Location: Cape Town or Johannesburg, South Africa Experience Level: Senior Application Deadline: 30 May 2026
Job Description
About the Company
At Zimele Technologies, we have reinvented how companies see, plan, and run their businesses. Our services and solutions allow our customers to uncover new insights, connect their strategy to their plans, and work in ways they had not previously thought possible. We are growing fast, constantly innovating, and couldn’t be prouder to help our customers move forward with confidence in a sophisticated and changing world.
People centric is the cornerstone and the heartbeat of what Zimele Technologies stands for, and we take pride in developing and investing in our people.
We are constantly looking for forward-thinking people who put customer experience at the forefront of every decision. Individuals who thrive on challenges and are ready to grab-hold the opportunity of a lifetime. Because we fundamentally believe every colleague brings outstanding value to our overall being. We are a workplace where each person feels seen, heard, and valued, and can contribute their unique talent to our collective effort.
About the Job
We are looking for a self-driven and strong individual in the capacity of a Project Manager to join our vibrant organisation. This role will directly report to one of the Executive Managers. The role is based in Pretoria with a hybrid working delivery mode across multiple clients both in South Africa and outside of South Africa. The successful candidate will work in a hybrid-based environment (combination of office based and remote). The office environment will be based at our Centurion Highveld office in Pretoria.
You will join a team of individuals who embrace and respect diverse perspectives, aren’t afraid to push boundaries and try new ideas, and are passionate about helping our customers and each other to succeed.
The Project Manager plays a critical role in enabling the organisation to deliver outstanding and quality work to both the internal and external stakeholders and fulfil commitments to our clients. This is a key role that requires an individual that possesses an exceptional high degree of project management, contract management, functional and technical acumen across all the various SAP modules. This role requires a highly resourceful individual with strong professionalism, presentation, self-motivation, excellent verbal/written communication & analytical skills. Most of all we are looking for someone with a great attitude, high energy, and an extremely high work ethic who is willing to learn, grow, coach and shape a winning team of innovative and diverse consultants
Key Competencies
• Strong planning and organisational discipline. • Strong commercial and financial awareness. • Strong governance and compliance orientation. • Strong stakeholder management and communication skills. • Strong written documentation and reporting capability. • Strong change control and scope management discipline. • Strong risk identification and escalation judgement. • Strong leadership presence and accountability. • Strong problem-solving and decision-making ability. • Strong ability to manage pressure, complexity, and competing demands. • Strong ability to challenge constructively and uphold delivery controls. • Strong attention to detail without losing sight of project outcomes.
Required Experience
• A proven track record in managing medium to large projects from initiation through close-out is required. • Experience in enterprise system implementations, business transformation, technology delivery, or consulting-led projects is strongly preferred. • Experience managing cross-functional teams, vendors, consultants, and client stakeholders is required. • Experience in formal project governance, stage gate control, executive reporting, and steering committee management is required. • Experience in managing budgets, margins, change requests, financial risks, and commercial controls is required. • Experience in maintaining detailed project plans, risk registers, issue logs, dependency logs, and executive reporting packs is required. • Experience in environments where documentation quality, audit readiness, and contract compliance matter is strongly preferred. • Experience in SAP, ERP, digital transformation, or enterprise application implementation projects is highly advantageous. • Experience in public sector or governance-intensive client environments is highly advantageous.
Key Requirements
The ideal candidate should hold a relevant tertiary qualification recognised within South Africa and appropriate professional certifications aligned to project delivery.
1. Minimum Academic Requirements • A relevant Bachelor’s degree, Advanced Diploma, Diploma, or equivalent qualification in Project Management, Business Management, Information Systems, Commerce, Engineering, or a related field is preferred. • A qualification aligned to project, business, technology, or operational delivery disciplines is strongly preferred. • A qualification registered or recognised within the South African higher education framework is advantageous. • For more senior delivery environments, a bachelor-level qualification is strongly preferred over a purely short-course background.
2. Preferred Professional Certifications • PMP (Project Management Professional) is strongly preferred for experienced Project Managers operating in complex delivery environments. • PRINCE2 Practitioner is advantageous, particularly where structured governance and formal stage control are important. • CAPM may be acceptable for more junior or developing Project Managers but would generally not be sufficient on its own for a fully accountable senior Project Manager role. • SAP Activate Project Manager or other SAP implementation-related certification is required for SAP delivery environments.
3. South African Context Expectations • Knowledge of South African business, labour, procurement, and client operating environments is strongly advantageous. • Experience working with South African public sector clients, municipalities, state-owned entities, or regulated entities is highly advantageous where relevant to the business. • Familiarity with governance-heavy delivery environments, procurement delays, and payment risk realities in the South African market is beneficial. • A valid right to work in South Africa is required. • Candidates based in South Africa are required. 4. Remuneration This is a full-time role with market-related remuneration based on experience.
