QA and Governance PMO Lead

Korn Ferry; City of Westminster; Hybrid; GBP 80,000 - 100,000; Part time

Job summary

A leading consulting firm in the UK is seeking a highly experienced QA & Governance PMO Lead for a major transformation programme. This senior role involves ensuring governance and quality assurance across programme delivery, influencing senior stakeholders, and embedding best practices in a hybrid work setup. Ideal candidates will have extensive experience in financial services and a track record of implementing governance frameworks.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in PMO governance and quality assurance for large-scale projects.
• Strong background in financial services within regulated environments.
• Proven track record in establishing governance frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Define and embed governance standards for the programme.
• Provide independent quality assurance over programme delivery.
• Ensure management of risks, issues, and dependencies.

Skills

PMO governance

Quality control

Stakeholder management

Financial services background

Agile methodologies

Education

Relevant certifications (MSP, PRINCE2, PMP)

Tools

MS Project

Power BI

JIRA

Job description

Overview

We are looking for a highly experienced QA & Governance PMO Lead to join a major transformation programme within a leading financial services organisation. The role will focus on ensuring quality assurance, governance, and control across programme delivery, embedding best practice and providing independent oversight on a programme of significant scale and complexity. This is a senior PMO leadership role, working closely with Programme Directors, Risk & Compliance, and senior stakeholders to ensure that delivery governance is robust, transparent, and effective.

Key Responsibilities

• Governance Frameworks & Standards: Define, establish, and embed programme governance standards and assurance frameworks. Ensure governance processes meet regulatory and organisational requirements. Coordinate and manage Steering Committee/Programme Board reporting and packs.
• Quality Assurance & Controls: Provide independent quality assurance over programme delivery, ensuring compliance with agreed frameworks and methodologies. Conduct regular health checks, audits, and compliance reviews across workstreams. Identify gaps and risks in delivery governance, recommending and implementing improvements.
• Risk, Issue & Dependency Management: Oversee robust management of RAID logs, ensuring escalation and mitigation processes are in place and effective. Ensure dependencies across multiple workstreams are clearly tracked and proactively managed.
• Reporting & Transparency: Produce high-quality, independent reporting for ExCo, SteerCo, and senior stakeholders, highlighting delivery risks and control gaps. Ensure programme reporting is consistent, accurate, and aligned across all workstreams.
• Stakeholder Management & Advisory: Act as a trusted advisor to programme leadership on governance and assurance. Partner with Risk, Audit, and Compliance functions to ensure external scrutiny requirements are met. Influence senior stakeholders to drive adherence to governance and QA standards.

Key Skills & Experience

• Extensive experience in PMO governance, assurance, and quality control on large-scale transformation programmes (>£100m budget, >1,000 people).
• Strong financial services background, ideally within highly regulated environments.
• Proven track record of establishing and embedding governance and QA frameworks on major programmes.
• Excellent understanding of portfolio/programme methodologies (Agile/Hybrid/Waterfall).
• Exceptional stakeholder management skills, with the ability to challenge and influence at ExCo/SteerCo level.
• Experience in working with audit, risk, and compliance functions.
• Proficiency with portfolio and reporting tools (eg, MS Project, Planview, Clarity, Power BI, JIRA).
• Relevant certifications desirable (eg, MSP, PRINCE2, PMP, P3O, SAFe).

Contract Details

• Contract Type: Day-rate contract (Outside IR35 subject to assessment).
• Location: London (hybrid, 2-3 days onsite).
• Duration: 9 months (with likely extension).

About Korn Ferry

Korn Ferry unleashes potential in people, teams, and organizations. We work with our clients to design optimal organization structures, roles, and responsibilities. We help them hire the right people and advise them on how to reward and motivate their workforce while developing professionals as they navigate and advance their careers. To learn more, please visit our website.