Senior Project Governance

Senior Project Governance & Delivery Lead (PMO) | Financial Services | Paris | Hybrid

Location: Paris, France

Working Model: Hybrid – 8 days per month onsite in Paris, remainder remote

Contract: Freelance / Contract

Sector: Financial Services

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The Opportunity

We are looking for an experienced Senior Project Governance & Delivery Lead (PMO) to join a major strategic initiative within a leading financial services organisation.

This is not a traditional administrative PMO role.

We are looking for a senior, delivery-focused professional who can operate at the centre of a complex project, bringing structure, governance, visibility and momentum across multiple workstreams and stakeholders.

You will work closely with Project and Programme leadership, Product Owners, senior management, business stakeholders and external participants to ensure that priorities remain aligned, critical issues are identified early, dependencies are actively managed and key decisions are driven through to closure.

A major part of the role will be providing senior management with a clear and accurate view of the project: where delivery stands, what is on the critical path, what is at risk, what decisions are required and where intervention is needed.

Key Responsibilities

Project Governance & Coordination

• Provide senior-level project coordination and ad hoc governance across multiple internal and external stakeholders.
• Maintain the central project cockpit, providing visibility across planning, milestones, dependencies, workload and escalations.
• Coordinate activities across multiple workstreams and ensure clear ownership of deliverables and actions.
• Ensure appropriate governance is in place to support effective and timely delivery.
• Maintain momentum across the project and proactively address areas where progress is beginning to drift.
• Identify potential scope, timeline, resource or delivery issues at an early stage and ensure they are appropriately addressed or escalated.

Planning, Milestones & Critical Path

• Maintain an integrated view of project plans, key milestones and dependencies.
• Work closely with workstream leads to understand progress, upcoming deliverables and potential blockers.
• Identify activities and issues sitting on the critical path and ensure they receive appropriate attention.
• Coordinate dependencies between workstreams, internal teams, external stakeholders and related initiatives.
• Provide project leadership with an accurate and current view of overall delivery health.

Business Backlog & Prioritisation

• Work closely with Product Owners and project stakeholders to maintain and prioritise the business backlog.
• Ensure priorities are clearly understood and aligned with overall project objectives.
• Support discussions around sequencing, competing priorities and dependencies.
• Highlight backlog items that could impact key milestones or project deliverables.
• Help maintain alignment between business priorities and project delivery.

RAID & Dependency Management

• Maintain and actively manage Risks, Assumptions, Issues and Dependencies (RAID).
• Ensure risks and issues have clearly documented owners, mitigation actions and target dates.
• Identify and communicate critical issues that could impact the successful delivery of the project.
• Proactively follow up mitigation actions and challenge owners where progress is insufficient.
• Ensure material risks, issues and dependencies are escalated through the appropriate governance channels.

Executive Project Reporting

• Prepare and issue high-quality project status reporting at the agreed frequency and format.
• Consolidate information from multiple workstreams into clear, concise and meaningful management reporting.
• Translate complex project information into executive-level messages.
• Clearly communicate achievements, milestones, risks, dependencies, decisions and areas requiring management attention.
• Ensure reporting provides insight and supports decision-making rather than simply presenting project data.

Senior Steering Committees

• Organise, prepare and suppor