5. Project Initiation and Mobilisation • The Project Manager must confirm that the project is authorised to start and that required commercial documentation and approvals are in place. • The Project Manager must ensure the project is set up in all required internal governance and tracking systems before delivery begins. • The Project Manager must review the proposal and contractual baseline to understand scope, assumptions, exclusions, dependencies, and delivery obligations, and must escalate any gaps or risks before execution proceeds. • The Project Manager must establish fit-for-purpose governance, including forums, reporting cadence, escalation routes, and decision authorities. • The Project Manager must coordinate mobilisation and onboarding so that resources, tools, access, and compliance requirements are in place before work commences, unless formally approved otherwise. • The Project Manager must align internal stakeholders on expectations, priorities, governance requirements, and commercial guardrails from the outset.
7. Project Planing and Baseline Control The Project Manager is responsible for building and maintaining a realistic, controlled, and executable project plan. • The Project Manager must develop and maintain an integrated project plan aligned to the approved scope, methodology, contractual timelines, resources, dependencies, and key milestones. • The Project Manager must ensure the plan includes all critical delivery and client activities, including approvals, review cycles, testing, training, cutover, and post-go-live support where applicable. • The Project Manager must baseline and communicate key dates and assumptions, ensure all workstreams operate to the same approved plan, and escalate any unrealistic commitments or constraints before they are locked in. • The Project Manager must track performance against the baseline, analyse material variances, and implement corrective actions to recover delivery.
8. Scope Management and Change Control The Project Manager is responsible for protecting the project against uncontrolled scope expansion and unapproved delivery commitments. • The Project Manager must define, baseline, and communicate project scope so it is clearly understood by the client and delivery team. • The Project Manager must prevent scope creep by ensuring all scope changes are formally logged, assessed for impact (time, cost, effort, risk, and contractual obligations), and approved through the required governance forum before implementation. • The Project Manager must ensure no work proceeds outside the approved scope without formal authorisation, and must maintain a traceable change register with decisions and outstanding items. • The Project Manager must enforce change control discipline as a core delivery and commercial protection mechanism.
9. Financial and Commercial Managemnt The Project Manager is responsible and accountable for safeguarding the commercial integrity of the project. • The Project Manager must understand and manage the project’s commercial baseline, including budget, billing model, target margin, rates, effort assumptions, and original deal economics. • The Project Manager must complete financial forecasting as required by PMO, record it in PMO-mandated tools, and monitor actuals against budget to identify and address risks to profitability, recovery, and cost control early. • The Project Manager must work with PMO and Finance to confirm invoicing readiness, cost recovery, and that delivery does not continue without valid contract/PO/budget cover or where material payment risk exists, unless formally approved and escalated. • The Project Manager must ensure timesheets are submitted on time and are approved only where entries reasonably reflect actual hours worked against the correct job and role, with anomalies queried and corrected. • The Project Manager must treat timesheet validation as a core financial control and must escalate recurring non-compliance or inaccurate time recording through the appropriate management channels.
10. Risk, Issue, Dependency, and Decision Management The Project Manager is responsible for maintaining active control over project uncertainty and execution blockers. • The Project Manager must identify, log, and actively manage risks, issues, dependencies, assumptions, and decisions, with clear owners, actions, and due dates. • The Project Manager must maintain accurate registers and ensure that critical items are escalated through the defined governance channels in a timely manner. • The Project Manager must proactively manage client and third-party dependencies (including approvals, data, sign-offs, and resource availability) and intervene early to prevent delays from materially impacting delivery. • The Project Manager must ensure key decisions are documented and traceable, and must apply structured controls to protect delivery confidence and prevent avoidable surprises.
11. Resource Planning and Capacity Management The Project Manager is responsible for ensuring that the project is properly resourced and that resourcing assumptions remain accurate throughout delivery. • The Project Manager must define the required roles, skills, effort, and timing for delivery, including specialist capabilities where needed. • The Project Manager must work with the PMO and relevant managers to secure resources aligned to the approved plan, validate committed capacity, and maintain accurate role allocations and end dates in the mandated resource planning tools. • The Project Manager must monitor utilisation and resourcing risks, identify gaps or conflicts early, and escalate where resources are not available at the required level or time. • The Project Manager must provide accurate forward-looking forecasts of resource demand to support realistic capacity and delivery planning.
12. Delivery Management and Execution Control The Project Manager is responsible for ensuring that day-to-day project execution remains aligned to the approved plan and standards. • The Project Manager must lead and coordinate execution across all workstreams and stakeholders, ensuring activities are sequenced correctly and dependencies are actively managed. • The Project Manager must drive accountability for delivery commitments, monitor progress against milestones and deliverables, and intervene early to recover slippage or loss of control. • The Project Manager must govern phase progression, stage exits, testing, readiness checkpoints, and go-live activities in a disciplined manner aligned to the agreed methodology. • The Project Manager must ensure delivery status is evidence-based and traceable through accurate reporting and documented controls, not informal verbal updates.
