What is this position about?

BNP Paribas has a presence in nearly 80 countries with over 180,000 employees. It ranks highly in its three core activities: Retail Banking, Investment Solutions and Corporate & Institutional Banking. 

In Asia Pacific, the BNP Paribas Group is a leading employer with 9,000 employees and a presence in 14 markets. Being one of the largest international banking networks, we strive to employ talented and innovative people who are aligned to our vision and culture.

Within CIB (Corporate and Institutional Banking), the Business line Global Banking is recognized universally for its expertise and its know-how.

APAC GB Projects & Change team is at the heart of Global Banking, playing a critical role in enabling new business and projects across Global Banking, contributing to alignment between Front Office and Functions, as well as being the architects (end-to-end) of the Global Banking Value Chain.

The team hosts 2 main mandates:

The Project Leads for vertical (front-office to accounting) or transversal (across several business lines or users groups or locations/entities) projects during all its life cycle (from design to completion). The team leads projects initiated from the APAC region or leads the regional stream of Global/non-APAC projects.

The Business Process Subject Matter Expert to assist the business in the design and review of their new business initiatives and exceptional trades and to represent IT, Operations and in some cases Finance, at new business approval committees: Transaction Approval Committee (“TAC”) and New Activity Committee (“NAC”).

The key interactions are with the project sponsors, Front-office and all the functions (Operations, IT, Finance, as well as Compliance, Legal and Tax) mainly within Global Banking business lines but we also step in at some occasions on projects involving Global Markets, Wealth Management or Securities Services.

The team reports hierarchically to the CIB APAC ITO Operations head. 

What would be your typical day at BNPP Paribas look like?

1.    Project Leads

Preliminary step: project framing 

•    Clarify the objective, the scope, the dependencies, the major risks & issues

•    Confirm the sponsorship

•    Ensure a clear business rationale is associated to the contemplated project (incl. high level ROI), identify benefits

•    Size roughly the effort required to design the solution & execute the project

•    Identify contributors to be on-boarded for the study

Study / Design phase: 

•    Clearly state the business requirements, cost and time-frame of the project

•    Coordinate & challenge experts to put together a solution meeting the business requirements 

•    Identify risk and dependencies that could jeopardize project execution

•    Establish the full financial of the project (cost, associated revenues or savings) 

•    Design the project governance (roles & responsibilities, governance bodies, stakeholders’ identification) 

•    Design project roadmap (i.e. the overall execution plan)

•    Secure the resource plan (skills, capacity) and prioritization / funding for those resources 

Execution phase: 

•    Drive the execution of the roadmap

•    Ensure aligned project status/progress is shared amongst the project community

•    Identify risk & issues and propose a mitigation action plan 

•    Raise alerts / escalate issues / review the roadmap if required 

•    Monitor the budget consumption

•    Monitor the feedback from contributors on project management and adjust when required 

•    Prepare and chair governance bodies, produce adequate reporting, communicate

Completion phase: 

•    Collect feedback from project participants

•    Identify good practices/factors of success and fields of improvement

•    Update project management toolkit with lessons learnt

The Project Lead is also accountable for ensuring that solutions designed for the project fit with the principles and are validated by the relevant validation bodies: 

•    Overall sound IT architecture

•    Operational TOM with clear mandate for each team

•    Strong control framework

•    Simple and efficient working

•    Future evolution of the regulatory framework or anticipated business transformation

2.    Business Process Subject Matter Expert (SME) and ITO representative for TAC/NAC

Act as a Subject Matter Expert on end to end processes

•    Bring expertise on the end to end process with a strong focus on improving the efficiency of the Operating Model

•    Develop a clear vision of the target processes including innovation / digital as the case may be

Provide in-depth cross-functional analysis for new business initiatives

•    Represent Operations & IT in the preparation for approval committees for exceptional transaction or new activities committees (TAC / NAC)

•    Leverage on close relationships with Business Representatives (Products, Sales, Coverage…), gather and analyze business initiatives in order to communicate and explain them effectively to each department involved

•    Provide operational expertise to define solutions that meet / exceed the business, operations or finance requirements

•    Assess feasibility and identify the setup, along with the appropriate level of controls, from an IT and Operations perspective to support exceptional transactions or new activities / products

Document business and functional requirements

•    Design and document processes for different areas and teams (FO, Ops, Finance…)

•    As appropriate, manage key projects (vertical or horizontal), bringing them to a successful conclusion (quality / cost / delay) by a close coordination of FO and ITO departments and other functions involved to achieve the objectives initially set

Minimize operational risk

•    Seek to minimize operational risk by implementing sufficient regular controls, by measuring operational risk and taking actions to maintain it at an acceptable level

•    Consider and/or design specific operational controls in the interest of mitigating operational risk

•    Ensure appropriate escalation to management and / or Permanent Control (or compliance as appropriate) as soon as an issue remains unsolved beyond and above what can be reasonably handled within the considered remit

What is required for you to succeed?

We are looking for a Project Manager with Global Banking business-focused end-to-end Projects & Change management experiences in the financial services or consulting environment (non-IT):

•    A minimum of 5 to 10 years of relevant experience 

•    Good In-depth knowledge of Front Office to Finance processing chains with a focus on Operations

•    Good technical understanding of Global Banking products and especially Corporate Banking (Cash Management, Trade Finance, Supply Chain Finance…)

•    Ability to interact appropriately in a non-hierarchical framework with a variety of stakeholders including SME from Operations or IT, business and senior management

•    Comfortable operating with a strong level of autonomy and/or under pressure

•    Strong analytical and problem solving skills 

•    Ability to think outside the box and to deal with novelty

•    Strong written/verbal communication and reporting skills

•    Strong team working and interpersonal skills

•    Organized and delivery-focused, with attention to detail

•    Proactive, proposing or taking own initiatives to prevent risks / issues

•    Solid work ethic and high level of motivation

•    Proficiency in Microsoft Office (MS Word, Excel & Power point)

•    Fluent in spoken and written English, Mandarin and/or French a plus

About BNP PARIBAS

As the leading European Union bank, and one of the world’s largest financial institutions with an uninterrupted presence in the region since 1860, BNP Paribas offers a wide range of financial services for corporate, institutional and private investors spanning corporate and institutional banking, wealth management, asset management and insurance. 

We passionately embrace diversity and are committed to fostering an inclusive workplace where all employees are valued and encourage applicants of all backgrounds, including diversity of origin, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion applicants who may be living with a disability. We have a number of internal employee networks in place to empower our staff to act and challenge the status quo.

•    BNP Paribas PRIDE is highly active in favour of the LGBTQIA+ community

•    BNP Paribas MixCity which fosters better representation of women at all levels of the organization

•    Ability, the mutual aid network for employees with a disability or a disabling or chronic illness

•    BNP Paribas CulturAll which celebrates diverse backgrounds

BNP is committed to financing a carbon-neutral economy by 2050. The Group is a founding member of the Net-Zero Banking Alliance and has set up its own Low Carbon Transition Group to support its clients through their energy transitions.

https://careers.apac.bnpparibas/

More information 

BNP Paribas - Diversity & Inclusion Journey

BNP Paribas - The Bank Of Green Changes

Award Obtained

BNPP has won Top employer Europe award in a 10th consecutive year