Portfolio Manager and PM Practice Lead

Since Aspen was founded in 2002, we have become a leading, diversified specialty insurance and reinsurance company. We respond thoughtfully and creatively to find the best outcomes for our clients and business partners through carefully-tailored solutions.

We believe the way we work is just as important as the work we do, and we are guided by our core values of respect, honesty, trust and professionalism.

Aspen is a great place to develop your career offering an exciting and challenging environment where achievement is rewarded.

Portfolio Manager and PM Practice Lead

Location: London UK

Reporting: Group Head of Change

Role Band: B / VP

About you:

Are you an experienced portfolio manager who can help us assure the delivery of our portfolio and build and mature a high performing change management practice and support Aspen’s operations strategy.

If so, this could be the role for you.

Context:. To continue to support Aspen’s growth and deliver underwriting and operational excellence, the Group Operations function is shifting to becoming a more tech and data led organization. The main mechanism for delivering this strategy will be the Change function.

The purpose of this role is to build and manage a team that will deliver Aspen’s change portfolio. The role holder will be accountable for assuring the delivery team is managing all aspects of projects and business change, technology and data[DM1]  outputs as well as the change readiness and acceptance. Two key areas of focus will be:

1. Management of the portfolio ensuring the senior leadership team have clear line of sight of portfolio progress, spend, benefits profile and realisation, ROI and other key metrics. This will be delivered through strong adherence to standards, portfolio oversight and strong reporting to Change Board on portfolio health.
2. In addition, the role holder will create and manage a project delivery practice ensuring common standards are set and adhered to for project delivery at Aspen as well as driving the development of a project delivery capability that will underpin our strategy to maximise profit through technology and data enabled process optimisation.

Responsibilities:

Portfolio assurance – driving ownership, credibility and efficacy of project plans and portfolio governance.

Portfolio management and reporting – active management and timely intervention to stop risks becoming issues.

Create and embed project management community of practice – bring together change teams, irrespective of line management, to drive best practice, common standards, reduce element of surprise and assure governance, forecasting and demand management.

Your role will involve:

Supporting leadership and sponsors to build, plan and deliver strategic priorities through change.

Supporting executive and sponsors to understand and actively manage portfolio progress through.

• Benefits tracking and return on investment (ROI)
• Strong planning and forecasting
• Championing active demand management and resource forecasting
• Supporting strong transition planning

Creating a cross functional, high performing project management community of practice that has the skills to drive projects to conclusion across all aspects of delivery.

Building strong relationships with sponsors and other change stakeholders to embed a culture of execution and best practice.

Escalating risks and issues as well as dependency in a timely manner

Supporting enterprise PMO with monthly reporting and MI

Knowledge:

• Strong background in change delivery and portfolio office management
• Extensive knowledge of project management governance and portfolio assurance
• Experience with delivery of technology enabled projects and leading technical PMs
• Insurance industry experience
• Experience working with all levels: C-suite and down.
• Ability to work with sponsors and project teams with applying appropriate delivery process, understanding business problems and validating proposed solutions.
• Strong relationship management and stakeholder engagement skills.

At Aspen we know that having a diverse and inclusive workforce is good for our people, good for our business and good for the environments in which we operate.  We therefore welcome applications from people which allows us to draw on diverse cultures, perspectives, skills and experiences.