Senior Program Manager

Imagine catching criminals before they strike - that’s exactly what Napier’s AI-powered platform does! By analysing transactions and customers in real time, Napier AI’s technology empowers financial institutions to spot suspicious activity, like money laundering, and stops it in its tracks.

Napier AI’s technology works like a digital detective, combining AI with smart analytics to outthink criminals and protect people’s money from becoming criminal proceeds. It’s not just about stopping crime - it’s about making the financial world safer and more trustworthy for everyone.

Collaboration, innovation and wonderful people are just some of the reasons to bring your career to Napier. Our culture is shaped by our core values that promote equality, creativity, and opportunity in everything we do.

The Role: Senior Program Manager

You will lead Napier AI's most complex and highest-value enterprise delivery programs including Tier 1 bank implementations. From there you will take portfolio leadership of Napier's strategic Tier 1 accounts as we scale that tier of the business.

These programs operate under regulatory and contractual hard deadlines, multi-party governance (bank, Napier, hyperscaler, third-party integrators), and executive-level scrutiny on both sides. You will be brought in at critical phases, expected to establish authority quickly, restore delivery confidence where needed, hold the commercial line, and land go-live cleanly.

This is a senior, customer-facing role that carries programs accountability end to end. You will be the single senior Napier delivery point of contact with the client's program director and executive sponsor. You will be trusted internally to hold Product, Engineering, Platform, and Professional Services to their commitments to ensure customers realise value from their investment in Napier's platform.

Your day to day: Senior Programme Manager

Program Leadership

Own end-to-end delivery of Napier's largest enterprise programs, including Tier 1 National and European bank engagements

Establish and run program governance: steering committees, executive status reviews, RAID discipline, decision logs

Define and defend the acceptance criteria for go-live and any regulatory or contractual milestone

Coordinate delivery across Napier's Professional Services, Product, Engineering, Platform, Support, and Customer Success functions

Client and Executive Stakeholder Management

Act as the single senior Napier delivery contact with the client's program director, delivery leads, and executive sponsors

Chair steering committees and executive status forums with authority and credibility

Prevent client escalations bypassing program governance

Represent Napier at client executive escalations, industry regulator interactions where relevant, and third-party (hyperscaler, SI) governance

Commercial Governance

Own program P&L, forecast, and margin

Run formal change control against every scope movement, defect classification, and delivery obligation

Defend Napier against uncapped commitments, one-sided release triggers, and unbounded acceptance criteria

Hold the defect versus change request line: no product commitment leaves Napier without your sign-off

Escalate commercial and contractual risk to the CCO before it becomes a client-facing position

Delivery Excellence and Risk Management

Maintain the end-to-end program plan, dependency map, and critical path

Own the risk register and drive mitigations with named accountable owners

Establish and maintain go/no-go readiness assessment against agreed criteria

Drive continuous improvement in Napier's delivery methodology from evidence in the field

Third-Party Regulatory Instruments

Manage the operational side of any escrow, source-code deposit, or equivalent regulatory instrument on your programs, working with Napier Legal, Engineering, and the third-party agent

Manage client expectations on trigger events, deposit content, and verification cycles

Customer Outcomes and Transition

Ensure customers achieve successful implementation, adoption, and business value realisation

Manage a clean transition from delivery into Customer Success and Support with complete documentation and no orphaned commitments

Do you have what it takes:

Essential

12+ years leading large-scale enterprise software delivery programs, with at least 5 years at senior program director or equivalent level

Direct financial crime compliance domain experience: AML, KYC, Transaction Monitoring, Sanctions Screening, or Case Management platforms. Not adjacent, not learned on the job during a stint - deep and current

Delivered at least one enterprise implementation into a Tier 1 or systemic bank in the UK, EU, or US, chairing steering committees at C-1 level

Proven turnaround experience: taken over a live enterprise program mid-flight, restored client confidence, re-baselined credibly, and landed a successful outcome

Cloud-based enterprise SaaS platform delivery experience, ideally including hyperscaler-hosted environments (Azure, AWS, or GCP)

Multi-vendor program experience across client, primary vendor, hyperscaler, and system integrator

Strong commercial and contractual instincts: has run defensive change control, held scope, defended margin, and defeated attempts to reclassify enhancements as defects

Experience of programs with regulatory or contractual hard deadlines (go/no-go gates, DORA, PRA/FCA supervisory dates, or equivalent)

Presence and credibility at C-1 and C-suite client levels

Highly Desirable

Experience of escrow, source-code deposit, or equivalent third-party regulatory instruments in a live client engagement

Experience across multiple geographic regions (EMEA, Americas, APAC)

Program management certifications (MSP, PgMP, PMP, Prince2) - useful, but not a substitute for the experience above

Experience in Private Equity-backed software companies operating to a defined value creation plan

About You

You bring calm authority and structured judgement to programs under pressure. You are equally comfortable in a technical defect triage, a commercial change control meeting, and a bank executive steering committee. You know when to push and when to protect, and you are willing to hold uncomfortable positions internally to protect the commercial and delivery outcome

You do not need consensus to act. You do need clarity of accountability, direct access to executive decision-making, and the trust to run your program.

Originally posted on Himalayas