Lead Business Analyst, Project Management

Over the last 20 years, Ares' success has been driven by our people and our culture. Today, our team is guided by our core values – Collaborative, Responsible, Entrepreneurial, Self-Aware, Trustworthy – and our purpose to be a catalyst for shared prosperity and a better future. Through our recruitment, career development and employee-focused programming, we are committed to fostering a welcoming and inclusive work environment where high-performance talent of diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives can build careers within this exciting and growing industry.

Job Description

Role Purpose

Drive the discovery, design, and end-to-end delivery of technology solutions that empower Corporate Services (e.g., Facilities, Travel, Workplace, Admin) and Internal Communications. Translate business needs into actionable roadmaps and deliverables; orchestrate cross-functional execution while ensuring compliance with enterprise security, architecture, and procurement standards. Operate hands-on as an individual contributor and step up to lead teams or vendors when required.

Primary Functions and Responsibilities:

• Build and maintain relationships with stakeholders

• Analyze business processes and architect prioritized solutions focused on meeting firm and business unit objectives

• Act as liaison between business users and vendors / development resources to facilitate change and technology initiatives

• Build and execute inter-team project plans, keeping stakeholders and sponsors informed throughout the project lifecycle

• Identify opportunities to improve business processes and operational efficiency; recommending solutions and build as necessary

• Analyze the data from various sources, identify patterns, structures, and data life-cycle

• Analyze user requirements and issues; provide the best fit solution, while maintaining the integrity of existing applications

• Act as liaison to internal development team by translating business requirements into functional requirements and by maintaining all developed applications

• Build requirements for Data-Model, integration, and process workflow

• Drive quality control, to maximize value of various systems

• Perform QA and UAT testing throughout all future systems iterations

• Provide direction and support to vendors / application developers when application changes require knowledge of or changes to system functionality

• Form strong working relationships with internal users - both business and technical - to facilitate application support and adoption

• Act as liaison to internal development team to maintain custom developed applications

Key Responsibilities

1. Discovery & Requirements

2. Facilitate stakeholder workshops, interviews, and journey mapping sessions.

3. Document as-is / to-be processes, epics, and user stories with clear acceptance criteria.

4. Conduct option analysis (buy/build/configure), estimate value and effort, and recommend MVP and phased releases.

5. Project & Product Delivery

6. Own end-to-end delivery across initiation, planning, execution, release, and stabilization.

7. Run Agile ceremonies (backlog grooming, sprint planning, reviews, retrospectives).
8. Coordinate dependencies across Technology, Security, Data, Communications, and Corporate Services.

9. Manage scope, schedule, risks, and issues using clear RAID logs.

10. Stakeholder & Change Management

11. Develop communication plans for stakeholders and end users.

12. Drive demos, signoffs, and change readiness activities (training, communications, adoption).

13. Solution & Vendor Management

14. Evaluate SaaS, Cloud, IoT, and AI solutions; conduct vendor assessments.

15. Navigate security/architecture reviews and procurement processes to ensure compliance.

16. Oversee integrations (e.g. IAM), data migration, and environment readiness with internal teams and vendors.

17. Quality, UAT & Release

18. Define test strategy, coordinate UAT, manage defects, and ensure compliant releases.

19. Maintain documentation and knowledge transfer for smooth handover.

20. Leadership & Ways of Working

21. Coach team members (BAs, PMs, Admins) and lead squads as needed.

22. Contribute to governance, standards, and continuous improvement initiatives.

Required Qualifications & Experience

• 8–12+ years in IT across Business Analysis and Project/Program Management, delivering cross-functional internal or client-facing initiatives.
• Proven experience in Agile (Scrum/Kanban), backlog management, user stories, and iterative delivery; ability to switch between IC and leadership roles.
• Hands-on experience with modern SaaS / CRM / low-code platforms; proficient in planning/tracking tools (Jira, Confluence).
• Exposure to identity/data integrations and enterprise security/architecture review processes.

• Strong analytical skills to identify patterns of data and structures to correlate data from multiple sources

• Ability to synthesize business challenges and clearly present a business case, able to explain complex concepts in a clear and concise manner

• Strong organization and documentation skills
• Strong knowledge of workflow automation using JIRA Software and JIRA Work Management
• Able to prioritize in a fast moving, high pressure, constantly changing environment
• Demonstrate excellent communication (verbal and written) and time management skills with an ability to multitask, prioritize and meet deadlines

Reporting Relationships

Senior Vice President, IT COE

There is no set deadline to apply for this job opportunity. Applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis until the search is no longer active.