Senior Project Manager - 12 Month FTC

The Senior Project Manager will be accountable for the successful delivery of Joint Target Operating Model (JTOM) initiatives with our strategic third-party vendor, FNZ. The role will have a strong external delivery interface, with day-to-day responsibility for managing activity across a variety of new joint operating model initiatives outside of the pure platform and associated Platform Transformation activities. It will focus on ensuring complex delivery initiatives are planned, governed and executed effectively, with clear ownership of scope, dependencies, risks, issues, reporting and stakeholder engagement. 
Working closely with the TOM Portfolio Director, Business Leads and third-party suppliers, you will drive delivery across initiatives that support the future joint operating model. This will include coordinating plans and dependencies across business functional areas and FNZ while ensuring delivery remains owned, governed and directed through the appropriate internal portfolio and programme structures. The successful candidate will bring experience of delivering complex change in financial services, ideally in environments involving material vendor, platform or outsourced service arrangements. 
 
Key Accountabilities  

• Lead the end-to-end daily management of joint operating model initiatives from mobilisation through to implementation and transition into operation.
• Develop, maintain and actively manage integrated delivery plans, milestones, dependencies and roadmaps across internal teams and delivery partners.
• Manage delivery risks, issues, assumptions and dependencies, ensuring appropriate escalation through portfolio governance or relevant programme governance based on sensitivity and impact.
• Manage project governance activities including steering committees, working groups, delivery forums and executive reporting.
• Prepare clear reporting, governance materials and decision support for senior stakeholders, portfolio governance and ExCo where required.
• Coordinate stakeholder engagement across business, technology, operations, finance, risk and vendor teams to maintain alignment, delivery momentum and clear ownership across organisational boundaries.
• Support transition planning, operational readiness and handover activity, ensuring new or changed services can be embedded effectively into business-as-usual operations.
• Manage and resolve escalations while maintaining stakeholder confidence and delivery focus.

 
Knowledge, Skills & Experience 

• Experience of delivering complex change initiatives within Financial Services, ideally in platform, pensions, wealth, investment administration or outsourced servicing environments.
• Strong understanding of outsourced service arrangements, including vendor delivery management, commercial sensitivities, service transition, operational readiness and supplier governance.
• Experience of operational readiness or transition / transfer activities with businesses and vendors. 
• Proven experience managing multiple workstreams, complex dependencies and competing priorities across internal teams and external suppliers.
• Strong understanding of project governance, risk management, controls and regulatory considerations in a financial services context.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills, including C-suite engagement.
• Experience preparing high-quality reporting materials and decision papers for senior stakeholders.
• Excellent communication, facilitation and presentation skills.
• Ability to influence without direct authority in a matrix organisation and across supplier boundaries.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities, with the ability to bring structure and clarity to complex delivery challenges.
• Good IT skills including all elements of Microsoft Office.

Desirable Experience 

• Direct experience working with FNZ, or a comparable platform, technology vendor or outsourced administration partner.
• Experience supporting joint operating model transformation activity involving pension, wealth or investment administration platforms.
• Experience managing delivery across outsourced service models where responsibilities are shared between internal teams and external providers.

Key Competencies 

• Strategic thinking and understands organisational objectives, aligning delivery activity to strategic outcomes.
• Builds credibility and gains commitment from senior stakeholders across the organisation.
• Resilience and adaptability in a highly regulated, deadline-driven environment
• Strong negotiation and influencing skills
• Commitment to high standards of governance and client outcomes
• Drives projects to successful outcomes whilst balancing risk, quality, time and cost.
• Delivers clear, concise and impactful communication tailored to different audiences.
• Challenges existing approaches and drives improvements to processes, frameworks and ways of working.
• Ability to flex time management responsibilities and stay calm under pressure. 
• Self-motivated and able to act on own initiative

A little about us  
We’re the Nucleus Financial Platforms group and we help make retirement more rewarding.  
People come first - whether it’s our colleagues, or the advisers and customers we support, we know that working in partnership and collaboration leads to the best outcomes. Together, we’ve shaped the platform to how it is today. We work hard, and we celebrate hard too.  
Our ambition is to create a platform with a difference, putting the customer centre stage meant tearing up the rule book and starting from scratch. We’ve come a long way since then, but our mission remains just as focused. That’s why our culture, values, and social responsibility are things we keep at the top of our agenda – because we know they matter and have a big impact.  
Our culture is one of the many things that sets us apart from the pack. We want to have an environment where our people feel that they can make a real difference, know they’ll be rewarded for their efforts and more importantly, enjoy themselves at work.  
Inclusion and diversity at Nucleus  
As with most things in life, who cares, wins. We really care about inclusion.  
For us it’s not a tick box exercise; inclusion and diversity are embedded in our culture and everything we do. It’s a commercial imperative. It isn’t about being PC. It’s about being future-relevant and durable. We owe it to ourselves and the industry to ensure we are playing our part in creating a fair, balanced and transparent financial services sector.  
More diversity means broader experience, a wider set of perspectives and a better collective ability to problem-solve. And it means being more representative of customer groups, which supports areas such as product development.  
At Nucleus, we offer a generous blend of benefits for the things that really matter to our people, including a non-contributory pension, bonus, enhanced parental leave, paid time off for emergencies, health and wellbeing initiatives and flexible working options.