Manager - Operational Excellence & Change Delivery

About the role
Embark on a journey where your unique contributions are celebrated, and your professional growth is embraced. We nurture a diverse, inclusive community where every voice is valued.
We are actively seeking an ambitious professional to work alongside passionate colleagues who share the ambition to redefine excellence in UAE banking within ITMAM, a wholly owned subsidiary providing banking operational and processing services to all Group sectors, including lending, wealth management, and ATM services.

Key Responsibilities:

• Manage assigned operational excellence and change delivery initiatives, including multi-disciplinary project teams, to ensure outcomes are delivered within agreed scope, timelines, quality standards and governance requirements.
• Support the definition of project objectives, scope, delivery approach, resource requirements, estimated costs, expected benefits and business case to enable effective prioritization and approval of change initiatives.
• Establish and maintain scope, delivery plans, resource plans and change-control arrangements, assessing the impact of proposed changes on timelines, resources, costs, benefits, risks and dependencies before obtaining the required approvals.
• Monitor delivery progress, capacity requirements, expenditure and forecasts against approved plans and budgets where applicable, escalating constraints or variances that may affect delivery commitments.
• Analyze existing processes, procedures and service performance to identify inefficiencies, control gaps and improvement opportunities.
• Support lean diagnostics, business process reviews and value stream mapping activities to improve turnaround time, productivity, service quality, process consistency and operational effectiveness.
• Identify and drive process improvement and straight-through processing opportunities to reduce process lead time, improve cycle efficiency, enhance customer experience, strengthen risk controls and support the controlled migration of end-to-end processes across the Group.
• Establish current-state operational performance baselines and use operational data to measure improvements in turnaround time, productivity, process efficiency, service quality, error rates, complaints, operational losses and customer experience.
• Support portfolio-level governance by tracking initiative progress, key milestones, risks, issues, dependencies, benefits and agreed performance indicators.
• Prepare formal reporting materials and management updates to enable oversight, facilitate timely decisions and confirm delivery status, corrective actions and benefit realization.
• Define and track project benefits and success measures, working with business owners to validate the realization of agreed financial, operational, control and customer experience outcomes following implementation.
• Maintain appropriate project governance records, including assumptions, dependencies, decisions, actions and escalations, ensuring clear ownership, timely follow-up and documented resolution.
• Coordinate with business and technology teams to support automation, system enhancement and digital improvement initiatives aligned to priorities.
• Review business requirements, process impacts and functional specifications to ensure proposed solutions address operational needs, improve customer experience and strengthen process efficiency and control.
• Support alignment between process improvement opportunities and technology-enabled solutions by clarifying requirements, dependencies, expected benefits and implementation considerations.
• Coordinate with business units, technology teams, support functions and external vendors to align requirements, dependencies and implementation activities for assigned process and system changes.
• Maintain structured stakeholder engagement through steering committees, working groups and relevant forums to clarify decisions, actions, risks and issue ownership.
• Facilitate stakeholder input, issue resolution and change readiness discussions to support timely decision-making, effective implementation and adoption of operational, process and system changes.
• Monitor third-party deliverables, dependencies, service quality and agreed milestones, escalating performance concerns and supporting corrective actions where required.
• Support implementation activities for assigned process and system changes, including requirements validation, testing coordination, readiness planning, training support and post-implementation follow-up.
• Apply appropriate project delivery approaches, including agile, waterfall or scaled agile methods, to support deployment coordination and transition into business-as-usual operations.
• Assess the impact of proposed changes on people, processes, controls, procedures, technology, customer journeys and operating models, ensuring readiness and adoption actions are completed before implementation.
• Establish quality and acceptance criteria, coordinate assurance and testing activities and obtain documented business, technology, risk and operational approvals before implementation.
• Coordinate user guidance, adoption support and post-implementation feedback to ensure changes are embedded effectively and deliver the intended operational, control and customer experience outcomes.
• Complete formal project closure, including confirmation of deliverables, transfer of ownership to business-as-usual teams, closure or handover of outstanding actions, lessons learned and post-implementation benefit-tracking arrangements.
• Identify delivery, process and operational risks associated with assigned initiatives and escalate issues in line with governance requirements.
• Support the implementation of controls and corrective actions to reduce errors, complaints, operational losses and process failures.
• Support the delivery of regulatory, audit, risk-remediation and mandatory change initiatives by incorporating relevant requirements, evidence, approvals and implementation deadlines into delivery plans.
• Maintain complete, accurate and up-to-date risk, control, audit and regulatory evidence in line with applicable governance and record-retention requirements.

Ideal Candidate Experience:

• At least 6 years of experience in banking operations, operational excellence, change delivery, process improvement, project management or transformation within a financial services, consulting or regulated environment.
• Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration, Finance, Engineering, Technology, or a related discipline.
• Project Management Professional Certified (PMP), PRINCE2, Black Belt, Lean Six Sigma or Agile certification.
• Skills in:
  • Operational Excellence
  • Change Delivery
  • Project Management
  • Portfolio Governance
  • Process Improvement
  • Business Requirements Analysis
  • Technology-Enabled Transformation
  • Automation and Digital Process Improvement
  • Stakeholder Management
  • Risk and Control Awareness
  • Performance Reporting
  • People Supervision
  • Business Case Development and Benefits Realization
  • Scope and Change Control
  • Resource and Financial Management

What we offer:

• Comprehensive Benefits Package: Market-leading medical insurance, group life and personal accident insurance, paid leave and leave airfare, employee preferential rates on loans and finance facilities, staff discounts and offers, and children education assistance (for certain job levels).
• Flexible and Remote Working Options: Flexible working arrangements are available, subject to eligibility and job requirements.
• Learning and Development Opportunities: Continuous learning and personal development through structured instructor-led courses, a comprehensive e-Learning catalog, on-the-job training and professional development programs.

At the company, we are dedicated to creating a respectful, caring and disciplined work environment that aligns with your career ambitions.