management and systems development techniques and Managing Successful Project/Programmes portfolios
• Proven management experience with responsibility for delivering projects for at least 5 to 10 years in a structured environment