Head of Delivery Excellence, Zafin
+ Annual bonus potential
More information about location
Product & pricing lifecycle management platform
Open for applications
Product & pricing lifecycle management platform
501-1000 employees
Open for applications
+ Annual bonus potential
More information about location
501-1000 employees
Company mission
To make banks more agile and efficient than ever before, enabling innovative experiences that improve the lives of customers and employees.
Role
Who you are
- A seasoned delivery leader with experience leading complex, banking technology transformations. Someone who brings credibility, judgment, and presence, is known for seeing around corners, and challenging constructively
- 15+ years of experience in banking, financial services, or enterprise software delivery
- Proven track record leading large-scale, complex technology implementations
- Experience in core banking, pricing/billing platforms, or modernization programs
- Strong understanding of solution architecture and integration patterns
- Track record of stabilizing or improving at-risk programs
- Experience working with senior client stakeholders, including C-suite
- Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree preferred
- Deep expertise in end-to-end program delivery and SDLC
- Ability to identify risks and gaps early and challenge constructively Leadership Without Authority
- Ability to influence across Delivery, Product, and Engineering organizations
- Drives accountability without direct ownership of all programs
- Executive presence and credibility
- Proven ability to mentor delivery leaders
- Elevates organizational capability through structure, guidance, and feedback
- Builds a culture of continuous improvement and delivery excellence
What the job involves
- Reporting to the Chief Customer Officer, this role is responsible for leading the Delivery Excellence function to ensure that programs are set up and executed with discipline, technical integrity, and proactive risk management. This role is responsible for maintaining delivery standards and providing independent oversight
- Own and operationalize delivery excellence across Zafin’s portfolio globally
- Monitor best-in-class delivery practices, governance, and execution standards
- Define and embed delivery frameworks, governance, and execution playbooks
- Establish quality gates and go/no-go readiness criteria
- Ensure programs are started right — scope, solution design, delivery approach
- Implement delivery health and performance metrics across programs
- Continuously improve delivery practices, tools, and ways of working
- Embed a culture of accountability, quality, and disciplined execution
- Define and operationalize consistent delivery risk management practices
- Provide visibility into risks across all strategic programs
- Implement structured risk reviews, quality gates, and readiness checks at key milestones
- Ensure early identification of risks through disciplined setup and governance
- Drive clear ownership and follow-through on mitigation actions
- Identify recurring risk patterns and implement portfolio-level improvements
- Mentor and elevate Delivery Executives and Senior Directors across the organization
- Set the standard for execution rigor, accountability, and delivery excellence
- Lead executive-level conversations with clients and internal stakeholders
- Confidently challenge assumptions, ask tough questions, and guide critical decisions
- Coach delivery leaders on program setup, planning, and governance
- Strengthen execution discipline across scope, timelines, and stakeholder management
- Improve risk identification, escalation, and mitigation practices
- Guide decision-making on delivery approach, trade-offs, and issue resolution
- Support leaders in stabilizing and recovering at-risk programs
- Reinforce consistent delivery standards and accountability across engagements
- Conduct deep-dive reviews of program setup, architecture, and delivery approach
- Enforce quality gates across design, build, testing, and deployment phases
- Govern go/no-go readiness for major milestones and go-live events
- Guide teams on execution strategy and key delivery decisions
- Influence deal shaping and solutioning to ensure deliverability
- Leads a small, high-impact delivery excellence function
- Operates across a portfolio of strategic programs
- Partners closely with Delivery, Product, Engineering, Cloud, and Sales
Our take
Zafin is a global provider of a range of digital transformation solutions for the banking sector, with a focus on relationship-based pricing solutions for enterprise grade financial institutions and banks. Clients include Canada’s big five, and further flung giants like the National Bank of Abu Dhabi.
The problem Zafin is solving is a big one for incumbent banking institutions: legacy frameworks and business practices are relatively cumbersome and byzantine in comparison to the nimbler, snappier challenger and neo banks. This means they’re losing out, particularly with the younger generations, who prefer convenience over institutional pedigree.
Zafin’s solution functions as a neat little workaround, allowing banks keen to digitally transform to dodge the hefty delays and sunk costs of retooling their systems from scratch. Banks globally are scrabbling to compete with their attractive, agile digital-first competitors, so Zafin won’t struggle to find customers. This is especially because it’s expanded to cater to neo-banks, too. With such a broad scope and a strong reputation of its own, Zafin is a confident, highly relevant company, which makes it no surprise that Nordic Capital bought it out in 2024. This acquisition will accelerate Zafin's growth and product development roadmap.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
19% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (2 rounds)
Jan 2019
$17m
LATE VC
Sep 2014
$15m
LATE VC
Total funding: $32m
Company benefits
- Flexible work arrangements - includes opportunities for hybrid work, flexible hours, flexible locations, and various types of paid leave
- Meaningful recognition - we truly value our team members’ contributions and ensure that their achievements are properly recognized and rewarded through areas such as incentive opportunities
- Ownership - we offer a stock option plan that is exclusively for employees who share our sense of purpose and create value that keeps us on our A-game
Company HQ
Harbourfront-CityPlace, Toronto, ON
Leadership
Al Karim Somji
(Co-Founder & Board Member)Previously the President of OpCom Solutions, then CEO of Eftia OSS Solutions.
Anugopal Venugopalan
(Co-Founder & CRO)Began his career as a Product Manager at Fujitsu ICIM, before moving on to serve as the Director of Pre-Sales at Eftia OSS Solutions.
Dinesh Krishnan
(o-Founder & Chief Commercial & Risk Officer)Previously in management at SBI Capital Markets, before moving on to serve as Vice President of DSP Merrill Lynch.
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