Project Manager

The role of the Project Manager is to successfully manage projects impacting Carnivals’ Global Financial Systems (CGFS) from inception to implementation. The Project Manager oversees the planning, implementation, and tracking of a project ensuring that all agreed deliverables are completed on time and within budget.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:

• Must be able to manage and own multiple projects in a fast paced environment and be accountable for their implementations.
• Must be able to manage multiple high dollar, high risk projects simultaneously
• Develop, implement, and maintain the Project schedule and Plan.
• Manage scope, timeline and budget for projects and be able to hold others accountable. Creates and communicates the project schedule.
• Identify key issues, risks, mitigation plans and be able to drive to resolution and or execute mitigation steps.
• Can escalate issues as required to Senior Management to remove obstacles impeding successful project implementations.
• Provide leadership and direction to the project team and manage cross team dependencies.
• Day to day liaison with project stakeholders and technical teams
• Responsible for conducting effective meetings where the objectives are met and the project is moving forward. Encourages collaboration between project team members.
• Reports on project status to increase visibility and proactive monitoring.
• Coordinates the preparation of requests for proposals, participates in vendor selection, and contract negotiation where appropriate. Ensure that the end product fulfills the contract and meets the sponsor's expectations.
• Internal Consulting: Positively influence others to achieve results that are in the best interest of the organization;
• Business Strategy: Actively contribute to the operations group by providing insight in the use of new or existing technology to further achieve efficiencies;
• Applications: Support all Corporate consolidated financial applications effort by ensuring that an effective technology foundation is in place for effective operations. Actively participate in enabling the convergence and integrated Global Financial Systems strategy by leveraging common applications and frameworks across all operating companies;
• Operations: Ensure technology support is managed effectively, with a focus on continuous improvements;
• Budgeting: Effectively build and manage project as well as group budgets.

QUALIFICATIONS:

Education:

• A bachelor’s degree with a Finance / IT discipline from an accredited college/university
• Formal training and certification in the system development life cycle and project management is preferred. PMP certification is preferred.

Experience:

• Minimum 5 years’ experience as an Application Development project manager within IT / Finance organizations and experience in project planning, project management and team leadership
• Experience with MS Office Suite (including PowerPoint), Visio and Microsoft Project.
• Experience in application development or package implementation projects and release management.
• Working knowledge of financial applications such as Oracle eBusiness Suite, MarkView and Hyperion a plus.
• Experience creating and delivering project related presentations a plus.
• Experience in the cruise industry is a significant plus.
• Comfortable working with professionals with diverse cultural backgrounds is a significant plus.
• Demonstrated ability to influence, educate and interact with diverse teams across the organization.
• Experience in working with development teams, onsite and offshore.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities: The Project Manager will be an experienced business / finance / systems manager with the following expertise and attributes:

• Ability to think strategically and participate actively in the decision analysis processes, including problem formulation, meeting facilitation and presentations to decision-makers.
• Ability to understand business issues and processes and to articulate the business context of projects.
• Solid and effective communication skills and team management with all levels of management from the end user community through C-level and Executive Management for project approval, status, steering committee updates, risk and issue resolution.
• Strong business judgment, as well as a thorough understanding of technology and a demonstrated track record of delivering effective solutions and systems with diverse geographic contexts.
• Ability and diplomacy to create and manage change.
• Excellent organizational awareness, and proven ability to operate in a matrix environment.
• Personality and presence that will command the respect and achieve buy-in from multiple stakeholders.
• Strong interpersonal, communication, and presentation skills. Proven track record in preparing and effectively delivering presentations.
• Demonstrated understanding of project management concepts and implementation techniques including Project Portfolio Management and Project Lifecycle Management.
• Maintains awareness of new and emerging technologies and the potential application to assigned projects.