Project Management Officer Jobs

WHO WE ARE

City First Bank N.A. is a mission-driven Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) principally focused on a transformative impact in underserved, urban markets with the highest needs to drive equitable economic development. Our lending activities are purely commercial and focused on the following segments: Multifamily Affordable Housing, Not-for-Profit Finance, and Small Business Finance. As a depository and commercial lending provider with over $1.2 billion in bank assets as of September 30, 2022, our unified organization has over 100 employees in Washington DC and Los Angeles/Inglewood, CA.

ROLE SUMMARY

The Project Management Officer will report to the Chief of Staff, sitting under the Executive Office of the President. The Project Management Officer will help stand up the Bank’s Project Management Oversight and Processes for the entire bank. As the Bank roles out a new 3-year strategic plan, this role is a new strategic hire set up to support the Chief of Staff, who oversees strategy execution, and the full bank with executing against its strategic tactical priorities through effective portfolio level project and initiatives management for the bank.

The individual manages key corporate projects which often impact large segments of the organization or have a significant level of impact to the customer and/or systems. Manages the process and assists the project owners to ensure deliverables fall within the applicable scope and budget. Coordinates with other departments to ensure all aspects of each project are compatible with respect to risk, due diligence, manpower and resources. May lead or coach senior leaders on larger projects under their responsibility. This role spends a significant amount of time leading others outside of the Strategy, Communications, and Marketing department.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Assist in tracking projects and preparing the monthly project management report including obtaining project updates from business unit project managers.
• Build standard communications cascade for project updates across the bank
• Gathering project status updates
• Other duties as assigned.
• Support Business Leaders with Strategy Execution
• Hold regular meetings with project and strategic priority owners to get status updates on projects and initiatives of importance to the Chief of Staff, CEO, Strategy Execution work group, and the Board
• Weekly status update meetings with Chief of Staff to triage any issues, finalize reporting, and other items as discussed
• Assess feasibility of a centralized project management tool for the organization
• Hold training and onboarding for business unit leaders on project management governance, tools, and expectations
• Supports the project owners in successful completion of their project by helping set deadlines and milestones; reviewing budget; reviewing compliance procedure; define project scope; goals and deliverables; identify issues or risks; track decisions;
• Work with Chief of Staff and other business leaders on project portfolio decisioning from ideation, proposed project, business case development, approvals aligned with governance structure, and project execution success measures to be tracked
• Manage Partner Initiatives
• Work with all project owners to build out plans for projects identified as strategic priorities
• Develop and oversee project intake process for large or enterprise-wide projects
• Support Chief of Staff in building broad adoption of a ONE City First framework for Project Management oversight and execution to enhance strategic and role clarity for bank project owners
• Managing, partnering, and influencing the stakeholders towards the goal of completing project milestones on schedule noting in detail the issues that are blocking critical task completion.
• Specific projects may be directly assigned to project management officer, as needed
• Work with Chief of Staff to identify top execution risks and help find resolutions on diverse projects simultaneously.
• Manage new corporate partner project and initiative pipeline and support Chief of Staff and CEO with prioritizing, optimizing, and keeping traction with partnerships
• Work with finance to get project cost estimates vs. actuals integrated into project status tracking
• Complete project evaluations and project assessments on new projects and closed projects. Including detailed follow up at intervals such as six and twelve months after completion.
• Manage New Project Pipeline
• Work with Chief of Staff to identify top execution risk and help find resolutions
• Integration of project management oversight, where feasible, into existing bank systems and tools
• Other
• Mentor project owners in the bank’s project governance and lead training in this arena.
• Build and provide management and board level dashboard report for tracking strategy execution against plan
• Stand up and management of project management function for the bank

EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE

Required Education/Experience:

• Excellent interpersonal and multi-tasking skills required
• Excellent organizational and technical skills
• Bachelor’s Degree in business management, or related field.
• Strong leadership skills
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• 3+ years in project management directly managing projects of significant or complex scale.
• Strong attention to details and technicalities
• HS Diploma or equivalent

Preferred Education/Experience:

• Organizational development and change management leadership strongly preferred
• 3 years of experience working as a project partner to senior executives of an organization
• 3 years experience building a project management office
• 4+ years’ experience in applications systems support, testing, business analysis or production
• 4 years working in financial services/banking industry.

CERTIFICATIONS

• A Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification may be advantageous.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES

Required Knowledge & Skills:

• Proven ability to coordinate and facilitate meetings between various internal and external stakeholders
• Advanced skill level of MS Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint
• Understanding Project Management methodologies
• Ability to work with diverse set of business stakeholders

Preferred Knowledge & Skills:

• Experience setting up a Project Management Office
• Experience with Microsoft Project and Visio.
• Experience at a community development financial institution
• Knowledge of core and peripheral systems of a financial institution or financial business-related company
• Agile Project Management Methodologies