AVP, Program / Project Management - Life Company

USAA•San Antonio, TX

5d•$169,880 - $305,780•Hybrid

About The Position

The AVP of Program / Project Management reports directly to the VP of Life Company Operations who is responsible for service, claims, and special investigations. This AVP oversees and integrates change within Life Company Operations, helping to realize the benefits of strategy while promoting operational stability. This AVP also provides leadership and develops the operational direction for various Life Company business programs and associated projects and change functions. The leader in this position also communicates with key stakeholders across Life Company to plan, execute and ensure effective of delivery strategic initiatives. This AVP also utilizes executive-level business acumen and decision-making abilities and provides effective management and leadership. Moreover, this AVP leads cross-functional teams to develop and execute change strategies and plans in accordance with USAA's change methodology or industry best practices.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree; OR 4 years of relevant education and / or experience.
10 years of progressive experience in program / project management leadership, process improvement and/or consulting for large strategic efforts.
6 years of people leadership experience in building, managing and/or developing high-performing teams.
Extensive experience in successfully managing complex strategic program/project through the project lifecycle, from conception through rollout and on-going support in a large or medium size organization, preferably a financial institution.
Experience collaborating with key resources and stakeholders, influencing decisions, and managing work to achieve strategic goals.
Executive-level understanding and experience with strategic-level change management.
Executive-level experience delivering member or customer facing capabilities in a complex multi-channel, multi-product, integrated system environment.
Executive-level experience with systems design and development from business requirements analysis through to day-to-day management.
Experience on project and program management and execution experience delivering complex work efforts working with Waterfall and Agile methodologies.
Comprehensive understanding of risk management policies and procedures with experience identifying risks and key risk indicators and building processes and controls to solve for those risks.
Comprehensive understanding of USAA's change methodology or commensurate industry change methodology.

Nice To Haves

Senior leadership experience within Health, Life Insurance, Annuity, and / or related industries
IT and / or MIS background complemented with senior executive level business and financial acumen
Demonstrated ability to negotiate and influence at the C-Suite level
Demonstrated ability to build and re-build strong cross-functional teams as needed as priorities and the portfolio of work changes

Responsibilities

Accountable for leading the organizational integration of Program / Project processes / methodologies to ensure complex, area-specific, or Enterprise-wide initiatives are in alignment with the strategic vision.
Provides thought leadership to develop and enhance enterprise program and project management methods, tools, and templates to deliver better client and employee experience.
Develops strong relationships with cross-functional key stakeholders by leading program steering committees with senior management and program sponsors.
Maintains awareness of current industry best practices and trends, and risk, legal, and regulatory changes in Financial Services and technical fields (i.e., risk management, modeling, data infrastructure, data management, systems architecture, batch, and real-time processing) to provide effective consultation for business requests and project/program structuring activities.
Leads components of on-going operational planning and collaborates with other senior leadership or line of business stakeholders across business units to ensures the business is prepared to support and participate in the execution methodology for technical and business work efforts.
Identifies trends and develops action plans to resolve abstract problems outside of set guidelines that impact the process execution.
Makes strategic decisions that influence the operational and financial performance, ensuring outcomes effectively manage risk and compliance.
Establishes key metrics (i.e., deliverables, financials, duration, benefits) to measure success and influence internal project/program methodologies and approaches.
Adheres to EPMO processes, procedures, controls, standards, tools, and templates (as required).
Drives the adoption and sustainment of changes within the organization in compliance with USAA's Change Management methodology.
Ensures risks associated with business activities are effectively identified, measured, monitored, and controlled in accordance with risk and compliance policies and procedures.