Business Project Associate Director - HIH - Evernorth

Finance Process Excellence & Innovation Team – Associate Director, HIH

We are seeking a highly motivated and experienced Process excellence & re-engineering specialist to Lead our Finance Process Excellence & Innovation Team. This role is ideal for someone who excels at quickly understanding finance functions, identifying inefficiencies and redesigning processes and team structures to drive improvements. The successful candidate will work closely with finance teams, applying logical and strategic thinking to design the process & team structure for better accountability and efficiency.
 

Position Summary:

This role is in the newly formed ‘Finance Data Innovation office’ focused on driving Process Excellence for prioritized initiatives in Finance. The objective of the role is to lead process diagnostics and re-engineering to deliver business impact through operations excellence, standardization and automation initiatives across functions.

The role will lead end-to-end process transformation roadmaps as well as specific transformation teams to identify continuous improvement opportunities to deliver business value and enhance customer experience. Initiatives will include driving and mentoring Lean Six Sigma projects, process modelling, process mining diagnostics, process automations and statistical analysis for performance variation and benchmarking to enable operations teams and business stakeholders to meet their goals. He / She will operate as an internal consultant working with cross-functional and global teams on multiple projects. They will be expected to have great presentation skills and ability to influence change with senior stakeholders, functional experts and delivery teams.

They may also be required to conduct Lean Six Sigma sessions, facilitate Value Stream Mapping and Design Thinking sessions. They will need to work closely with Hyper Automation teams and be adept in Agile and Scrum methodologies.


Job Description & Responsibilities:

We are looking for candidates to lead Finance Process Excellence & Innovation team and manage finance process improvement projects from inception to completion. Monitor progress, manage risks and ensure timely delivery of project milestones having the below capabilities

• Business Process Management and process conformance analysis using process modeling
• Process Mining, value enablement, and roadmap execution.
• Task Mining, opportunity identification for standardization and automation
• Agile project management to support hyper-automation projects.
• Exposure to AI ML projects to drive process analytics and support business outcomes.
• Experience in change management to ensure project implementation and adoption

Analyse Current Processes: Conduct thorough assessments of existing finance processes and team structures. Identify inefficiencies, redundancies, and areas for improvement.

Stakeholder Engagement: Collaborate with finance team members to understand their roles, responsibilities, and challenges. Facilitate workshops and meetings to gather insights and feedback.

Redesign Processes: Develop and implement streamlined finance processes that enhance efficiency and effectiveness.
 

Apply best practices and innovative solutions to redesign workflows.

Team Structure Optimization:

• Propose and implement changes to team structures to improve accountability and performance.
• Ensure that roles and responsibilities are clearly defined and aligned with business objectives.

Project Management:

Lead and manage finance process improvement projects from inception to completion.
Monitor progress, manage risks and ensure timely delivery of project milestones.
 

Change Management:

• Support the adoption of new processes and structures through effective change management strategies.
• Facilitate training and resources to finance team members to facilitate smooth transitions. 
• Continuous Improvement:
• Establish metrics and KPIs to monitor the effectiveness of implemented changes.
• Continuously seek opportunities for further improvements and efficiencies.

Competencies / Skills:

• Ability to review deliverables for completeness, quality, and compliance with established project standards.
• Ability to identify process improvements and implement changes; outside thinker.
• Ability to resolve conflict (striving for win-win outcomes); ability to execute with limited information and ambiguity
• Identify pain points, inefficiencies and process re-engineering opportunities
• Develop and implement process maps, workflows, and documentation for redesigned processes
• Apply Lean, Six Sigma, and other continuous improvement methodologies to drive measurable outcomes
• Analyze the business processes, data sources and reports, providing process improvement plans and/or input to solutioning teams
• Build business cases with problem statements, potential solutions, investment, value and ROI to be presented for funding
• Ability to deal with organizational dynamics to navigate a highly matrixed organization effectively.
• Strong Influencing skills (sound business and technical acumen as well as skilled at achieving buy-in for delivery strategies)
• Stakeholder management (setting and managing expectations)
• Strong business acumen including the ability to effectively articulate business objectives.
• Analytical skills, Highly Focused, Team player, Versatile, Resourceful
• Ability to learn and suggest changes to Process, Teams which result in synergies and efficiencies.
• Effective under pressure
• Precise communication skills, including an ability to project clarity and precision in verbal and written communication and strong presentation skills.
• Strong problem-solving and critical thinking skills
• Project Management & Requirements gathering
• User interaction / customer service
• Ability to be flexible with job responsibilities and workflow changes.

Experience Required:

• Overall, 15 to 18 years of experience with at least 5+ years’ experience in quality / Black belt role; Possesses a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Qualification – preferred
• Experienced in leveraging Task Mining and Process Mining platforms
• Track record of delivering business improvement projects at Black Belt Level
• Experience working with and influencing senior stakeholders
• Ability to lead cross-functional projects.
• Working with tight deadlines.
• Desired Tool Experience & Project Practices: Microsoft Suite, Agile, Jira, Sharepoint, and Confluence
• Exposure to automation tools viz. Power BI / Query, Alteryx, Xceptor would be an added advantage.
• Demonstrated experience establishing and delivering complex projects/initiatives within agreed upon parameters while achieving the benefits and/or value-added results.

About Evernorth Health Services

Evernorth Health Services, a division of The Cigna Group, creates pharmacy, care and benefit solutions to improve health and increase vitality. We relentlessly innovate to make the prediction, prevention and treatment of illness and disease more accessible to millions of people. Join us in driving growth and improving lives.