FirstApex
Website:
firstapex.com
Job details:
We are looking for a Professional Services Leader to be based out of India, to own the delivery of large, complex enterprise software implementations for insurance and financial services clients. You will lead a team of project managers and consultants, run multi-year programmes from contract to go-live, and be the senior face of our delivery organization to client executives. Our clients and teams span Asia, Europe and other regions, so you will work comfortably across time zones.
Key responsibilities
Programme and project delivery
- Own end-to-end delivery of large enterprise implementations (typically 12–24 months), from initiation and planning through build, testing, data migration, go-live and hypercare.
- Deliver on scope, schedule, budget and quality; track margin, utilization and revenue recognition for your portfolio.
- Set up programme governance: steering committees, status reporting, RAID logs, change control and stage-gate reviews.
- Proactively identify delivery risks and escalations, and drive mitigation plans to closure.
- Manage dependencies across internal product, engineering, infrastructure and support teams, as well as client and third-party vendors.
Customer leadership
- Act as the senior delivery contact for client executives (CIO, COO, Head of Operations, programme sponsors).
- Build trusted relationships that lead to successful references, renewals and follow-on work.
- Lead difficult conversations on scope, change requests, commercial issues and recovery plans with confidence and tact.
- Present programme status and recommendations clearly at steering committee and executive level.
People and team leadership
- Lead, coach and grow a team of project managers and implementation consultants.
- Allocate resources across projects and balance workload, skills and client needs.
- Set objectives, run performance reviews and support hiring and onboarding.
- Build a culture of accountability, quality and continuous improvement.
Practice and pre-sales support
- Support pre-sales with effort estimates, delivery approach, project plans and staffing for proposals and RFPs.
- Review statements of work for delivery risk before contract signature.
- Improve delivery methods, templates, tools and lessons learned across the Professional Services practice.
- Encourage practical use of automation and AI tools to improve delivery efficiency.
Global collaboration
- Work across time zones (APAC, Japan, Europe and others), including occasional early-morning or late-evening calls.
- Travel to client sites for key milestones such as kick-offs, steering committees and go-lives.
Required qualifications and experience
- Bachelor's degree in computer science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business or a related field.
- 12+ years of experience in IT project delivery, with at least 5–7 years at Senior Project Manager or Programme Manager level.
- Proven track record of delivering at least one or two large enterprise programmes lasting 12–24 months, with multi-million-dollar budgets and teams of 20+ people.
- Hands-on experience with enterprise software implementation: requirements, configuration, integration, data migration, testing (SIT/UAT) and cutover.
- Experience leading and developing project managers or consultants, either directly or in a matrix structure.
- Strong customer presence, with experience presenting to and influencing C-level and senior client stakeholders.
- Solid commercial awareness: budgets, margin, change requests and fixed-price versus time-and-materials contracts.
- Working knowledge of Waterfall, Agile and hybrid delivery methods.
- Willingness to work across time zones and travel regionally as needed.
- Excellent written and spoken English.
Preferred qualifications
- PMP certification (strongly preferred), or equivalent such as PgMP, PRINCE2 Practitioner, MSP, SAFe or PMI-ACP.
- Experience implementing core IT solutions for insurance (policy administration, claims, billing, distribution) or financial services (core banking, wealth, payments).
- Familiarity with regulatory and compliance requirements common in the sector, such as data protection, outsourcing and operational-resilience rules.
- Experience in a software vendor or consulting firm delivering to external clients.
- Experience working with clients and teams across APAC, Japan and Europe.
What we offer for this role:
Compensation
- Market-benchmarked pay, aligned to the role and your experience.
Working conditions
- Hybrid working from India.
- Regular calls outside standard office hours to cover client time zones.
- Regional and occasional international travel (estimated 20–30%).
Others
- Leadership of high-visibility programmes for major insurance and financial institutions.
- Support for professional certifications and continued learning.
- Comprehensive benefits in line with local market practice.
- A collaborative, international working environment.
Click on Apply to know more.
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