Lead, Project Management & Governance

Job description

Prudential’s purpose is to be partners for every life and protectors for every future. Our purpose encourages everything we do by creating a culture in which diversity is celebrated and inclusion assured, for our people, customers, and partners. We provide a platform for our people to do their best work and make an impact to the business, and we support our people’s career ambitions. We pledge to make Prudential a place where you can Connect, Grow, and Succeed. Job Summary Reporting to the Head, Finance Transformation & Governance, you will lead the Project Management and Finance Governance functions to ensure the effective delivery of key initiatives, strong financial controls, disciplined expense management, and adherence to governance requirements. You will oversee end‑to‑end project delivery, maintain oversight of expenditure governance processes, and ensure initiatives are delivered with clear business value, controlled risks, and high-quality outcomes. Key Responsibilities Lead and deliver strategic initiatives across Finance, facilitate cross‑functional coordination, ensuring alignment with enterprise priorities and cross-functional stakeholders. Oversee the end-to-end project lifecycle, from initiation, planning, design, execution, monitoring, controlling, and closure. Establish and manage project plan, timelines, milestones, risks, dependencies, budgets, and resource allocations. Maintain strong project discipline and ensure deliverables comply with project management standards, internal policies, audit requirements, and governance controls. Drive enterprise change management and ensure smooth transition of initiatives to BAU, including post‑implementation reviews and benefits realisation tracking aligned with transformation governance. Ensure timely and transparent communications with Sponsors, Initiative Owners, Leads, and cross‑functional stakeholders. Partner with Internal Control, Audit, Risk, Regulatory, and Transformation Office stakeholders to drive end‑to‑end governance and compliance excellence. Oversee finance governance, policies, and expenditure controls for both BAU and transformation initiatives, ensuring compliance with governance and risk requirements. Manage IT/finance workflow platforms supporting expenditure approvals, transformation investment tracking, and governance reporting. Review and validate project and expense budgets, ensuring alignment to value creation, transformation investment priorities, and financial discipline. Monitor project financials and division expenses, escalating deviations through appropriate governance forums. Conduct ad‑hoc financial and expense analysis for budgeting, forecasting, scenario modelling, control enhancements, and reporting purposes. Support business planning, expense forecasting, and expense reporting activities. Conduct periodic QA reviews and follow‑up on governance issues or control gaps. Support activities during system upgrades, migrations or parallel runs. Competencies & Personal Traits Strong business acumen and the ability to operate across financial, operational and technical domains Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to influence and manage senior stakeholders Collaborative leader able to unify cross‑functional teams toward shared outcomes Highly organized, structured thinker with strong prioritization skills Meticulous, detail‑oriented and disciplined in governance, documentation and follow‑through Analytical mindset with strong problem‑solving and financial control capabilities. Self‑driven, resilient and able to deliver quality work under time pressure. Working Experience 8–10 years of project management and finance governance experience, preferably in a regulated financial services environment. Experience with JIRA, Confluence, Oracle, SUNGL application is preferred. Experience in financial accounting, expense management, SOX, and governance frameworks, preferably in life insurance. Qualifications Degree in accounting/finance or equivalent professional qualification PMI-Project Management Professional (PMI-PMP) certification and Lean Six Sigma are advantageous Prudential is an equal opportunity employer. We provide equality of opportunity of benefits for all who apply and who perform work for our organisation irrespective of sex, race, age, ethnic origin, educational, social and cultural background, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, disability or part-time / fixed-term work, or any other status protected by applicable law. We encourage the same standards from our recruitment and third-party suppliers taking into account the context of grade, job and location. We also allow for reasonable adjustments to support people with individual physical or mental health requirements.