Front Office Project Manager with Investment Management - contract - London - £750-850 per day (inside IR35)

Leading investment manager is seeking an experienced and highly organised Project Manager to support the successful delivery of strategic initiatives, technology implementations, operating model changes, and business transformation programmes.

This role will be responsible for leading projects across the full delivery lifecycle, including initiation, scoping, planning, design, execution, testing, implementation, transition to business-as-usual, and project closure. The successful candidate will work closely with business stakeholders, technology teams, investment operations, data teams, external vendors, and senior leadership to ensure projects are well governed, clearly communicated, and delivered in line with agreed scope, timelines, budget, quality standards, and business outcomes.

The role requires a strong project management skillset, with the ability to manage complex workstreams, coordinate cross-functional teams, identify and mitigate risks, drive decisions, and maintain momentum in a fast-paced financial services environment. Experience supporting large-scale platform implementations, particularly BlackRock Aladdin or similar investment management platforms, would be highly valuable.

Primary Responsibilities

Project Planning and Delivery

1. Lead the end-to-end delivery of strategic projects, technology implementations, process improvements, and business change initiatives.
2. Partner with business and technology stakeholders to define project scope, objectives, success criteria, milestones, dependencies, and key deliverables.
3. Develop and maintain detailed project plans, including timelines, activities, owners, dependencies, critical path items, and delivery milestones.
4. Ensure projects are delivered on time, within scope, and within budget, while maintaining appropriate quality and governance standards.
5. Manage project execution across multiple workstreams, ensuring progress is actively tracked and blockers are escalated and resolved in a timely manner.
6. Support project initiation activities, including business case development, delivery approach, resource planning, governance structure, and stakeholder engagement model.
7. Coordinate project closure activities, including lessons learned, benefits tracking, transition to business-as-usual, and completion of project documentation.

Aladdin and Technology Implementation

1. Support the planning and delivery of Aladdin-related implementation activities, including requirements gathering, design coordination, data readiness, system configuration, testing, and go-live preparation.
2. Work with business, technology, data, operations, and external partners to ensure Aladdin implementation activities are clearly defined, sequenced, and aligned to business outcomes.
3. Coordinate key implementation dependencies, including data migration, interfaces, reporting, workflows, user acceptance testing, operational readiness, access management, and production cutover planning.
4. Partner with stakeholders to document current-state and future-state processes, identify gaps, and support the definition of target operating models.
5. Track and manage risks, issues, assumptions, and dependencies associated with Aladdin implementation or enhancement projects.
6. Support communication across internal teams and external providers to ensure clear ownership, timely decisions, and consistent understanding of delivery expectations.
7. Ensure testing plans, defect management, user readiness activities, and implementation checkpoints are effectively managed and reported.

Governance, Risk, and Controls

1. Establish and maintain appropriate project governance, including working groups, steering committees, reporting cadence, decision forums, and escalation routes.
2. Prepare project status reporting for senior management, including progress updates, risks, issues, dependencies, milestones, decisions required, and changes to scope or timeline.
3. Maintain robust project documentation, including plans, RAID logs, action trackers, decision logs, status reports, governance materials, and implementation readiness checklists.
4. Identify, assess, and manage project risks and issues, ensuring clear owners, mitigation plans, target dates, and escalation points are in place.
5. Manage change control processes, ensuring any changes to scope, timelines, cost, or deliverables are clearly documented, assessed, approved, and communicated.
6. Ensure delivery is aligned with internal standards, audit expectations, control requirements, and governance frameworks.

Stakeholder and Communication Management

1. Build and maintain strong relationships with business sponsors, senior stakeholders, technology partners, vendors, and project team members.
2. Act as a central coordination point across business, technology, operations, and external parties to ensure alignment and effective delivery.
3. Facilitate project meetings, workshops, decision forums, and governance sessions, ensuring clear agendas, outputs, actions, and follow-ups.
4. Communicate project updates clearly and concisely to different audiences, including executives, delivery teams, functional leads, and end users.
5. Translate complex project information into clear, actionable summaries that highlight progress, risks, decisions, and next steps.
6. Drive accountability across project teams by ensuring actions, owners, due dates, and dependencies are clearly understood and tracked.

