Vice President, IT Project Management

SMBC Group is a top-tier global financial group. Headquartered in Tokyo and with a 400-year history, SMBC Group offers a diverse range of financial services, including banking, leasing, securities, credit cards, and consumer finance. The Group has more than 130 offices and 80,000 employees worldwide in nearly 40 countries. Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc. (SMFG) is the holding company of SMBC Group, which is one of the three largest banking groups in Japan. SMFG’s shares trade on the Tokyo, Nagoya, and New York (NYSE: SMFG) stock exchanges.

In the Americas, SMBC Group has a presence in the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Peru. Backed by the capital strength of SMBC Group and the value of its relationships in Asia, the Group offers a range of commercial and investment banking services to its corporate, institutional, and municipal clients. It connects a diverse client base to local markets and the organization’s extensive global network. The Group’s operating companies in the Americas include Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. (SMBC), SMBC Nikko Securities America, Inc., SMBC Capital Markets, Inc., SMBC MANUBANK, JRI America, Inc., SMBC Leasing and Finance, Inc., Banco Sumitomo Mitsui Brasileiro S.A., and Sumitomo Mitsui Finance and Leasing Co., Ltd.

Role Description

The IT Project Management Vice President is accountable for end-to-end delivery of complex, multi workstream technology programs that support banking operations and strategic initiatives. This role ensures disciplined execution across a defined program or portfolio, delivering outcomes on time, within budget, and in compliance with regulatory, risk, and control standards. Operating with enterprise-level influence, the role partners with senior business, technology, and risk stakeholders to translate business objectives into sustainable technology outcomes with material impact on operational efficiency, regulatory adherence, and strategic change execution.

Principal Duties and Responsibilities

•    Own delivery of a defined program or portfolio of IT initiatives using agile delivery practices aligned to Fraud Technology initiatives, including assessment of existing agile processes, identification of delivery and execution gaps, course correction of agile practices, and upskilling of junior project managers to consistently execute within an agile methodology.
•    Serve as Agile Delivery Manager, accountable for execution cadence, delivery predictability, and continuous value realization across multiple agile teams or workstreams.
•    Define and manage program scope, objectives, milestones, funding, capacity plans, dependencies, risks, and outcome based success metrics.
•    Establish and operate an agile aligned program governance and PMO structure, including lightweight controls, standardized reporting, sprint/release cadence, and clear roles and responsibilities.
•    Partner with Product Owners, Engineering Leads, Architecture, and Operations to ensure backlogs are prioritized, dependencies are actively managed, and delivery remains aligned to business value.
•    Lead and coach cross functional delivery teams on agile best practices (Scrum, Kanban, scaled agile), fostering accountability, transparency, and continuous improvement.
•    Facilitate and oversee agile ceremonies at the program level, including PI / release planning, dependency management forums, risk reviews, and delivery retrospectives.
•    Monitor delivery progress, risks, impediments, financials, and interdependencies; proactively resolve blockers and adjust plans in coordination with business stakeholders.
•    Manage program budgets and burn, ensuring alignment between funding, capacity, and delivery outcomes; identify potential overruns and secure additional funding where required and approved.
•    Drive stakeholder engagement through clear, outcome oriented communication on delivery status, risks, tradeoffs, and realized benefits.
•    Coordinate with peer agile delivery and program management teams across regions or business lines to align delivery models and share best practices.
•    Apply agile, lean, and Six Sigma techniques to improve flow efficiency, reduce waste, and increase delivery predictability and quality.
•    Ensure agile delivery is executed in compliance with enterprise risk management standards, regulatory expectations, and internal control requirements.

Qualifications and Skills

•    Vice President level individual contributor responsible for large scale or high impact programs; typically operates without direct people management but with significant matrix leadership and influence.
•    Approximately 7+ years of progressive experience in IT project or program management within a regulated or complex enterprise environment.
•    Demonstrated experience managing enterprise technology initiatives involving multiple stakeholders, budgets, vendors, and parallel workstreams.
•    Strong understanding of financial services business operations, regulatory requirements, and enterprise risk management expectations.
•    Proven ability to structure and lead program teams, establish governance, and drive disciplined, outcome focused execution.
•    Advanced communication, stakeholder management, and change leadership capabilities.
•    Scope of impact includes financial stewardship of program budgets, delivery of regulatory compliant outcomes, and enablement of strategic business objectives.
•    Enterprise program and portfolio delivery ownership.
•    PMO design, governance, and standardized reporting.
•    Budget accountability and financial controls.
•    Cross functional leadership and matrix influence.
•    Stakeholder partnership at senior levels.
•    Regulatory and risk aware delivery in banking environments.
•    Agile, lean, and Six Sigma execution approaches.
•    Strong technical proficiency with JIRA, including workflow design, backlog management, sprint and release tracking, dependency visualization, dashboards, and delivery metrics.
•    Clear, concise executive communication and change leadership.

SMBC’s employees participate in a Hybrid workforce model that provides employees with an opportunity to work from home, as well as, from an SMBC office. SMBC requires that employees live within a reasonable commuting distance of their office location. Prospective candidates will learn more about their specific hybrid work schedule during their interview process. Hybrid work may not be permitted for certain roles, including, for example, certain FINRA-registered roles for which in-office attendance for the entire workweek is required.

SMBC provides reasonable accommodations during candidacy for applicants with disabilities consistent with applicable federal, state, and local law. If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application process, please let us know at accommodations@smbcgroup.com.