Identity Program Lead

Hampton North; Connecticut; Hybrid; USD 105,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Hampton North seeks a program leader for the identity workstream within a large platform modernization in financial services. You will manage the identity backlog, priorities, decisions, and governance across Security, IT, HR, Compliance, and the implementation partner.

Responsibilities include roadmap ownership, cross-functional coordination, design governance, and sign-off on deliverables with traceability through deployment and handoff.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in IT, Cybersecurity, CS, or related field.
• Minimum 5+ years of progressive IAM/IGA/cybersecurity program delivery experience.
• 3+ years leading complex cross-functional identity initiatives.
• Experience in financial services or regulated industries preferred.
• Consulting or large implementation program experience preferred.
• Familiarity with CIAM and fine-grained authorization concepts.
• Strong knowledge of RBAC, ABAC, ReBAC, and access governance.
• Certifications such as CISSP/CISM/CRISC/CISA/CGEIT or PMP/PMI-ACP welcomed.

Responsibilities

• Own the identity workstream roadmap, backlog, priorities, acceptance criteria, decisions, risks, and dependencies in an agile program.
• Partner with PMO on sprint planning, backlog refinement, and prioritization with stakeholder buy-in.
• Lead status meetings, requirements, design, governance, and decision forums; report progress to leadership.
• Coordinate delivery across Security, IT, HR, Compliance, Legal/Privacy, and implementation partners.
• Bring business and technical contributors from outside the program into the work.
• Review and approve deliverables with traceability from requirements to deployment.
• Sequence dependencies with Salesforce, CIAM, and data initiatives.
• Oversee IGA platform selection and partner delivery against requirements.
• Establish governance for identity sources, lifecycle states, access requests, and approvals.
• Ensure entitlement models support least privilege and auditable approvals.
• Oversee non-human identity governance including service accounts.
• Define decision rights and ownership for identity policies and onboarding.
• Oversee onboarding of prioritized applications, testing, traceability, defects, go-live readiness.
• Ensure hypercare, runbooks, onboarding guides, and knowledge transfer are delivered.
• Collaborate with GRC, Compliance, Legal/Privacy, and Internal Audit on controls and regulatory readiness.
• Establish KPIs/KRIs for access requests, lifecycle, certifications, and onboarding.
• Drive corrective actions and mature identity governance based on audits and feedback.

Skills

IAM

IGA

Cybersecurity

Agile delivery

Cross-functional leadership

Stakeholder management

Education

Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Cybersecurity, Computer Science, or related field

Master's degree or equivalent experience preferred

Tools

Okta

Ping

SailPoint

Saviynt

Microsoft Entra ID Governance

Salesforce

Job description

This role is the program leader for the identity workstream inside a large, multi-workstream platform modernization at a financial services organization. The lead runs the identity backlog, sprint priorities, and decision flow alongside the PMO, Information Security, IT, HR, Compliance, application owners, and a global consulting firm implementing the IGA and CIAM platforms. The workstream keeps its momentum through stakeholder alignment, sequenced dependencies, early risk escalation, and formal sign-off on deliverables.

Compensation: $105,000 to $120,000 base+ performance bonus eligible

Logistics: Hybrid in Suffield, CT.

Here's what you'll be doing:

• Own the identity workstream roadmap, delivery backlog, priorities, acceptance criteria, decisions, risks, and dependencies within an agile program with 12 to 18 month milestones
• Partner with the PMO on sprint planning, backlog refinement, and prioritization, and identify where additional stakeholder buy-in is needed
• Lead recurring status, requirements, design, governance, and decision forums, and report progress, blockers, and recommendations to program and security leadership
• Coordinate delivery across Information Security, IT, HR, Compliance, Legal/Privacy, business teams, application owners, technical SMEs, and the implementation partner
• Bring business and technical contributors from outside the program into the work
• Review and formally approve deliverables with traceability from requirements through design, testing, deployment, and operational handoff
• Sequence dependencies with Salesforce role and profile design, the new customer portal, CIAM and fine-grained authorization, integrations, and data initiatives
• Partner on IGA platform selection and oversee the implementation partner's delivery against business, technical, integration, security, and operational requirements
• Establish governance for authoritative identity sources, joiner/mover/leaver lifecycle states, access requests, approvals, provisioning and deprovisioning, access certification, RBAC, separation of duties, reporting, and exception management
• Ensure entitlement models support least privilege, need-to-know access, customer data protection, segregation of duties, and auditable approvals
• Oversee non-human identity and service account governance, including inventory, ownership, lifecycle policy, and accountable use
• Define decision rights and sustainable ownership for identity policies, roles, entitlements, certifications, exceptions, and application onboarding, and help shape the future support model (internal IT operations or a managed service provider)
• Oversee phased onboarding of prioritized applications, business testing, requirements traceability, defect remediation, rollback planning, and go-live readiness
• Confirm delivery of hypercare, operational runbooks, application onboarding guides, configuration documentation, and knowledge transfer
• Partner with GRC, Compliance, Legal/Privacy, and Internal Audit on control design, access reviews, evidence, reporting, and regulatory readiness
• Establish KPIs and KRIs for access requests, lifecycle timeliness, certification completion, provisioning exceptions, reconciliation, policy violations, and application onboarding
• Drive corrective actions, elevate unresolved decisions, and mature identity governance using audit results, incidents, and stakeholder feedback

And what you need to have:

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Cybersecurity, Computer Science, or a related field (Master's or equivalent experience preferred)
• 5+ years of progressive experience in IAM, IGA, cybersecurity, enterprise applications, or technology program delivery
• 3+ years leading complex cross-functional identity initiatives or serving as an IAM/IGA product owner
• Financial services experience strongly preferred, with regulated industries such as insurance next
• Consulting or large implementation program experience preferred
• Fluency in identity concepts: IGA lifecycle governance, access certification, RBAC, ABAC, ReBAC, separation of duties, privileged and non-human identity governance, CIAM, and fine-grained authorization
• Familiarity with Okta, Ping, SailPoint, Saviynt, Microsoft Entra ID Governance, and Salesforce
• API and application integration concepts
• NIST CSF, NIST SP 800-53, and FFIEC expectations
• Agile delivery experience across backlog, sprint, and refinement cycles
• Ability to lead associates with dotted-line accountability and to manage vendors and hold service providers accountable
• Preferred certifications: CISSP, CISM, CRISC, CISA, CGEIT, or an IGA/IAM platform certification; PMP, PMI-ACP, or Certified Scrum Product Owner