SOLA IYIOLA

Led the implementation of critical digital payment programs for financial institutions, driving market expansion and customer acquisition.

• Managed the successful implementation of 8 issuing and 3 acquiring programs for 6 financial institutions, contributing to a projected market growth of over $65M and reaching over 500K customers.
• Led multiple client intake sessions, meticulously detailing configurations and services, and analyzing potential risks, resulting in a 40% reduction in project delays.
• Designed and executed stakeholder-aligned project plans using enterprise best practices, achieving a 96% satisfaction rate and consistent on-time, on-budget delivery.
• Managed a cross-functional team of 10+ implementation managers, consistently surpassing project goals and OKRs, leading to a 15% increase in productivity through strategic alignment.
• Facilitated Agile ceremonies, including sprint planning, retrospectives, and backlog prioritization, across distributed teams to enhance efficiency and value delivery.
• Achieved an 18% reduction in project costs through data analytics and corrective strategies, enabling budget flexibility to enhance features and exceed client expectations.
• Reduced project delivery times by 15% through a scalable resource allocation and capacity planning framework, boosting velocity and optimizing workforce utilization.
• Proactively identified and mitigated project risks, significantly increasing project success rates and ensuring consistent stakeholder trust and transparency throughout the project lifecycle.
• Built robust communication frameworks with stakeholders, ensuring clarity, alignment, and timely decision-making at every project milestone.
• Created real-time Jira dashboards providing executive visibility into KPIs (cycle time, budget, burn rate, team velocity, blockers), improving stakeholder trust and reducing status meetings by 60%.
• Successfully executed 11 projects with comprehensive post-implementation reviews, capturing lessons learned and reducing future planning cycles by 20% through reusable templates and retrospectives.
• Generated $368K in cost savings by designing an executive-endorsed custom tool for project plan development, increasing team productivity by 60%.

Oversaw significant digital banking transformation initiatives and critical compliance system upgrades, driving enhanced customer engagement and fraud prevention.

• Managed a $4.5M digital banking transformation program, delivering 18 new web/mobile features that enhanced platforms with personalized spend insights and budgeting tools, contributing to a 38% YoY increase in digital engagement and customer growth.
• Led a $2.8M upgrade project for KYC, AML, and Anti-Terrorism Compliance Systems, enhancing compliance capabilities and improving fraud prevention and detection by 85%.
• Developed and maintained comprehensive project plans, monitored performance metrics, and communicated progress to senior leadership and steering committees through JIRA and KPI Dashboards.
• Directed 5+ workstreams and 25 cross-functional team members, ensuring alignment with compliance, product, and engineering for timely delivery.
• Created over 40 JIRA dashboards to monitor KPIs and operational metrics, resulting in a 15% improvement in operational efficiency.
• Ensured delivery of AML/KYC, PCI-DSS compliant features by embedding compliance milestones into the project schedule.
• Resolved 40+ project blockers and optimized delivery timelines by 21% through proactive stakeholder management and sprint planning.
• Successfully managed project budgets and financial forecasts, achieving a 10% reduction in cost and improved budget accuracy by 20%.
• Supported the adoption of Scaled Agile, accelerating digital transformation and improving delivery timelines through lean governance, backlog grooming, and stakeholder visibility.
• Collaborated with product owners during backlog refinement sessions to prioritize the product backlog based on business value.
• Established a knowledge-sharing repository and resolution guide, reducing issue response times by 25% and driving a 25% increase in customer satisfaction through faster service delivery.

Managed a large-scale enterprise-wide HR system migration, ensuring seamless business continuity and enhanced employee engagement.

• Managed a $1.2M enterprise-wide migration from a legacy HR system to SAP SuccessFactors, ensuring business continuity and service alignment across different HR modules, which drove a 60% boost in employee engagement.
• Managed the project plan with detailed focus on scope, schedule, budget, quality, resources, risk, communication, and procurement, contributing to 95% on-time and within-budget delivery.
• Facilitated cross-functional collaboration across 8 departments and 3 vendors, maintaining milestone adherence and reducing coordination delays by 20%.
• Proactively mitigated over 15 high-impact project risks, resulting in zero critical issues at go-live and a 100% project acceptance rate from stakeholders.
• Supported continuous improvement by documenting 12+ lessons learned and implementing 7 corrective actions, contributing to a 25% reduction in recurring issues across future projects.
• Managed project budgets, resolved variances under 5%, and maintained full budget compliance across all financial reporting cycles.
• Delivered over 20 executive updates to VPs and steering committees, guiding 5 concurrent workstreams from initiation through deployment with 98% stakeholder satisfaction.
• Facilitated 8 successful PI planning events, aligning 60+ team members and ensuring 95% completion of committed PI objectives.

Coordinated end-to-end project delivery and led the rollout of key business systems, improving operational efficiency and data utilization.

• Led the roll out of Microsoft 365 CRM for 7 departments across 3 business units, resulting in a 40% increase in CRM data utilization and sales process efficiency.
• Managed multiple workstreams in end-to-end project delivery and ensured deliverables were completed on schedule.
• Proactively identified and mitigated risks through RAID logs and weekly risk reviews, cutting critical path disruptions by 25%.
• Documented lessons learned, identified improvements, and refined project governance to incorporate best practices into future projects.
• Managed project execution, documentation, and financial reporting using Clarity and SharePoint; improved transparency and audit readiness.
• Maintained accurate project documentation using SharePoint and Clarity for stakeholder reporting.

Provided critical business analysis support for a significant mortgage banking platform upgrade across multiple regional markets.

• Supported a $2M Mortgage Banking platform upgrade across 4 regional markets.
• Developed business cases and requirements for mortgage product enhancements impacting 4 regional markets, resulting in a 22% increase in customer growth.
• Facilitated over 15 user acceptance testing (UAT) sessions, achieving a 95% defect resolution rate, and prepared detailed functional documentation to support project delivery.
• Performed risk and impact assessments for over 10 changes, ensuring full compliance with internal audit.
• Collaborated with stakeholders and product teams to define service requirements, track incidents, and facilitate defect resolution.