Project Manager
Department: Transformation
Location: Horsham
Description As a Project Manager at Benchmark Capital, you will lead initiatives that drive business and technology transformation. Based at our Broadlands Business Campus in Horsham, you’ll deliver projects that enable organisational change, improve client outcomes, and strengthen our position in financial planning technology. You will manage complex, cross-functional programmes from initiation through to delivery, ensuring alignment with strategic objectives and measurable benefits. This role requires a proactive leader who can influence stakeholders , communicate effectively , and maintain focus on delivering meaningful change . Working closely with senior leaders, external partners, and the PMO, you’ll embed robust governance, manage risk, and promote adoption of new processes and systems. You’ll also support continuous improvement by sharing insights and refining delivery practices across the team. This is a high-profile role suited to someone with proven experience in end-to-end project delivery, ideally within financial services, and the ability to lead transformation in a fast-paced environment. What you'll do- Lead Strategic Projects: Manage end-to-end delivery of complex, business-critical projects—driving value realisation, balancing timelines, budgets, stakeholder needs, and quality within a dynamic environment.
- Project Planning and Execution: Develop compelling business cases aligned with organisation goals. Skilled in designing and orchestrating comprehensive project plans, with a strong focus on prioritisation and delivery management. Proactively oversees scope, resource allocation, risk mitigation, and stakeholder engagement to ensure timely, cost-effective, and high-quality outcomes that deliver business value. Adept at securing stakeholder alignment, preparing for operational readiness, and steering initiatives to successful completion at a strategic level.
- Stakeholder Engagement: Secure stakeholder and sponsor buy-in, ensure alignment of resources to priorities, and drive desired business outcomes. Manage stakeholder expectations by building strong relationships and ensuring regular, transparent communication to foster trust and support project success. Manage differing views and build consensus.
- Change Management: Apply structured change management frameworks to drive the effective adoption of strategic initiatives. Take full operational ownership by crafting and executing comprehensive end-to-end transition plans, engaging stakeholders early, defining clear responsibilities, delivering targeted training, and ensuring seamless integration into business-as-usual operations to achieve lasting transformation.
- Trusted Advisor: Build relationships with senior business partners and third parties. Facilitate timely decision-making and guide value trade-offs as needed.
- Collaboration: Work closely with the Project Management Office for accurate forecasting, reporting, resource allocation, and management. Lead business and client readiness, adopting effective stakeholder engagement strategies throughout the project lifecycle.
- Risk and Issue Management: Deliver proactive risk assurance by identifying, assessing, and managing risks, issues, assumptions, and dependencies throughout the project lifecycle. Ensure clarity and control through structured RAID management and resolving uncertainties. Define project risk appetite and collaborate with stakeholders to implement effective mitigation strategies. Champions a robust risk culture that promotes ownership, transparency, and constructive conflict resolution across projects.
- Problem Solving: Advanced problem-solving and critical thinking by gathering and interpreting data, analysing complex and ambiguous issues. Considers interdependencies, risks, and evidence to develop effective recommendations, while balancing short-term and strategic objectives.
- Budget and Resource Management: Accurately forecast, monitor, and control project expenditure. Proactively identify and addresses budget variances. Skilled in balancing resource demand with delivery capacity, ensuring the right skills are deployed at the right time to support successful project execution.
- Benefits Management and Value Realisation: Benefits are clearly defined, rigorously tracked, and successfully realised across projects. Champions a value-focused culture that integrates benefits into decision-making, governance, and performance measurement framework.
- Continuous Improvement: Share lessons learned, contribute to project management best practices, and strengthen project delivery standards across the team.
- Exceptional verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to convey complex information clearly and persuasively to diverse audiences.
- Builds strong relationships through active listening, empathy, and tailored messaging across stakeholder groups.
- Skilled in facilitating meetings, delivering impactful presentations, and producing high-quality documentation that supports decision-making.
- Demonstrated successful delivering of complex projects end-to-end.
- Expertise in the full project lifecycle and proven ability to manage multiple, cross-functional projects simultaneously.