Senior Project Manager Specialized in Security

Mandate Overview

• The client is adding a senior PM to a fast-growing financial crime prevention program, from about $20M today to $35M to $42M next year, whose projects have been in the red for several months. The domain covers money laundering, tax evasion, suspicious transactions and exchanges with FINTRAC, not fraud. The director requires a background where security was the very subject of the projects: the sponsor, who knows the domain in depth, meets the candidate in the second round and rules out profiles without this experience. The role requires understanding each element of the domain, for example why a report sent to FINTRAC is non-compliant, rather than coordinating from a distance. The person must also take back control of a tense executive meeting and answer sharp questions on the spot.
• Candidate sought: a senior project manager who has delivered projects where security was the main domain, ideally in financial crime prevention or identity and access management, and who has already taken over a project in the red facing executive sponsors. Their resume shows an understanding of the substance of the files they led (controls, compliance, regulation), along with a project plan, a budget and reporting under their responsibility.

Requirements

Required

• IT project management, in large-scale contexts
• Security project management, in large-scale contexts, where security is the main subject of the project
• Experience in a risk management context or in a financial institution
• Experience in a software integration and platform change project
• PMP, MGP or ACP certification
• Leadership competencies: complex contexts, communication with executives and control of the agenda in executive committees, political skills in project recovery, resilience on projects in the red, curiosity and functional understanding of the domain, collaborative culture, planning and coordination, leadership, managing stakeholders with diverging objectives
• French and English bilingualism

Asset

• Financial crime prevention experience (money laundering, tax evasion, suspicious transactions, FINTRAC compliance)
• Master's degree or graduate diploma in project management

Profiles to Exclude

• IT project management profile with no security project described in the resume.
• Profile whose security projects are limited to security requirements within an application, consumer-facing or ERP project.
• Security projects described only in management terms (schedule, budget), with no element of the domain itself (controls, compliance, identities, regulation).
• Security specialist profile (analyst, architect, advisor) with no demonstrated responsibility for a project plan, a budget and a schedule.
• Project lead or coordinator profile with no demonstrated reporting to a sponsor or a steering committee.