PMO Lead

PayNest; Jeddah; On-site; SAR 240,000 - 360,000; Full time

Job summary

PayNest in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia seeks an experienced PMO Lead to support the Programme Director on a major digital banking transformation. The role focuses on governance, planning, and executive reporting across client and delivery partners, not on writing requirements.

You will govern delivery processes, manage the RAID register, maintain integrated plans, dashboards, and reporting hygiene, and coordinate with workstreams to consolidate updates.

Qualifications

• Around 6 to 12 years of experience in programme management, PMO leadership or delivery assurance within consulting or banking.
• Ability to build and maintain an integrated programme plan with dependencies and a meaningful critical path.
• Strong follow-through and sound judgement; able to escalate weak controls and overdue actions to senior stakeholders.
• Advanced PowerPoint capability and strong working knowledge of Word, Excel and Microsoft Project; outputs must be suitable for executive committee review.
• Experience using Jira for boards, workflows, dashboards and reporting; familiarity with Confluence is desirable.
• Experience in financial services or large-scale transformation programmes; PMP or PRINCE2 certification is advantageous but not essential.
• Candidates must be independent of the programme's current delivery parties; clear English is essential and Arabic language capability is helpful.

Responsibilities

• Maintain the integrated programme plan across all parties, providing a reliable view of milestones, dependencies, the critical path and upcoming activity.
• Coordinate the full governance cycle, including monthly Steering Committee meetings, weekly delivery forums, daily stand-ups and change-control meetings, with timely agendas, papers, decisions and actions.
• Own the programme RAID register, challenge stale entries, and ensure risks, assumptions, issues and dependencies have clear owners and current actions.
• Produce the monthly Steering Committee pack and weekly programme updates to an executive-ready written and visual standard.
• Maintain programme dashboards and deliverable trackers, providing early warning of emerging slippage, control concerns and decisions required.
• Administer programme boards and reporting structures in Jira, maintaining consistent data quality, workflow discipline and reporting hygiene.
• Coordinate with workstream leads, client stakeholders and delivery partners to consolidate updates, decisions and assurance evidence while supporting the Programme Director's evolving priorities.

Skills

Programme management

PMO leadership

Delivery assurance

Stakeholder management

Jira

Confluence

PMP/PRINCE2 (advantageous)

Tools

Jira

Confluence

Microsoft Project

PowerPoint

Job description

Location: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (Full-time on site)

Job Type: Full-time, contractual role

Job Description

We are seeking an experienced PMO Lead to support the Programme Director on a major digital banking transformation in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The programme is bringing the bank's retail, SME and corporate digital channels onto a single platform and is at an early stage, giving the successful candidate the opportunity to help establish the programme office from the outset.

As the Programme Director's principal PMO support, you will coordinate planning, governance, assurance and executive reporting across the client and delivery partners. This is an independent oversight role: you will govern the delivery process and assure the outputs produced by others, rather than write business requirements or configure the platform.

Key Responsibilities

• Maintain the integrated programme plan across all parties, providing a reliable view of milestones, dependencies, the critical path and upcoming activity.
• Coordinate the full governance cycle, including monthly Steering Committee meetings, weekly delivery forums, daily stand-ups and change-control meetings, with timely agendas, papers, decisions and actions.
• Own the programme RAID register, challenge stale entries, and ensure risks, assumptions, issues and dependencies have clear owners and current actions.
• Produce the monthly Steering Committee pack and weekly programme updates to an executive-ready written and visual standard.
• Maintain programme dashboards and deliverable trackers, providing early warning of emerging slippage, control concerns and decisions required.
• Administer programme boards and reporting structures in Jira, maintaining consistent data quality, workflow discipline and reporting hygiene.
• Coordinate with workstream leads, client stakeholders and delivery partners to consolidate updates, decisions and assurance evidence while supporting the Programme Director's evolving priorities.

Qualifications & Skills

• Around 6 to 12 years of experience in programme management, PMO leadership or delivery assurance within consulting or banking.
• Demonstrated ability to build and maintain an integrated programme plan with dependencies and a meaningful critical path.
• Strong follow-through and sound judgement, with the confidence to **escalate weak controls, overdue actions and difficult delivery messages** to senior stakeholders.
• Advanced PowerPoint capability and strong working knowledge of Word, Excel and Microsoft Project; outputs must be suitable for executive committee review.
• Practical experience using Jira for boards, workflows, dashboards and reporting; familiarity with Confluence is desirable.
• Experience in financial services or large-scale transformation programmes is preferred; PMP or PRINCE2 certification is advantageous but not essential.
• Candidates must be independent of the programme's current delivery parties; clear English is essential and Arabic language capability is helpful.

The Essentials

• Available to join immediately or with a notice period of no more than 30 days.
• Eligible to work in Saudi Arabia.
• Candidates holding valid residency in the UAE or Saudi Arabia are preferred.