Implementation Manager at Fiserv in Milan, Lombardy, Italy

Implementation Manager
Location: Milan, Italy
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Job Title
Implementation Manager
About your role:
Reporting to the Programme Director and/or Programme Manager, the Implementation Manager is responsible for planning, coordinating and delivering client implementations, conversions and migration initiatives to meet specified business needs, while managing resources from multiple areas (and potentially third parties) to achieve agreed time, quality and client readiness objectives.
The Implementation Manager has accountability and responsibility for the successful delivery of implementation activities across the full lifecycle, from initial planning and requirements alignment through testing, go-live and transition to BAU. The role acts as the key coordination point between the client, internal Fiserv teams and external partners to ensure that solutions are implemented effectively and in line with business, operational and technical requirements.
What you’ll do:
Defining the implementation approach, scope and delivery plan in alignment with client and programme objectives.
Setting client expectations with respect to implementation deliverables, milestones, dependencies, timelines and readiness activities.
Establishing an appropriate implementation governance structure, in line with the Fiserv programme/project methodology and governance framework.
Supporting the client and sponsor through implementation planning, key decisions, sign-offs and readiness checkpoints.
Documenting the overall implementation approach, including conversion strategy, cutover planning, testing phases and transition requirements.
Developing and maintaining detailed implementation workstream plans across the full programme lifecycle, ensuring deliverables, walkthroughs, sign-offs and timeline dependencies are clearly defined and tracked.
Developing estimates for resources, effort and durations and, based on these, creating a high-level implementation schedule and requesting appropriate resources.
Facilitating the development of all elements of the implementation plan, including scope, schedule, RAID management, testing, training, communications, cutover and transition to BAU.
Establishing and managing event readiness criteria and readiness tracking across Fiserv, client and third-party workstreams, including RAG status reporting and escalation of at-risk items.
Defining and coordinating event governance, communications and the Schedule of Events (SoE), including checkpoint strategy, decision point criteria, meeting cadence, attendees, decision makers, cutover activities, dependencies, task sequencing and client alignment.
Ensuring that all implementation impacts on business processes, operational readiness and business continuity are assessed and continually monitored throughout the implementation lifecycle.
Coordinating cross-functional Fiserv teams, client stakeholders and third parties to ensure alignment on activities, deliverables and dependencies.
Acting as a primary point of contact for the client during implementation delivery and maintaining strong working relationships across all stakeholders.
Execution & Controls
Managing, maintaining and tracking the overall implementation plan, controls, work assignments, risks, issues, assumptions and dependencies in accordance with established Fiserv governance.
Reporting implementation status, including schedule, risks, issues, milestones, decisions and scope changes, to all stakeholders on a regular basis.
Managing readiness trackers and event entry criteria to assess implementation readiness and support go/no-go decision making.
Organising and facilitating the appropriate governance forums to review progress, manage escalations and determine corrective or preventive actions.
Managing implementation risks and issues, ensuring that team members are actively involved in identification, ownership and resolution activities where appropriate.
Monitoring implementation progress across all workstreams and ensuring that deliverables are completed on time and to the required quality standards.
Building and maintaining a cohesive cross-functional implementation team environment and fostering productive working relationships across Fiserv, client and third-party teams.
Ensuring the development, review and approval of all key implementation deliverables.
Refining resource, effort and duration estimates as the implementation progresses, ensuring that resource requests are raised early enough to secure the required support.
Managing proposed changes in scope, schedule or implementation approach with key stakeholders, clearly communicating impacts and recommended actions.
Scheduling, managing and participating in implementation reviews, testing checkpoints, readiness assessments and go-live planning sessions.
Ensuring the Schedule of Events (SoE) is detailed, baselined and aligned with the client plan prior to implementation events and updated with lessons learned for subsequent events.
Coordinating command and control activities during implementation events, including real-time tracking of task execution, dependencies, slippages and decision points.
Supporting the definition and execution of the event incident management process, ensuring alignment with client processes, Fiserv internal incident management standards, incident priorities and event-related SLAs.
Developing and maintaining event rota, support and contact plans to ensure appropriate coverage, escalation paths and resource availability during implementation and go-live windows.
Organising, leading and motivating a matrix team of Fiserv SMEs and, where applicable, third-party resources.
Maintaining an ongoing dialogue with PMO and programme leadership to ensure that defined processes are followed and that issues are addressed in a timely manner.
Ensuring a clean, structured and fully supported transition to BAU, including appropriate handovers to service and support teams.
Providing out-of-hours cover during critical implementation and go-live windows, including implementation weekends where required.
Performing implementation administration, including status reporting, documentation management, action tracking and governance support.
Closeout & Transition
Obtaining approval from the sponsor and client that implementation acceptance criteria have been met.
Confirming that implementation objectives and agreed deliverables have been achieved.
Confirming that all outstanding implementation risks and issues have been accepted, transitioned or resolved appropriately.
Supporting financial tracking and implementation completion activities, where applicable.
Facilitating the implementation review and obtaining approval to close out the implementation phase, documented within an end-of-implementation report.
Reviewing implementation outcomes, lessons learned and event performance to identify improvements and incorporate actions into future implementation events where applicable.
Ensuring that post-event actions, outstanding items and agreed lessons learned are tracked through to closure or transitioned appropriately into warranty and BAU support processes.
Performing implementation closeout activities and archiving implementation documentation, including the completion and communication of formal Lessons Learned outputs where applicable.
Experience you’ll need to have:
Significant proven experience (minimum 5 years) in implementation management, client onboarding, conversion or delivery roles within the Financial Services industry, in the Cards and Payments sector; experience in card and/or payment processing environments is preferred.
Proven experience coordinating cross-functional teams to deliver medium to large implementations successfully, including full lifecycle conversions or migration initiatives with interdependent resources.
Experience managing implementation deliverables such as readiness trackers, Schedule of Events (SoE), cutover plans, governance checkpoints, decision points, support rotas and post-event lessons learned.
Strong command of MS Office products, especially Word, Excel, PowerPoint and MS Project.
Strong understanding of implementation lifecycles, client onboarding, conversion and go-live processes.
Strong understanding of event readiness management, cutover planning and Schedule of Events (SoE) control.
Good understanding of incident management processes, event governance and operational handover into warranty and BAU.
Ability to manage structured communications, checkpoint governance and decision-making forums during critical implementation events.
Ability to plan and monitor complex implementations consisting of multiple workstreams and delivery endpoints.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills and English/Italian proficiency.
Experience that would be great to have:
PRINCE2 certification or equivalent project/implementation delivery certification preferred.
Experience working on multi-lingual, multi-country projects and willingness to travel for business as required.
Experience supporting platform migrations from legacy environments to modern processing platforms strongly preferred.
Salary starting at €67,500 - negotiable depending on experience
Thank you for considering employment with Fiserv.  Please:
Apply using your legal name
Complete the step-by-step profile and attach your resume (either is acceptable, both are preferable).
Our commitment to Diversity and Inclusion:
Fiserv is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, protected veteran status, or any other category protected by law.
Note to agencies:
Fiserv does not accept resume submissions from agencies outside of existing agreements. Please do not send resumes to Fiserv associates. Fiserv is not responsible for any fees associated with unsolicited resume submissions.
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