Senior Program Manager

About Heirs Technologies

Heirs Technologies is the technology subsidiary of Heirs Holdings, Africa's leading investment holding company. We build world-class digital products and platforms that serve millions of Africans across the continent and diaspora.

About the Engagement

We are building a next-generation digital banking platform for one of Africa's largest financial institutions, a product built to serve 15 million users at launch, scaling to hundreds of millions across the continent and diaspora. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to shape how Africa transacts, saves, and grows. The programme spans product, engineering, platform, integration, cybersecurity, legal, commercial, people, go-to-market, and multi-country rollout workstreams, and must be delivered with speed, discipline, and zero compromise on quality.

The Role

As Senior Programme Manager, you will be the primary execution partner to the Programme Director, the person who keeps every workstream moving, every dependency tracked, every risk visible, and every decision followed through. You will directly lead Scrum Masters and Project Managers across the programme, establishing the delivery standards, governance discipline, and coordination rhythm that a platform of this scale and complexity demands.

This is not a traditional project administration role. It requires a senior programme leader who has delivered large-scale digital banking or software platform programmes, understands agile engineering delivery from the inside, can operate confidently at executive level, and brings the urgency, structure, and ownership mindset to keep a complex, multi-jurisdiction programme on track.

What You'll Do

• Programme Leadership & Delivery Control: Support the Programme Director in leading end-to-end execution across all workstreams. Maintain an integrated view of scope, timelines, milestones, risks, dependencies, decisions, and delivery commitments. Drive execution discipline, ensuring every workstream has clear owners, actions, and dates. Provide leadership continuity and structured follow-through when the Programme Director is focused on executive, strategic, or external stakeholder matters.
• Multi-Workstream Coordination: Coordinate delivery across all major programme workstreams: product management and customer journeys; UI/UX and frontend delivery; backend engineering; API and core banking integration; cloud platform and DevSecOps; cybersecurity, fraud controls, and regulatory readiness; data and analytics; legal, IP, and contracting; budget and procurement; people and onboarding; go-to-market and launch readiness; and multi-country rollout planning.
• Team Leadership & Delivery Management: Lead and performance-manage Scrum Masters and Project Managers across the programme. Establish consistent delivery, agile, and reporting standards. Ensure effective sprint planning, dependency management, milestone tracking, and issue resolution. Coach delivery leads in managing risks, stakeholder expectations, and execution challenges.
• Digital Banking & Product Delivery: Translate product priorities into executable delivery plans across design, engineering, integration, testing, and release. Support backlog governance, MVP scope control, and dependency management. Work closely with product owners, architects, engineering leads, UI/UX teams, and business stakeholders to convert approved journeys into working software.
• Software Build Programme Governance: Lead delivery governance for a build-oriented software programme, not a vendor implementation. Track progress across frontend, backend, API, cloud, cybersecurity, and integration teams. Ensure engineering commitments are properly sequenced and dependencies actively managed.
• Risk, Issue & Dependency Management: Own the integrated RAID discipline across the programme. Identify emerging risks early and escalate with clear mitigation options. Track critical dependencies across technology teams, partners, vendors, cloud, cybersecurity, legal, finance, and country stakeholders.
• Governance, Reporting & Stakeholder Management: Prepare high-quality updates for the Programme Director, Executive SteerCo, Technical Committee, Product Council, and other governance forums. Ensure reporting is accurate, concise, and decision-oriented. Maintain programme dashboards, decision logs, dependency trackers, milestone reports, and delivery health views.
• Vendor, Partner & Commercial Delivery: Coordinate delivery dependencies across key partners and accelerators. Track vendor obligations, deliverables, timelines, commercials, legal dependencies, and performance. Ensure partners accelerate delivery without creating long-term ownership, IP, operational, or exit-risk issues.
• Go-to-Market & Launch Readiness: Support the integrated launch plan covering staff pilot, customer pilot, branch enablement, contact centre readiness, training, communication, app store readiness, production cutover, hypercare, and incident response. Ensure go-to-market activities are connected to product readiness, operational readiness, and country rollout sequencing.
• Multi-Jurisdiction & Country Rollout: Support planning across a multi-country operating environment. Track country-specific requirements across regulation, language, payments, integrations, support, customer communication, and operational readiness. Ensure the platform build considers scale, localisation, resilience, and supportability across multiple jurisdictions.

What We're Looking For

Must Have

• Significant experience managing large-scale technology, software development, or digital transformation programmes, with a track record of delivering on time in complex, multi-stakeholder environments.
• Proven delivery experience in digital banking, mobile banking, fintech, payments, or enterprise financial services platforms, with a deep understanding of the product, engineering, and regulatory complexity involved.
• Experience leading teams of Project Managers, Scrum Masters, or delivery leads within a complex programme, with demonstrated ability to set standards, manage performance, and build delivery capability.
• Strong understanding of agile delivery, DevSecOps, sprint planning, release management, backlog governance, testing, and production readiness, with enough technical fluency to engage credibly with engineering leads.
• Demonstrated ability to manage risk, issues, dependencies, governance, and executive reporting in a high-pressure environment, with a clear escalation mindset and strong bias for resolution.
• Experience managing complex build programmes involving product, engineering, cloud, integration, cybersecurity, and go-to-market workstreams simultaneously.
• Confident executive presence, able to prepare and present programme status at SteerCo and board level, and translate complex delivery realities into clear, decision-ready narratives.

Nice to Have

• Experience delivering programmes across multiple countries or regulatory jurisdictions, with working knowledge of how localisation, regulatory variance, and country-specific integration requirements affect delivery planning.
• Experience managing delivery across multiple vendors, system integrators, and technology partners, including tracking commercial obligations, deliverable quality, and exit risks.
• Familiarity with CBN guidelines, PCI DSS, and data protection regulations applicable to financial services in African markets.
• Prior experience as a Senior Programme Manager, Transformation Lead, Delivery Director, or PMO Lead on a major strategic technology programme.

Compensation

Competitive and commensurate with experience. Details will be shared with shortlisted candidates.

How to Apply

To apply, please use the link provided in the job posting. Applications are managed through our recruitment platform and reviewed on a rolling basis.

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