About this role
<p><span>The Japan Research Institute (JRI) Limited is a subsidiary of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) Group. SMBC Group is a Tokyo-based bank holding company that is ranked among the largest 25 banks globally by assets under management. JRI provides comprehensive, highly value-added information services through the coordinated application of its 3 functions. i.e. information systems, consulting and think-tank. As a system integrator, JRI offers services in IT strategy planning, implementation and outsourcing to a broad range of industries and activities. JRI Singapore currently supports the overall IT functions of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) in Asia Pacific Region.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><strong>Responsibilities</strong></span></p> <ul> <li>Own the full delivery strategy for Payments projects, aligning with enterprise architecture and long-term technology roadmap.</li> <li>Define and enforce delivery frameworks including engineering practices, SDLC gates, release governance, documentation standards, and quality controls.</li> <li>Drive technical delivery excellence with complete traceability from business requirement → design → source code → testing → release.</li> <li>Supervise solution design, detailed technical specs, code repository governance, coding standards, peer reviews, and test coverage strategy.</li> <li>Lead SIT/UAT planning, defect triage, tracking, closure, and ensure testing completeness across all modules.</li> <li>Oversee release planning, cutover strategy, dry-runs, deployment approval, and post-release stabilization.</li> <li>Establish operational readiness including monitoring, capacity planning, resilience testing, and fallback/rollback procedures.</li> <li>Manage vendor and offshore team delivery governance, productivity KPIs, and quality benchmarking.</li> <li>Lead executive-level reporting with structured updates: KPIs, milestones, risks, dependencies, and scope changes.</li> </ul> <p><span style="text-decoration:underline">Project Delivery Management</span></p> <ul> <li>Lead projects from initiation to closure ensuring compliance with requirements, timelines, budgets, and quality.</li> <li>Update the WBS, set milestones, and manage progress appropriately.</li> <li>Manage tasks by prioritizing and adjusting the scope as appropriate.</li> <li>Create detailed project plans including scope, timeline, budget forecasts, and resource allocation.</li> <li>Manage full SDLC lifecycle including requirements, design, build, testing, release, deployment, and post-implementation support.</li> <li>Coordinate and govern Dev, SA, QA, Migration, and vendor delivery teams.</li> <li>Monitor progress, manage risks, escalate issues, and enforce mitigation actions.</li> <li>Ensure system delivery activities remain aligned to overall master program plan.</li> <li>Maintain delivery discipline through structured oversight, quality gates, and documentation reviews.</li> <li>Ability to develop clear narratives and visual materials to effectively communicate complex topics to diverse stakeholders</li> </ul> <p><span style="text-decoration:underline">System Integration</span></p> <ul> <li>Proven experience integrating vendor products into banking environments, with a strong understanding of end to end system architecture and dependencies.</li> </ul> <p><span style="text-decoration:underline">Delivery strategy and change management</span></p> <ul> <li>Ability to define and maintain delivery strategy amidst evolving interfaces and requirements, ensuring changes are effectively tracked, managed, and incorporated into the overall project execution.</li> </ul> <p><span style="text-decoration:underline">Vendor and stakeholder Coordination</span></p> <ul> <li>Collaborate with Bank’s IT PM, project teams, operation team, platform teams, vendors, external systems (channels, accounts, etc.) involved in remittances and other projects for alignment.</li> <li>Communicate delivery progress, risks, dependencies, and decisions to senior management.</li> <li>Support Delivery Program Manager with detailed delivery analysis and reporting.</li> <li>Demonstrated ability to manage multiple vendor teams and coordinate cross regional stakeholders to drive testing and delivery outcomes.</li> </ul> <p><span style="text-decoration:underline">Team Leadership & Resource Management</span></p> <ul> <li>Lead all technical teams (applications teams, infrastructure teams, security teams.etc), project teams and vendors ensuring high-performance culture and accountability.</li> <li>Provide clear direction, prioritization, and support to ensure projects are delivered on time, within scope, and agreed quality standards</li> <li>Drive collaboration, transparency, and strong cross-functional engagement.</li> <li>Ensure consistent engineering standards across all delivery locations.</li> </ul> <p><span style="text-decoration:underline">Quality & Compliance Assurance</span></p> <ul> <li>Build strong project management disciplines and governance, including planning, risk management, budget controls, issue escalations and stakeholder management.</li> <li>Ensure compliance with bank’s IT governance, audit, and risk policies.</li> <li>Supervise quality assurance across design, development, testing, and release.</li> <li>Participate in post-implementation improvement cycles and lessons learned.</li> </ul> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-size:14.0pt"><strong>Requirements</strong></span></p> <ul> <li>Bachelor’s Degree in Information Technology, Computer Science or equivalent.</li> <li>Minimum 10 years of senior-level IT project delivery experience in financial services, preferably in payments.</li> <li>Strong domain expertise in corporate banking, cross-border payments, and payment system integrations.</li> <li>Proven experience managing full SDLC including design, source code governance, testing coverage, and release cycles.</li> <li>Strong leadership, negotiation, and stakeholder management skills.</li> <li>Excellent communication and executive presentation skills.</li> <li>Track record of leading complex multi-team, multi-vendor technology projects to successful completion.</li> <li>Ability to review and quality check deliverables (requirements definition documents, design documents, test specifications) to discover and correct deficiencies and errors</li> <li>Knowledge of the technical configuration and integration methods of remittance systems (API integration, message formats, middleware, etc.)</li> <li>Basic knowledge of financial industry regulations and compliance, and understanding of unique quality and security requirements</li> </ul>