Vice President, Project Management, Data Governance Operationalisation - SMBC

Headquartered in Tokyo, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) is a leading global financial institution and a core member of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMBC Group). Built upon our rich Japanese heritage since 1876, we put our customers first and provide seamless access to, from and within the Asia Pacific region. SMBC is one of the largest Japanese banks by assets and maintain strong credit ratings across our global integrated network. We work closely as one SMBC Group to offer personal, corporate and investment banking services to meet the needs of our customers.

With sustainability embedded within our strategy and operations, we are committed to creating a society in which today's generation can enjoy economic prosperity and well-being, and pass it on to future generations.

Vice President, Project Management

Data Governance Operations, APAC

Role Purpose

The Vice President, Project Management will provide project and portfolio management leadership across the APAC Data Governance Operations portfolio.

The role is responsible for translating strategic priorities into structured, executable programmes, establishing clear plans and governance, coordinating delivery across multiple countries and workstreams, and ensuring senior stakeholders have transparent visibility of progress, risks, dependencies and decisions required.

This is primarily a project management and stakeholder management role rather than a data governance specialist role. The successful candidate will work closely with Data Governance subject-matter experts, country Data Management Offices, Risk, Finance, Technology, external partners and senior management to drive coordinated execution across a complex regional environment.

Key Responsibilities

1. Programme & Project Management

• Lead planning and execution across a portfolio of regional Data Governance initiatives.
• Translate strategic objectives into integrated delivery plans, milestones, dependencies, ownership and measurable outcomes.
• Establish and maintain programme plans, delivery roadmaps, RAID logs, decision logs and management reporting.
• Track delivery against agreed milestones and proactively identify slippage, dependencies and execution risks.
• Drive issues through to resolution rather than simply reporting status.
• Coordinate interdependent workstreams and ensure activities converge toward overall programme objectives.
• Lead programme re-planning and rebaselining where priorities, scope or delivery assumptions change.

2. Senior Stakeholder Management

• Build effective working relationships across senior business, Risk, Finance, Technology, Data and country stakeholders.
• Act as a central coordination point between regional teams, country stakeholders and relevant global stakeholders.
• Lead working sessions and management discussions to establish alignment on priorities, responsibilities and delivery expectations.
• Identify areas of disagreement or ambiguity and drive stakeholders toward clear decisions.
• Prepare concise executive-level updates that clearly articulate progress, risks, decisions required and management attention needed.
• Ensure stakeholder commitments and decisions translate into tangible delivery actions.

3. Portfolio Governance & Management Reporting

• Establish a disciplined governance rhythm across the portfolio, including working-level forums, management reporting and escalation.
• Develop a consolidated view of delivery across countries, initiatives and workstreams.
• Maintain clear visibility of:
  • milestones and deliverables;
  • owners and accountabilities;
  • risks and issues;
  • cross-programme dependencies;
  • key decisions;
  • resource constraints; and
  • upcoming management actions.
• Drive effective escalation where delivery is at risk.
• Support preparation for senior management, regional and global governance forums.

4. Cross-Country Execution

• Coordinate delivery across multiple APAC branches and offices with different levels of maturity, resources and local requirements.
• Work with country teams to convert regional requirements into practical execution plans.
• Establish consistent programme management standards while recognising legitimate country-specific constraints.
• Drive country stakeholders for timely completion of agreed deliverables and escalation of blockers.
• Facilitate alignment between central teams and local stakeholders where responsibilities or expectations are unclear.

5. Operating Model & Delivery Discipline

• Help establish clear roles, responsibilities and decision rights across central, country, specialist and delivery-support teams.
• Introduce practical programme management disciplines that improve accountability without creating unnecessary administration.
• Define appropriate working rhythms, reporting standards and escalation mechanisms.
• Support stream leads in managing consultants, vendors and other delivery resources.
• Continuously identify opportunities to simplify execution and improve transparency across the portfolio.

6. Risk, Issue & Dependency Management

• Proactively identify programme risks and dependencies before they impact delivery.
• Challenge workstream leads on recovery actions where milestones are at risk.
• Coordinate resolution of cross-functional issues involving multiple teams or countries.
• Ensure significant risks and decisions are escalated to the appropriate governance forum with clear recommended actions.
• Maintain appropriate evidence of key programme decisions, approvals and milestone completion.

Candidate Profile

Essential Experience

• Extensive experience in programme management, project management, transformation or PMO leadership within a large, complex organisation.
• Proven experience managing multiple concurrent workstreams across countries, business functions or legal entities.
• Strong track record of engaging and influencing senior stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to bring structure to programmes where scope, ownership or execution approach may initially be unclear.
• Experience developing integrated programme plans and managing milestones, dependencies, risks and issues.
• Strong executive communication and management-reporting capability.
• Experience driving delivery through stakeholders where the role does not have direct authority over all participants.
• Ability to operate comfortably across business and technology organisations.
• Experience managing external consultants or delivery partners.

Preferred Experience

• Experience within banking, financial services or another highly regulated industry.
• Exposure to enterprise transformation, regulatory, data, risk, finance or technology programmes.
• Familiarity with data management or data governance concepts would be advantageous, but deep technical data governance expertise is not required.
• Experience working in a regional or global operating model, particularly across APAC, would be beneficial.