Strategic Initiatives Manager, North Central at Kyosk Digital Services

The role holder will lead, develop and implement processes, procedures and policies relevant to strategic project management; including strategic priority setting, organizational change management and continuous improvement. Act as the Project Manager for these special projects including leading the project teams, monitoring timelines addressing any issues or challenges related to or arising from the projects.

Key Responsibilities:

• Strategic implementation:  Lead the establishment of strategic priorities with the leadership team to determine corporate projects while ensuring alignment with business goals and strategic plans. Take charge of the implementation of these special projects, cascading them to the relevant teams for execution while providing oversight, direction and adaptation as needed to ensure the quality of execution.
• Project ManagementSupport the leadership team with the growth, innovation and expansion plans including the planning, execution, monitoring and evaluation. He/she will document and implement all aspects of the assigned projects; manage project timelines to ensure deadlines are met; oversee tasks assignment to drive the projects forward and set meetings for these projects. Lead and manage a highly functional and service-oriented team responsible for the delivery of multiple corporate projects simultaneously. 
• Expansion: Direct the in-country expansion plans including leading markets selection; overseeing market research for the selected markets, team recruitment and 3PL engagement for these markets. Supervise warehouse search and lead lease signing for the selected warehouses; monitor market set up and collaborate with the relevant teams to drive effective set-up and market penetration. 
• Business Advisory: Identify enablers and key issues before and during implementation, raise these issues with the stakeholders and offer solutions. Recommend business priorities, advise on resource requirements and develops a roadmap for strategic execution. Provide advice and guidance to stakeholders concerning the development of business projects; including project scope, resourcing, timelines, charter and budget.
• Research: Lead detailed research on a wide variety of issues and topics relating to the special projects, supporting the documentation of acquired information for the leadership team. Consult with all appropriate staff members and stakeholders around securing the data and information required for all deliverables of the projects. Analyse data on emerging trends and conclusions, present the results and recommendations with subsequent action plans as necessary.
• Change Management: Provide strategic oversight in leading and implementing a corporate change management process; including developing priority project change management plans and leading departmental continuous improvement initiatives to improve efficiency and effectiveness.
• Reporting:Develop and present reports for the senior management on the progress of these projects highlighting potential risks and delays. Responsible for ensuring stakeholder communication and relationship management throughout the process. 
• Continuous Improvement:Use continuous improvement methodologies/tools to come up with improvement projects to reduce waste and limit process variability
• Business Unit Optimisations:Come up with plans to optimize operations (inclusive of cost optimisation) at profit centers level for existing facilities including but not limited to creating plans for new warehouse facilities, equipment, systems and evaluation of new technologies.

Minimum Requirements & Key Skills:

• A bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Strategic Management or related background;
• A minimum of 5 years of previous related experience with significant exposure to project management with at least 3 years of senior management experience in strategic planning, consultation and change management with FMCG or Consulting;
• In depth demonstrable understanding of the business across the different functions (prior cross functional exposure);
• Proven ability to develop and maintain effective relationships with internal and external stakeholders;
• Demonstrated ability to influence others, create alignment, generate a commitment to goals and inspire others to action;
• Experience leading complex and multi-stakeholder business projects;
• Strong local knowledge and a deep understanding of consumers/customers;
• Strong analytical skills with a demonstrable ability to capture and communicate projections as well as to model out various scenarios using Excel and/or other business analytics tools and build insights from data;
• Knowledge and ability to effectively work with project management software tools (e.g MS Project, Jira etc);
• Able to apply creative approaches to address issues and to shift priorities and maintain momentum on multiple projects and objectives;
• Demonstrable experience of business contractual negotiations (with third parties) and general understanding of business contracting;
• Ability to work independently with a high degree of initiative, discretion, and tact; ability to work under pressure.

Competencies & Skills

• Strategic Thinking;
• Commercial Acumen;
• Business Acumen/ Entrepreneurial Thinking;
• Drive for Execution;
• Stakeholder Management;
• Continuous Improvement/ business process improvement;
• Operations Management
• Problem Solving Skills;
• Tech Savvy.