Key responsibilities:
1. Project lifecycle management:
- Lead Trade Finance projects (e.g. Letters of Credit, Bank Guarantees, Supply Chain Finance) from beginning to end.
- Manage internal development teams and external vendors delivering parts of the solution.
2. Project Planning & Execution:
- Create clear project plans and set timelines. Track progress using Agile methods such as Scrum or Kanban.
- Run regular team meetings (e.g. daily stand-ups, sprint planning and reviews) to keep work moving forward.
- Manage work handed off to and received from our development team.
3. Budget and cost management:
- Track project spending against the approved budget.
- Report any potential budget overruns early.
4. Risk and issue management:
- Proactively identify potential problems. Identify hidden needs, potential delays or technical issues before they escalate.
- Clearly explain these risks and issues to the IT manager so that they can make quick decisions.
- Develop plans to avoid or resolve problems.
5. Stakeholder communication:
- Be the main point of contact for business teams such as Trade Operations, Compliance and Sales, clearly explaining project progress and gathering their requirements.
- Translate complex business terms (related to Trade Finance) into clear instructions for the technical team and explain technical limitations to the business in simple terms.
- Keep everyone informed about project status, changes and decisions.
6. Business Analysis and Solution Validation:
- Work directly with business teams to gain a thorough understanding of their challenges and goals, especially with regard to Letters of Credit, Guarantees and Supply Chain Finance.
- Turn business needs and rules (e.g. UCP600 and SWIFT message flows – MT7xx/MT103) into detailed requirements, user stories and test cases.
- Ensure that the final solution built by the team meets the business needs before it goes live (lead user acceptance testing – UAT).
- Redesign business workflows to improve efficiency and create clear flowcharts.
7. Quality Control & Compliance:
- Ensure that project outputs (documents and software) meet quality standards and are ready for bank audits.
- Work with the bank's compliance team to ensure that the necessary reviews are carried out.
- Understand basic security needs (e.g. firewalls) to ensure solutions are designed appropriately.
8. Team Leadership & Resource Management:
- Guide the work of the internal development and testing team (approx. six people).
- Coordinate effectively with the external vendor team to ensure they deliver what is needed on time.
- Foster good teamwork and communication within the project team.
Required qualifications and experience:
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, IT, Business or a related field.
- 10+ years' experience in IT/digital delivery, with 5+ years in IT project management.
- Technical & management skills: Excellent time and project management ability; Attention to details is a must; Strong logical thinking and storytelling capability
- Excellent English reading and writing, good at presentation (Mandarin and/or Catonese)
- Independent thinker and problem solver - able to and comfortable in performing given tasks with limited supervision; Excellent in communication skills with internal and external functions to facilitate completion of projects and tasks
- BA expertise: Requirements elicitation, process mapping, user story definition and solution validation in trade contexts.
- Technical fluency: Ability to navigate trade finance APIs, legacy system integrations and cloud-based solutions.
- Strong stakeholder management skills across Operations, Compliance, IT and vendor teams.
- PMP/CBAP/Scrum certifications are preferred.
- Experience with trade platforms (e.g. documentary credit, supply chain finance) is highly advantageous.