Program Manager

About Electrum:

Electrum is an exciting B2B tech company. We partner with some of South Africa’s biggest household names, enabling them to open up their customers’ access to payments and digital goods and services. We love that the projects we work on touch the lives of millions of South Africans daily, making a real difference.

We hire the best of the best and offer great opportunities for personal growth and career progression.

The Role:

Are you a delivery-focused leader with a customer-first mindset? As Electrum’s Program Manager, you will drive the delivery of strategic initiatives that directly impact our largest clients and the overall success of Electrum. This role is for someone passionate about fostering relationships, managing complex programs, and ensuring long-term value for our customers and internal teams.

We are looking for a Program Manager passionate about building long-term customer relationships and delivering value through seamless program execution.

In this role, you will oversee the delivery of complex programs for our key clients—large banks and retailers—ensuring that all projects within the program align with customer expectations and our company’s strategic objectives. To ensure successful outcomes, you will work closely with cross-functional teams, including sales, engineering, product, and support. Your leadership will be instrumental in guiding teams through challenges and maintaining high standards of quality, scope, and timelines.

Requirements

You will focus on overseeing complex, multi-project programs from initiation to closure. Beginning with sales handover, you will ensure that projects move smoothly from pre-sales to delivery. During the delivery phase, you will coordinate development across teams and manage key milestones while managing dependencies and risks.

You will take overall responsibility for timelines, budget and scope at the program level. You will manage stakeholder expectations to ensure the program delivers long-term value for both Electrum and its customers. 

Throughout this process, you’ll foster strong relationships with key internal and external stakeholders to ensure successful, timely delivery.

You will:

• Lead program-level decision-making, balancing technical, financial, and business constraints to ensure optimal outcomes.
• Create and communicate customer roadmaps
• Manage multiple interrelated projects across banking and payment systems, ensuring they are aligned with Electrum’s strategic goals.
• Ensure that programs are delivered on time, within scope and budget, while maintaining high-quality standards across all projects.
• Proactively identify and mitigate risks while managing dependencies across projects.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with customers, third-party providers, and internally across sales, engineering, product, and tech ops teams.
• Develop and guide cross-functional teams to ensure the successful execution of the program plan and objectives.
• Facilitate and lead high-level program governance meetings, including steering committee meetings and program retrospectives.
• Continuously improve program delivery processes and methodologies.
• Act as a customer advocate, aligning program objectives with customer needs and feedback.
• Stay updated on the latest banking, payments, and fintech trends to drive innovation and add value to program delivery.

What You Can Bring to Electrum (non-negotiables):

• Relevant degree
• 7+ years of experience in project or program management, including management of large-scale software initiatives.
• Proven ability to manage complex, multi-project programs with cross-functional teams in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.
• Strong leadership skills, with the ability to influence stakeholders and guide teams through challenges.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to manage technical and business relationships.
• Deep understanding of program management methodologies and best practices (Prince2, PMP, Agile, etc.).
• Strong problem-solving skills with a proactive approach to risk management and conflict resolution.
• Ability to drive strategic decision-making that balances customer needs, business objectives, and technical constraints.

Increase your odds by having:

• Prince 2, PMP or Agile training will be advantageous
• Financial Services/ Payment /Fintech industry experience

Benefits

We have created a high-performance culture where you can expect:

• Career growth - Delivering world-class financial services software products in a fast-paced company is not easy and takes an insane amount of effort. But in return for your effort, you'll get hands-on experience working on products that are used by millions of people, and a high-quality work experience that will accelerate your career.
• Transparency - We openly discuss strategy, finances, salaries and other significant decisions.
• Autonomy—We trust you and know you'll be able to make good decisions if you have good information.
• Shared Vision - You'll be able to shape a vision you can believe in - on how to build the future of financial services.
• Work-life balance - You know when your brain has switched off for the day and you need to go for a hike or coffee shop with a view, but you also know when your team needs help to bring that strategic deliverable home. At Electrum, you will be expected to know when you deserve that time out and when you need to knuckle down and get the work done.

These are a few practical ways we practise the culture we are so proud of:

• Flexible work hours
• Onsite gym and shower facilities
• Daily cooked lunches and a stocked kitchen for the afternoon nibbles
• Team socialising like hikes, getaways, and dinners
• A generous leave policy, starting at 20 days per year
• A recreational area with foosball, table tennis and an Oculus
• Fatsaks scattered around the office for deep thinking or meditation

We have created a safe, transparent environment where:

• We know mistakes happen, and that’s okay. We even have a three-step approach to dealing with them:

1. Tell everyone about it
2. Fix the mistake
3. Tell everyone about the solution

• You are responsible for your actions – both the successes and the failures
• We talk openly about salaries and bonuses. At Electrum, we believe it’s evident why some people earn more and others a bit less. It’s like being on a sports team where salaries are widely known.

If this sounds like a role and place where you can spread your wings, please apply now.