Head Strategic Initiatives

Job Requisition Details

REQ#139220

Location: Johannesburg, Gauteng

Closing Date: 20 May 2025

Talent Acquisition: Bongiwe Mchunu

Job Family

Project, Process and Product

Business Unit/Department

Strategy and Commercialisation 

Leadership Pipeline

Manage Others (MO)

FAIS Affected

Job Purpose

The purpose of this role is to lead and manage a portfolio of strategic projects, ensuring their alignment with divisional objectives and successful delivery within defined timelines and budgets. This role is pivotal in driving change management initiatives, particularly those aimed at enhancing sales effectiveness, through effective stakeholder engagement, communication planning, and adoption of new processes and tools. The incumbent will develop and implement comprehensive communication plans for projects and broader divisional initiatives, ensuring clarity, consistency, and effective information flow to all relevant stakeholders. Building and maintaining strong relationships with key stakeholders across Business Banking and other relevant departments is essential to foster collaboration and ensure alignment on strategic priorities.
Additionally, this role requires partnering effectively with various teams, including sales, operations, technology, and finance, to drive initiatives forward and resolve any roadblocks. The incumbent will establish and track key performance indicators (KPIs) for strategic initiatives, providing regular updates and insights to senior leadership. 
 

Job Responsibilities

• Integrate plans and initiatives across the business to aid business tracking against  overall strategy
• Collate, interpret, synthesize and present complex information across different stakeholders
• Monitor and assess performance by creating initiative dashboards that include business case tracking and linking initiatives to strategic goals. 
• Identify product and market opportunities in collaboration with other areas.
• Link capability roadmaps across initiatives and broader strategic plan
• Manage broader roadmaps and coordinate across internal and external business units.
• Produce/Consolidate targeted reports/presentations in order to inform senior management decision-making.
• Identify various stakeholder requirements and collaborate across divisions in order to achieve common purpose
• Create, maintain and coordinate the team effectiveness and disciplines through collaboration with stakeholders.
• Oversee the delivery of strategic reports to Senior Management.
• Contribute to the delivery of key strategic projects.
• Collaborate with delivery partners and understand internal and/or external client needs and requirements.
• Ensure initiatives are delivered in line with strategic priorities.
• Participate in the development and support implementation of action plans to address issues raised in culture surveys to improve results.
• Manage team effectively and efficiently across the HR value chain including recruitment, performance management, retention of critical staff, succession planning and coaching and talent management.

Technical Required Skills

• Innovation Facilitation
• Business Analysis
• AGILE (SAFe recommended)
• Project Management
• Change management

Essential Qualifications - NQF Level

Preferred Qualification

• 3-year qualification/degree in Business Management, Management Analytics or Finance

Minimum Experience Level

A blend of strategic thinking, project management expertise, change management proficiency, and strong communication skills. Specifically, they should have:

• Proven experience (typically 8+ years) in leading and managing strategic projects, ideally within a financial services or similarly complex environment.
• A strong track record in driving and implementing change management initiatives, with demonstrable experience in engaging stakeholders and ensuring adoption.
• Excellent project management skills, including the ability to develop and execute project plans, manage timelines and budgets, and oversee cross-functional teams.
• Exceptional communication and stakeholder management abilities, with experience in developing and delivering clear and concise communications to diverse audiences, including senior leadership.
• A strategic mindset with the ability to understand business objectives and translate them into actionable initiatives.
• Experience working collaboratively across different business units and functions within a large organization.
• Familiarity with sales effectiveness initiatives within a banking context would be highly advantageous.

Technical / Professional Knowledge

Behavioural Competencies