IT Program Manager - Data Platform at MasterCard

The Work at the Foundation

• We have entered a very exciting time at the Foundation as we scale up our operations across Africa to realize our Young Africa Works strategy. Our role at the Mastercard Foundation is to be a catalyst.
• Our Young Africa Works strategy focuses on working with others to spur systemic change so young people have the opportunity to find work that is dignified and fulfilling.
• The Foundation has opened offices in Rwanda, Kenya, Ghana, Senegal, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Uganda, building a broader leadership presence in Africa to develop specific strategies that support youth employment.  
• Within a country, we work with governments, the private sector, educators, young people, and other funders to improve the quality of education and vocational training, prepare young people for the work force, expand access to financial services for entrepreneurs and small businesses, and connect job seekers to dignified and fulfilling work.
• We are ambitious and driven. Our values transcend and rise above everything else as our guide.
• We encourage you to bring your bold ideas, curiosity, and expertise to your work. We laugh at ourselves and with each other. We are a team. Our journey together makes our impact even more meaningful.
• If you are an experienced Data platform professional looking to increase your impact, read on!

The Opportunity

• Reporting to the Head of Technology PMO, the role will develop and lead a high performing, multi-disciplinary team.
• The role will also play a key role in fulfilling the vision of product owners and managers, and driving the implementation of products, software and processes and setting standards for the team to follow.
• Manage delivery in accordance with agreed processes, procedures, governance and strategy, within scope, quality, budgetary and time targets.

Responsibilities
The IT Program Manager - Data Platform will be responsible for: 

• Developing collaborative relationships with IT, business and external parties with a key outcome to transform our ways of working to Agile.
• Understanding the end-to-end business processes, not just the technical components and impact from the product owner’s perspective.
• Collating and analyzing financial information to ensure value-driven decisions taken and understand the impact to the organization, being able to guard the allocated resource budget.
• Ownership and accountability for establishing agile values, methods, principles, and practices for the delivery of projects and products.
• Leading by example and actively engaging and motivating their scrum team.
• Facilitate agile ceremonies, e.g. product backlog refinement, pre-planning, planning, daily standups, sprint reviews, and retrospectives.
• Coach and mentor team members on agile standards and best practices, e., Lean, Kanban, Scrum, XP, DevOps, SAFe, etc.
• Configure and maintain an agile project management tool.
• The successful candidate will be based in any of our listed offices in Africa (Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal)

Ways You Can Contribute

• Confirm business requirements (Functional and non-Functional), solution architecture and defining the projects boundary and what is in and out of scope.
• Ensure business requirements are translated into features and user stories, that are in line with the MCF strategy.
• Develop sprint delivery plans for end to end products containing business and technical components, including security, data privacy and transition to the support organization and business as usual
• Manage all aspects of delivering the defined products, business and technical, according to the agreed definitions of done.
• Manage and report on project planning, progress, financials, issues and risks according to MCF PMO Methodology or to agreed Agile Methodology as defined by PMO.
• Manage intra- and interdependencies closely collaborate with impacted stakeholders within the foundation, IT or external to manage dependencies and mitigate risk.
• Establish a project governance with clear roles and responsibilities and an effective process for escalating issues and communicating decisions.
• Define, plan, request and secure resources/skills to meet delivery requirements.
• Make sure 3rd party delivers their products (deliverables), to agreed quality and acceptance criteria and within the agreed contractual framework.
• Manage project budget decisions as well as financial risks and opportunities.
• Develop a robust business case that clearly identifies the total cost of ownership of the solution business benefits and quantifies business value and benefits (for smaller projects benefits should be clearly articulated).
• Construct cost plan, secure funding and actively manage and control spend, forecasts and budgets.
• Conduct a business and technical risk assessment and implement a plan of action with clear ownership to mitigate risk.
• Proactively identify, manage and mitigate risks and issues during the project.
• Must ensure project delivery and deliverables meet the requirements of MCF Standards & Procedures, including those for Cyber Security and legal. To achieve this the project manager facilitates and coordinates the decision making process between the project, business end-user and relevant stakeholders e.g. Security Officer, local P&CI and local Privacy champions.
• Create, manage and maintain RAID, and effectively remove blockers during a sprint.
• Identify and actively engage key internal and external stakeholders and establish collaborative, win-win relations.
• Motivate and manage cross-functional and multi-disciplined project team focused on delivering the end-to-end solution.
• Ensure the project team understands the solution from a user’s perspective and actively manages the transitions of the solution to the Run organization in collaboration with the IT Ops team.
• In partnership with the Business functions, achieve organizational transformation objectives by managing impacts and driving organizational change.
• Maintain and keep track of project and program management developments and share knowledge with colleagues and relevant stakeholders.
• Together with Procurement and Legal teams in the foundation, ensure contract scope, terms and conditions are fully understood, revised and suppliers managed within the agreed engagement rules and governance.
• Facilitate process workflow modeling in order to collaborate on process improvements, automation capabilities, and clearly defined end-to-end use cases.
• Facilitate process workshops that involve eliciting process requirements and liaising with users.
• Work with customers to analyze, design, and develop/configure workflows to meet their needs using existing software functionality.
• Collaborate with business and (vendor) IT teams to design new work processes, resolve issues, and develop business/client-friendly solutions.
• Provide support for the adoption of new processes and/or workflows by creating user documentation, preparing communications, and conducting end-user training where appropriate.

Who You Are

• Bachelor's Degree in IT, Informatics or related.
• Master's or Postgraduate qualification in Project Management, IT, Business Administration or related is required.
• PMP certification advantageous.
• Agile related certifications advantageous.
• 8-10 years of experience in an IT project management role. 
• Minimum 5 years’ experience in a similar role. 
• Experience working as a Project Manager or Lead on projects with small Agile teams. 
• Experience in project management and business analysis across several business processes applications, data definitions, integrations, and varieties of infrastructure.  
• Experience reviewing and examining business processes and systems, modeling data, organizing activities, and developing business strategies. 
• Experience in Agile delivery approach – SAFe or Scrum. 
• Experience in delivering programs across Data Platform implementation, Data Management, Analytics, data integration. 
• Appropriate project management and/or business analysis training/qualifications are preferred (PMP/PMIBOK, BCS/ISEB diploma, IIBA certification, etc.).
• Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously and meet deadlines.
• Demonstrates a high level of quality in work products, including diligence and detail-oriented in analysis performed and precision in statements made.
• Effective leadership skills and ability to listen, communicate and motivate teams to achieve results. Can demonstrate the ability to manage demanding and challenging stakeholders.
• Demonstrates accountability and leadership.
• Competent ability to deliver under pressure and respond to a changing environment.
• Has worked in and feels comfortable with international, virtual, multi-cultural, multi-disciplined, and high-performance working teams.
• Possess excellent verbal, written, and presentation skills with the ability to articulate information to a variety of constituents across cultures.
• Flexible, adaptable, and able to execute a range of job duties and changing priorities.
• Possess excellent verbal, written, and presentation skills with the ability to articulate information to a variety of constituents across cultures.
• Possess professional maturity, sensitivity with different cultures, and impeccable integrity.
• Commitment to Mastercard Foundation’s values and vision.
• Ability to travel 20% of the time as required.