13. Quality Management and Documentation Control The Project Manager is responsible for ensuring that the standard of project documentation and deliverables is fit for purpose. • The Project Manager must ensure deliverables and documentation meet required standards, using approved templates and quality criteria, and must prevent poor-quality outputs from progressing to the client. • The Project Manager must apply appropriate review and quality assurance controls (including peer or internal reviews) before key deliverables are submitted or baselined. • The Project Manager must maintain version control and traceability so that deliverables can be linked to scope, requirements, decisions, and approval status. • The Project Manager must maintain complete, accurate, and audit-ready project records, including registers, minutes, actions, sign-offs, and formal communications.
14. Stakeholder, Client, and Governance Mqnagement The Project Manager is responsible for managing project communication and maintaining stakeholder alignment. • The Project Manager must build and maintain effective relationships with client stakeholders, internal leadership, delivery teams, and support functions, and must communicate status clearly and professionally. • The Project Manager must lead governance forums (including status meetings, change forums, and steering committees), ensuring meetings are structured, documented, and action-oriented. • The Project Manager must manage expectations, challenge unrealistic assumptions, secure timely decisions and approvals, and prevent delivery direction through side channels outside agreed governance. • The Project Manager must manage difficult stakeholder dynamics calmly and must communicate credibly to both executives and client leadership. • The Project Manager must engage the PMO as a governance stakeholder, participate in PMO oversight activities when required, and provide accurate delivery feedback to support realistic project health reporting and timely intervention.
15. Methodology, Compliance, and Governance Adherance The Project Manager is responsible for ensuring that projects are managed in line with internal and external compliance requirements. • The Project Manager must apply the organisation’s delivery framework, methodology, and governance controls consistently, including evidenced phase entry/exit compliance aligned to contractual and audit requirements. • The Project Manager must recognise and manage heightened governance and payment risks in public sector or highly regulated environments, and must escalate any governance bypass or non-compliance that exposes the organisation. • The Project Manager must maintain accurate, timely updates in all PMO-mandated tools and reporting platforms so that central oversight reflects the true and current project status. • The Project Manager must ensure compliance with data protection and confidentiality obligations by enforcing secure information handling, controlled access, approved data sharing practices, and immediate escalation of suspected incidents, including access revocation and record handling at closure/offboarding.
16. Testing, Readiness, Go-Live, and Post-Go-Live Support The Project Manager is responsible for ensuring operational readiness for deployment and stabilisation. • The Project Manager must define and govern testing and deployment controls, including test cycles, defect management, and clear entry/exit criteria. • The Project Manager must coordinate end-to-end readiness for deployment, including business readiness, training readiness, cutover planning (with owners and rehearsal where needed), and support/hypercare arrangements. • The Project Manager must ensure go-live decisions are evidence-based and properly governed, with transparent reporting of open defects, risks, sign-offs, and readiness gaps, and must escalate where the project is not ready or where premature deployment is being imposed.
17. Continuous Improvement and Leadership Contributions The Project Manager is responsible for contributing to stronger delivery maturity across the organisation. • The Project Manager must capture lessons learnt and improvement opportunities, and contribute to refining templates, methods, and controls based on delivery experience. • The Project Manager must support capability uplift through mentoring where required, and must promote a culture of accountability, professionalism, quality, and delivery discipline. • The Project Manager must identify recurring delivery pain points, recommend root-cause improvements, and represent the delivery function in a manner that strengthens governance credibility.
18. Handovers and Transition Management The Project Manager is responsible for handover and transition management activities on projects. • The Project Manager must plan and execute structured handovers between resources and across phases so that knowledge, deliverables, risks, decisions, and open actions are transferred, accepted, and traceable. • The Project Manager must manage the transition from project delivery into support/BAU/hypercare by confirming readiness of the receiving team and ensuring documentation, issue history, and support processes are handed over before responsibilities are closed. • The Project Manager must ensure client and Zimele offboarding requirements are completed securely and auditable, including access revocation/return, closure of outstanding obligations, and escalation where effective handover or offboarding cannot be achieved.
19. Key Performance Indicators The Project Manager may be measured against indicators such as: • Delivery of projects within approved scope, budget, and timeline. • Margin protection and financial performance against baseline. • Accuracy and maintenance of project plans and governance records. • Quality and timeliness of status reporting and stakeholder communication. • Effective control of scope changes and approval compliance. • Timely escalation of risks, issues, and commercial concerns. • Client satisfaction and stakeholder confidence • Quality of documentation and audit readiness. • Resource planning accuracy and utilisation control. • Successful milestone achievement, testing completion, and go-live readiness. • Adherence to PMO standards, methods, and governance requirements.
