Project Manager

Economic and physical geography

• Leading and managing the Children and Young Person’s directorate programme team so that performance targets, objectives and efficiency/savings plans are fully met.
• Working flexibly and in partnership with Directors, Assistant Directors and Service Managers to achieve objectives through the identification of transformation opportunities and providing programme management expertise that influences decision making, strategic planning and providing constructive challenge as appropriate.
• Building and sustaining strong and effective working relationships across directorates, services and in collaboration with internal and external partners.
• Providing leadership and direction to key corporate change and transformation programmes to ensure SMART targets are achieved; through planning, designing and managing programmes, proactively monitoring progress and impact, identifying risks, issues, project interdependencies and implementing corrective action if required.
• Supporting the council’s democratic processes, providing advice and guidance to the designated scrutiny committee, ensuring effective forward planning.
• Line management and development of six team members ensuring that they are empowered, valued and motivated.

Programme management of initiatives, project design and management guidance and oversight.
• Constructively challenged project managers on status, actions, benefits and deliverables.
• Provided guidance on programme definition and set up including definition of business case, provision and use of approved methodologies, templates and standards.
• Assisted the Strategic Portfolio Director to develop a monthly reporting process and dashboard.
• Key stakeholder engagement, both upwards and downwards, across the organisation.
• Embedded governance and portfolio management principles, identifying opportunities, issues and risks of all projects.
• Contributed to the change management framework and ensuring projects and programs were ran according to the agreed principles.
• Prepared and communicated overviews, timelines and phasing to secure success of the programme/projects.

Programme management of an international maternal health programme across 12 countries, mainly in Africa and Asia, funded by partners such as DFID (Department for International Development), UNICEF, The Gates Foundation and in country Government Departments, with a value of over £30m.
• Preparation and negotiation of proposals to funding agencies including both solicited and unsolicited proposals and renegotiation of contracts with funding agencies such as DFID and UNICEF.
• Management of the Centre for Maternal & Newborn Health (CMNH) portfolio of activities which included responsibility for implementing processes and systems needed to achieve the objectives of CMNH.
• Oversight and co-ordination of progress narrative and financial reports as required by the partners and donors.
• Monitored expenditure and costs within the project portfolio.
• Day to day liaison and communication with UK based and international staff both within LSTM and related partner institutions to ensure the successful delivery of programmes on time and to budget.
• Planned and allocated resources and skills within the project portfolio so that targets were met.
• Prepared financial and procurement procedures for CMNH and overseas teams based on LSTM’s guidance.

Production of monthly, quarterly and annual management accounts and reports with insightful analysis for the Senior Management Team (SMT).
• Reconciliation of both payroll systems and managing the headcount tracker information across the division.
• Forecasting and budgeting in liaison with budget holders and SMT.
• Represented the finance function on project management teams.

Led on all financial aspects of a £40m+ project to develop and implement a unique budget system to allocate resources to individuals accessing health & social care services across the Knowsley area.
• Successfully devised and completed financial modelling (scenario and sensitivity analysis) of potential options based on a sample of service users; allowing me to determine the most efficient and equitable method of distributing personalised budgets across the borough.
• Developed and tailored a costing model that established unit/activity based costs for both internal and external service providers.
• This post required me to have excellent financial management skills, including budget setting and analysis, development of costing models and unit costs, and financial analysis. It also required adaptable written and verbal communication; including the ability to present complex finance information in a way that was meaningful and helpful to non-finance professionals in order to earn trust and build strong working relationships.

Management of a £12m+, three year Land Reclamation Programme (LRP), including budget and forecast updates, and preparation of accounting journals for the LRP cost centres.
• Planned, developed and produced an Annual Performance Plan which provided information on the forthcoming year’s schemes including; governance, financing, output information, milestones, processes, risks and targets.
• Preparation of funding bids, applications and claims to funding bodies; this involved checking forecasted and actual costs against the accounting system to ensure defrayment, production of commentary and output information and liaison with the finance team and funding agencies.
• Attended regular meetings with funding partners and other key stakeholders to discuss progress with schemes, to put measures in place in order to overcome any problems at the earliest possible stage and to avoid any potential clawback issues.
• Production of a robust monitoring/budgeting system for the LRP.
• First point of contact for any queries from funders, finance, audit and other stakeholders relating to the LRP.
• Provision of monitoring reports including commentary and the latest financial forecasts for both funders and Council Directors.

Project management

Professional accountancy qualification

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