Senior Program Lead - Delivery & Margin Excellence

EXL Talent Acquisition Team; Pasay; On-site; PHP 800,000 - 1,200,000; Full time

Job summary

EXL Talent Acquisition Team is seeking a senior role to own financial performance and delivery governance for POD-based programs. You will manage scope, forecast accuracy, and gross margins while driving SAFe-aligned planning, RAID governance, and dependency management across multiple PODs.

You will lead PMs/Scrum Masters, coach delivery hygiene, maintain release readiness, and ensure high-quality outcomes with strict acceptance criteria and rapid issue resolution.

Responsibilities

• Own financial performance for POD delivery by managing scope, burn, utilization, and forecast accuracy while maintaining delivery velocity.
• Maintain program gross margin at/above approved plan; keep EAC variance within ±2% monthly.
• Develop weekly cost-to-complete and capacity plans; maintain utilization ≥90% for billable team members.
• Ensure 100% scope changes are captured via RAID/Change Control with agreed approvals and updated forecasts within 5 business days.
• Track change requests/assumptions with financial impact and secure approvals within agreed timelines.
• Drive end-to-end plan execution for PODs with SAFe cadence, dependency management, and disciplined delivery governance to achieve committed PI objectives.
• Achieve ≥90% PI objectives met for owned PODs; maintain iteration carryover <15% after first PI.
• Maintain schedule variance within ±10% for committed releases; complete release readiness checklist for every release.
• Update RAID and dependency logs weekly with owners; ensure zero critical dependencies without an owner.
• Coordinate across PODs to ensure integrated plans, dependencies, and release readiness are aligned end‑to‑end.
• Improve quality of deliverables through rigorous testing readiness, acceptance criteria discipline, and defect prevention practices.
• Achieve UAT pass rate ≥95% for each release; maintain defect rejection rate <5%.
• Reduce defect leakage to production to ≤2 defects per release; ensure zero repeat Sev-1 incidents.
• Enforce Definition of Ready/Done and evidence‑based sign‑offs for 100% of stories.
• Implement data quality checks with ≥99% accuracy for key reporting measures.
• Strengthen client confidence through proactive communication, transparent reporting, and rapid action closure.
• Achieve average stakeholder satisfaction/NPS score ≥8.5/10 (quarterly feedback).
• Deliver weekly executive summaries on time (100%) covering progress, risks, and decisions needed.
• Close agreed action items within 5 business days ≥90% of the time.
• Facilitate decisioning forums; unblock critical decisions within 10 business days ≥90% of the time.
• Maintain executive governance cadence with clear minutes and action tracking.
• Lead and develop POD PMs/Scrum Masters by coaching delivery hygiene, planning discipline, and problem‑solving; build high‑performing teams.
• Conduct monthly coaching 1:1s with each POD PM; maintain documented development goals and progress.
• Standardize templates (status, RAID, plan, release) and achieve ≥95% compliance across PODs.
• Manage attrition within agreed thresholds; execute onboarding plans within 2 weeks for any replacement.
• Implement team engagement actions; achieve stakeholder feedback on PM effectiveness ≥8/10.
• Ensure PODs operate with strong controls: risk management, auditability, and adherence to compliance and security requirements.
• Conduct risk reviews bi‑weekly; ensure all High/Critical risks have mitigation plans and due dates.
• Achieve 100% compliance with required documentation (SoW/Change controls, approvals, test evidence) and meet audit requests within SLA.
• Prevent compliance‑related production incidents attributable to missed process or documentation.
• Maintain critical path reviews weekly with stakeholders; achieve ≥90% release readiness criteria met ahead of cutover.
• Own Hypercare outcomes by ensuring release readiness, operational runbooks, and rapid incident resolution.
• Implement Hypercare runbook, on‑call rota, and incident triage model before each go‑live (100%).
• Meet incident SLAs: Sev-1 response <15 min, Sev-2 <30 min; reduce MTTR by ≥20% vs baseline.
• Complete post‑incident RCA within 5 business days for 100% of Sev-1/2 incidents with prevention actions tracked to closure.

Job description

EXL Talent Acquisition Team is seeking a senior role to own financial performance and delivery governance for POD-based programs. You will manage scope, forecast accuracy, and gross margins while driving SAFe-aligned planning, RAID governance, and dependency management across multiple PODs.

You will lead PMs/Scrum Masters, coach delivery hygiene, maintain release readiness, and ensure high-quality outcomes with strict acceptance criteria and rapid issue resolution.