[Hiring] Senior Project Manager - Audit Operations @Arizona State University

Role Description

Supports and instructs those served by the department with complex queries, applies specialized knowledge of multiple standards, policies and procedures, and maintains accurate and detailed records.

Reporting to the Assistant Vice President of Financial Aid Services, the Project Manager, Senior works closely and collaboratively with stakeholders across Financial Aid and Scholarship Services to plan, organize, and manage the department’s project portfolio. The position identifies and coordinates resource needs and aligns the efforts of involved parties to ensure the timely delivery of project outcomes in accordance with established requirements and project sponsor expectations.

With primary responsibility for coordinating concurrent aid-year cycles and operational initiatives arising from regulatory, compliance, audit, and institutional requirements, the Project Manager, Senior develops and maintains project plans, integrated schedules, and milestones and establishes clear ownership and accountability for deliverables.

The position monitors progress, facilitates project meetings, follows up with responsible parties, tracks risks, issues, dependencies, and decisions, and provides leadership with timely visibility into project status, resource constraints, and matters requiring escalation. The Project Manager, Senior also coordinates annual compliance audit activities across Financial Aid and Scholarship Services teams and university partners.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree and five (5) years of experience appropriate to the area of assignment/field; OR, any equivalent combination of experience and/or training from which comparable knowledge, skills and abilities have been achieved.
• Experience managing complex, cross-functional operational or technology-enabled projects.
• Experience supporting financial aid operations, regulatory implementation, compliance audits, or other highly regulated administrative operations in a higher education environment.
• Experience supporting annual operational cycles and regulatory change initiatives.
• Experience coordinating or supporting compliance audits or regulatory reviews, including documentation requests, cross-functional deliverables, audit recommendations, corrective action plans, and internal-control improvements.
• Demonstrated ability to clarify roles, responsibilities, and expectations; promote accountability among project participants; address barriers; and manage competing priorities.
• Knowledge of and proficiency in standard project-management practices, with familiarity with organizational change-management principles.
• Experience using project-management, portfolio-management, workflow, reporting, or collaboration tools.
• Project-management certification, such as PMP, CAPM, or an equivalent credential.

Requirements

• Develops and maintains project plans and integrated schedules that define approved project scope, objectives, deliverables, milestones, dependencies, timelines, and responsible parties.
• Maintains a portfolio-level schedule for concurrent aid-year cycles and operational initiatives arising from regulatory, compliance, audit, and institutional requirements; identifies scheduling conflicts, resource constraints, and cross-project dependencies.
• Coordinates and supports annual compliance audits across Financial Aid and Scholarship Services teams by developing audit schedules, identifying documentation requests and responsible parties, tracking evidence and response deadlines, facilitating status reviews, and escalating risks, delays, and unresolved items.
• Coordinates implementation of audit recommendations, corrective action plans, control enhancements, policy updates, and approved process changes; tracks responsible parties and completion dates and maintains documentation of approvals, testing, implementation, and closure.
• Collaborates with project sponsors, functional leaders, Business Analysts, technical teams, compliance subject-matter experts, and other stakeholders to establish and document project scope, priorities, expected outcomes, and success measures.
• Identifies required resources and areas of expertise and coordinates with appropriate leaders to secure project participation and establish clear ownership and accountability for deliverables.
• Facilitates project meetings, communicates expectations, follows up with responsible parties, coordinates the resolution of project issues and barriers, and escalates risks, dependencies, and decisions requiring attention.
• Prepares and maintains project schedules, status reports, risk and issue logs, decision logs, and other project-governance records; tracks milestones, deliverables, critical paths, and dependencies and communicates schedule or scope changes to affected stakeholders.
• Provides timely and accurate project and portfolio updates to leadership and other stakeholders, including progress toward milestones, emerging risks, resource constraints, unresolved issues, and decisions requiring leadership attention.
• Tracks project milestones associated with approved regulatory and policy changes, audit recommendations, corrective action plans, and internal control improvements and reports progress and completion status to leadership.
• Leads cross-functional project teams through collaboration and influence, promotes effective communication among participants, and builds and maintains relationships necessary for successful project outcomes.
• Conducts project closeout activities, including confirming completion of deliverables, preparing final project summaries, documenting lessons learned, and communicating outcomes to appropriate stakeholders.
• Performs other duties as assigned.

Benefits

• Reduced tuition for employees, their spouses and dependents.
• Competitive rates for health and life benefits.
• Wellness program.
• Disability and leave program.
• Paid holidays.
• Retirement programs.