South Africa: Senior Project Manager (Cyber Security / RFP Projects) – (CONTRACT) posted by PM Connection

The Project Manager will lead one, and possibly two, strategic enterprise-wide initiatives. The initiatives involve the evaluation of technologies and service providers. The outcome of the evaluation will determine the progress of the projects, which would entail either implementing a technology or onboarding a service provider to provide a service.

This role requires a senior, experienced project manager with strong cybersecurity delivery experience, sufficient technical depth to engage credibly with security and engineering teams, and a proven ability to run structured Request for Proposal (RFP) processes within large, regulated organisations.

Key Responsibilities

Programme & Project Delivery

• Own end-to-end delivery of the projects, from initiation and vendor evaluation through to implementation and operational handover.
• Define and manage programme scope, milestones, dependencies, risks, and deliverables across multiple workstreams.
• Ensure alignment with enterprise security strategy, identity and access management (IAM) roadmaps, and broader zero-trust and cyber-resilience initiatives.
• Provide accurate, timely reporting to senior stakeholders, steering committees, and executive sponsors.

Technology Evaluation & RFP Management

• Lead a formal RFP process to identify and evaluate technologies and service
• Coordinate technical evaluations, proof-of-concept activities, and vendor due-diligence exercises.
• Work closely with procurement, legal, risk, and compliance teams to ensure commercial, regulatory, and contractual alignment.

Technical & Security Engagement

• Act as a bridge between cybersecurity and risk teams and various other technical teams required to deliver the project
• Understand and articulate technical concepts
• Ensure security requirements, architectural standards, and risk controls are translated into clear project outcomes.

Stakeholder Management

• Engage with senior leaders across IT, Security, Risk, and Business functions.
• Drive alignment across teams with competing priorities in a complex enterprise environment.
• Manage third-party vendors and system integrators to ensure delivery quality and accountability.

Governance, Risk & Compliance

• Ensure the programme meets internal security policies, regulatory expectations, and audit requirements applicable to the financial services sector.
• Identify, track, and mitigate risks related to identity-based threats, operational disruption, and implementation challenges.

Required Experience & Qualifications

Essential

• Minimum 8+ years experience delivering complex cybersecurity projects or programmes.
• Proven experience managing enterprise-scale security initiatives within the financial services sector or similarly regulated environments.
• Demonstrated success in running formal RFP processes, including vendor evaluation and selection.
• Strong project management discipline across budget, scope, risk, and stakeholder governance.
• Ability to engage confidently with technical and security specialists while maintaining a delivery-focused mindset.

Technical Background (Required)

• Solid understanding of cybersecurity and third-party risk concepts
• Experience delivering projects spanning both on-premises and cloud environments.
• Ability to translate technical risk into business-relevant outcomes.

Desirable

• Experience with identity-centric security or zero-trust programmes.
• Exposure to non-human identity, service account governance, or machine identity risk.
• Professional certifications such as PMP, PRINCE2, or equivalent.

Key Skills & Attributes

• Strong leadership and stakeholder management capability at senior levels.
• Highly organised, analytical, and delivery-oriented.
• Comfortable operating in complex, matrixed enterprise environments.
• Able to balance strategic objectives with operational realities.
• Calm and decisive under pressure, with a proactive risk management mindset.

Kindly regard your application as unsuccessful if you have not heard from the agency within 2 weeks.