Team Leadership and Delivery Discipline

1. Lead cross-functional project teams, including business representatives, technology teams, data teams, change management, operations, compliance, risk, and external partners.
2. Provide clear direction to project team members and ensure alignment against agreed priorities and milestones.
3. Foster a collaborative, delivery-focused culture with strong ownership, transparency, and accountability.
4. Proactively identify delivery challenges and work with stakeholders to remove blockers, resolve conflicts, and maintain project momentum.
5. Apply structured project management methods while remaining flexible and pragmatic based on project complexity and stakeholder needs.
6. Support continuous improvement of delivery practices, templates, tools, governance processes, and project management standards.

Qualifications and Experience

Required Experience

1. Bachelor’s degree
2. 10+ years of project management experience, including delivery of large-scale, cross-functional projects in financial services, asset management, investment management, or a related industry.
3. Demonstrated experience managing complex projects involving business change, technology implementation, data, operating model design, process improvement, or platform transformation.
4. Experience working with senior stakeholders and preparing clear project reporting for executive-level audiences.
5. Proven ability to manage multiple workstreams, dependencies, risks, issues, actions, and decisions across a complex delivery environment.
6. Strong understanding of project delivery lifecycle disciplines, including initiation, planning, execution, testing, implementation, change management, and closure.
7. Experience working with technology teams, business users, product owners, vendors, and third-party delivery partners.
8. Strong knowledge of Agile, Waterfall, and hybrid delivery methodologies, with practical experience applying the right approach based on project needs.
9. Experience with project management and collaboration tools such as Microsoft Project, Smartsheet, Azure DevOps, Clarity, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, SharePoint, and other industry-standard delivery tools.

Aladdin and Investment Platform Experience

1. Experience supporting implementation, enhancement, migration, or integration activities involving BlackRock Aladdin or comparable investment management platforms is highly desirable.
2. Understanding of investment platform implementation considerations, including data readiness, portfolio structures, interfaces, reporting, workflows, permissions, user acceptance testing, operational readiness, production cutover, and post-go-live support.
3. Ability to coordinate across business, technology, vendor, and operations teams to support platform delivery and resolve implementation dependencies.
4. Experience managing testing phases, including test planning, business validation, defect tracking, retesting, acceptance criteria, and go-live readiness.
5. Experience supporting future-state operating model discussions, process mapping, workflow design, and transition planning linked to system implementation.

Core Project Management Skills

1. Excellent planning, organisation, and time management skills, with the ability to manage competing priorities and maintain delivery discipline.
2. Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to identify risks, assess options, recommend solutions, and drive decisions.
3. Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to produce clear, concise, and senior-ready materials.
4. Strong facilitation skills, with the ability to lead meetings, workshops, working groups, and steering committee discussions.
5. Ability to work independently while maintaining strong collaboration with project teams and stakeholders.
6. Strong attention to detail, with the ability to maintain accurate project plans, status reports, action logs, RAID logs, and governance documentation.
7. Comfortable operating in ambiguity and bringing structure to complex or evolving delivery environments.
8. Proven ability to influence without direct authority and drive accountability across diverse stakeholder groups.
9. Strong judgement and escalation management skills, with the ability to identify when decisions, risks, or blockers require senior attention.

Additional Desired Qualifications

1. PMP, PRINCE2, Agile, Scrum Master, SAFe, or equivalent project management certification preferred.
2. Previous experience within a programme management office, strategic delivery function, consulting organisation, or transformation team.
3. Experience delivering projects within asset management, investment operations, private markets, public markets, risk, compliance, data, or technology functions.
4. Experience supporting vendor-led implementations or coordinating delivery across multiple external partners.
5. Experience with Azure DevOps Boards, Smartsheet, Clarity, Microsoft Project, PowerPoint, Excel, SharePoint, and Teams.

Key Attributes

1. Structured, proactive, and delivery-focused.
2. Able to bring clarity to complex initiatives and drive disciplined execution.
3. Confident working with senior stakeholders and cross-functional teams.
4. Collaborative, pragmatic, and comfortable operating in a fast-paced environment.
5. Strong sense of ownership and accountability.
6. Able to balance strategic context with detailed delivery management.
7. Skilled at identifying risks early and driving practical mitigation plans.
8. Clear communicator who can tailor messaging to executive, business, and technical audiences.