Program Manager

Tala was named one of the top 50 FinTech companies in the world. We are a financial technology company on a mission to make financial services simple, inclusive, and accessible for the doers and dreamers globally. More than 5 million people in emerging markets have borrowed through our smartphone app, which provides instant credit scoring, lending, education, and other personalized financial services. Headquartered in Santa Monica, we support the needs of our customers in Kenya, Mexico, Philippines, and India. 
Tala is looking for a highly motivated Program Manager to drive high performance of teams by building strong lines of communication across and our global offices. Tala is a world leader in providing direct loans and financial services in emerging markets. We are a global team with diverse backgrounds who are singularly focused on using technology, data, and a customer-centric approach to meet the financial needs of the 3+ billion people of the emerging global middle class.
The Program Manager will be responsible for supporting the delivery of products and initiatives using Agile practices and will specifically be working with the Lending group and may assist with risk event management (communication and triage). Successful candidates will have a deep expertise in Agile methodologies and have a background managing technical programs. 

What you'll do

• Support the delivery of products and initiatives using Agile practices and by serving as ScrumMaster for assigned teams 
• Participate in quarterly planning for the KE teams as well as continuous reporting and unblocking
• Organize roadmaps, timelines and review meetings for broad consumption
• Support a culture of continuous learning through the establishment of consistent retros, post-mortems, and team health metrics
• Provide input into resource planning and allocation in coordination with the program lead
• Develop a strong understanding of context (across markets) of our internal tools to optimize for efficiency, productivity, and team morale
• Be the team champion to ensure team alignment, advocate product and be the subject matter expert for our internal tools
• Contribute to development and rollout of program management best practices

What you'll need

• Experience using JIRA and Confluence and planning tools like Smartsheet
• It’s imperative that the person that fills this role have a checked ego, be humble, empathetic, collaborative, and have a service-oriented attitude of “customer first” while also being able to be firm on implementing necessary processes in order to get our teams to the next level. 
• Experience managing technical programs and projects for distributed teams across multiple locations and countries
• Proven ability to coach and mentor others who are learning project management and Agile practices in a replicable, scalable way
• Flexibility to respond to changing requirements and juggle multiple responsibilities
• Familiarity with multiple project management methodologies and experience applying different approaches based on team maturity
• Must be comfortable working independently - this role will be the sole program management leader in the KE office so this person must be comfortable making decisions based on market needs (in partnership with the Country GM and product and engineering lead partners) and know when escalation is needed
• Must also be comfortable with occasional global travel (when safe) and flexible to sometimes work varying hours as we coordinate across time zones.

About Tala
Our vision is to build a new financial ecosystem where everyone can participate on equal footing and access the tools they need to be financially healthy. We strongly believe that inclusion fosters innovation and we’re proud to have a diverse global team that represents a multitude of backgrounds, cultures, and experience. We hire talented people regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.