Oliver Wyman - Head of Knowledge Services Systems & Operations - London

at  Oliver Wyman Group

Oliver Wyman is a global leader in management consulting. With offices in more than 70 cities across 30 countries, Oliver Wyman combines deep industry knowledge with specialized expertise in strategy, operations, risk management, and organization transformation. The firm has more than 6,000 professionals around the world who work with clients to optimize their business, improve their operations, and risk profile, and accelerate their organizational performance to seize the most attractive opportunities. Oliver Wyman’s thought leadership is evident in our agenda-setting books, white papers, research reports, and articles in the business press. Our clients are the CEOs and executive teams of the top Global 1000 companies.

THE OPPORTUNITY:

We are now aseeking a technology-focused program manager to lead, develop and implement Oliver Wyman’s next-generation knowledge-focused technology products in order to enable Oliver Wyman to achieve its knowledge and collaboration goals.
Oliver Wyman’s Knowledge Services team has undergone a significant transformation over the past 12 years, including a unified set of approaches, processes and tools for the capture, maintenance and usage of Intellectual Capital (IC), practice learning and expertise. This includes our core, global knowledge platform (“KNOW”) and related artificial intelligence tools such as GenAI.
This role requires strong leadership, innovation, change management, collaboration and planning across global, regional and local teams, specifically with the Knowledge Services management team, practice knowledge managers and researchers, the Information Technology team (for new requirements and functionality), while interfacing with executives and teams in HC, Finance, and Marketing and others across OW to ensure alignment and deliver measurable results. The role also leads a team of reporting and process improvement professionals.

EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:

• Experienced professional with minimum 8 to 10 years relevant experience
• Bachelor/Advanced degree(s) and strong understanding of business technology and knowledge management issues
• Experience in financial services, management consultancy and/or professional services environment
• Knowledge of search (especially AI-powered), usability, semantic technologies, ontologies/taxonomy, data structures, SharePoint and knowledge management-related platforms a plus
• Preferable experience in large scale business and IT implementations to supplement strategic knowledge.
• Proven people management experience (coordinating their workflow, setting priorities, sometimes across multiple geographies)

SKILLS AND ATTRIBUTES:

• High level knowledge/ capability in designing/developing effective communication particularly at partner level and all-staff (5000 people) communications to create buy-in and continue momentum
• Strong intellect that will help analyze and creatively solve problems (and push boundaries as necessary) while working toward a viable solution in a collaborative environment with other teams
• Ability to embrace AI, both driving the change and keeping up to date with useful trends
• Service focused – dedicated to meeting the expectations of stakeholders by securing effective relationships with clients and executing deliverables to the highest standards while having a dedication to continuous improvement
• Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to engage and influence senior stakeholders
• Ability to build compelling business cases and to demonstrate measurable results.
• Strong people management skills and ability to manage staff in multiple geographies
• Strong relationship building skills and ability to build alignment among customers and key stakeholders with demonstrated experience influencing without authority
• Self-motivated with strong organizational, priorization and project management skills, able to work independently while also enjoying collaboration with cross-functional teams to create, manage, and meet deadlines
• An appetite for learning and idea generation and is driven to excel and grow
• Willing to travel
• Ability to work effectively in a fast paced, deadline driven, highly dynamic atmosphere and react quickly to changes and shifting priorities.

WHY JOIN US AT OLIVER WYMAN?

At Oliver Wyman, we lead with heart - we love what we do and have fun while we do it! We also strive for breakthroughs by questioning, seeking diverse perspectives, and finding powerful and sustainable solutions. If you share these values and want to work as one and own our impact at the same time, be brave and achieve the amazing with us!

• We’re individuals who are self-starting, motivated, energetic, entrepreneurial about what we do
• We have the common aspiration to have an impact, leave a legacy and change the world. We have no interest in running a steady-state business. We want to build, grow and shape the environment around us
• We value an environment where every member of Oliver Wyman is encouraged and expected to voice his or her opinion
• We believe that to create a true meritocracy we need to remove artificial barriers to opportunity
• We value people whose lives balance work and non-work activities because we believe they are both more interesting colleagues and are able to make better contributions to the Firm.
• We push ourselves hard to deliver excellence, but we also work to extract the maximum benefit from the flexibility of a project-based business. We provide the ability to take career breaks for personal or family reasons. We fundamentally value each other’s time and are sensitive to how it is used. We are an output not input-based culture, have respect for people’s personal decisions, and believe that one’s workload must be sustainable. We seek balance for ourselves and our colleagues.

Marsh & McLennan Companies and its Affiliates are EOE Minority/Female/Disability/Vet/Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity employers

In this role you will be primarily responsible for:

• Program management
• Oversee program (with multiple, simultaneous workstream modules) to manage and develop a leading-edge global technology knowledge platform that provides Oliver Wyman practitioners insights via curated sets of searchable and browseable information
• Take a lead role in helping to shape the Oliver Wyman Group vision and mission for its knowledge technologies and processes, in particular those powered by AI, while developing discrete strategy, change management, operations improvements, standards and initiatives in line with the expectations of the Knowledge Services management team and to deliver impact to internal clients.
• Interface with senior level stakeholders (partners, function heads) inside of OW, building relationships, understanding their business needs and influencing buy-in and adoption of strategic knowledge technology projects (e.g., search and curation, collaboration, expertise location) and operate as primary SME on relevant technology platforms and their business benefits, including analysis of ROI and provision of KPI reports and dashboards.
• Own and lead complex projects including related timelines, change management, benefits tracking and budget for global implementations.
• Oversee an Operations Team as they continuously improve and monitor our processes and reporting as relating to Research and Intellectual Capital (IC) accessibility and utility.
• Systems design and management
• Lead collaboration with other KS teams (e.g. researchers, knowledge managers and training) in the design, development, implementation, enhancement and robust management and operation of existing/future solutions based on their needs, as well as opportunities for process improvements
• Provide key inputs and recommendations on initiatives requiring KS leadership and systems involvement (e.g. any organizational changes and implications on requisite content and systems design)
• Support ongoing KS communications and leadership/stakeholder engagement presentations, including reporting on business benefits achieved through usage of the systems
• Develop relationships with senior knowledge technology leaders of other industry and consulting firms and incorporate competitive and discipline best practices into overall systems and operations strategy
• Manage the day-to-day relationship with IT department on ongoing projects and initiatives, which could include the following tasks (in coordination with product analysts):
• Continually seek and provide on behalf of KS and consultants for system development
• Outlining system requirements for new functionality
• Effective product management, including robust BAU operations
• Reporting on and escalation of issues (system bugs as one example)
• Developing graphical mock-ups of future system functionality and conducting user testing
• Testing new functionality to validate quality of final product
• Preparation of presentations and analyses to communicate anything from project status, to analysis of system usage/performance.
• Team management
• You will manage a team of Product and Data Analysts, Project Managers and Process Improvement Experts, communicating and holding them accountable to their team and individual objectives, deliverables, and ensure effective management and career development.