Program Manager - Mortgages

About the Role

As an Associate Director - Program Manager, Dutch Mortgages, you will make an impact by shaping, winning, mobilizing, and delivering complex mortgage transformation programs in the Netherlands. You will be a valued member of the Banking & Financial Services delivery team and work collaboratively with sales, solutioning, delivery, and support functions to convert opportunities into executable, low-risk programs with measurable outcomes.

This is not an internally focused delivery-management position. The role is designed for a commercially astute, Dutch-speaking senior leader who combines deep mortgage-domain credibility, executive presence, and disciplined delivery leadership. You will spend significant time with stakeholders across the program ecosystem, building relationships, facilitating decisions, aligning third parties, and helping teams drive sustained business outcomes from bid through benefits realization.

We believe hybrid work is the way forward as we strive to provide flexibility wherever possible. Based on this role's business requirements, this is a hybrid position requiring regular presence at Cognizant and program locations across the Netherlands. Regardless of your working arrangement, we are here to support a healthy work-life balance through our various wellbeing programs.

The working arrangements for this role are accurate as of the date of posting. This may change based on the project you're engaged in, as well as business requirements. Rest assured, we will always be clear about role expectations.

In This Role, You Will

• Lead senior stakeholder engagement across mortgage business, operations, risk, compliance, technology, architecture, data, security, procurement, and vendor-management functions - establishing trusted relationships with executive sponsors, product owners, and operational leaders throughout pursuit and delivery lifecycles.
• Drive pursuit and bid leadership from qualification and discovery onward, leading program-management inputs to proposals including delivery strategy, governance, mobilization, integrated planning, transition, dependencies, third-party model, risk, assumptions, and acceptance criteria.
• Own end-to-end complex program delivery from contract signature through mobilization, execution, transition, and benefits realization for complex, multi-workstream transformation programs - including the integrated program plan, governance model, milestones, decision framework, dependency map, roadmap, financial controls, and outcome measures.
• Apply deep Dutch mortgage expertise across the full mortgage lifecycle - including customer orientation and advice, application and acceptance, underwriting, valuation, documentation, notary interactions, disbursement, servicing, changes, arrears, and redemption - ensuring programs address responsible lending, customer duty of care, privacy, security, operational resilience, and auditability.
• Orchestrate a complex third-party ecosystem, creating a one-team operating model across Cognizant, product vendors, system integrators, platform providers, and specialist partners - governing cross-vendor dependencies, integrated milestones, environment and release readiness, data and integration obligations, and joint risk mitigation.
• Own program financials, including baseline, forecast, margin, productivity, change control, leakage prevention, and corrective actions, while aligning account, sales, solutioning, delivery, finance, legal, commercial, staffing, and support functions around commitments and program priorities.
• Build an inclusive, high-performing leadership team with clear accountability, strong succession coverage, and a culture of transparency, quality, and continuous improvement.

What You Need to Have to Be Considered

• 15-17+ years of experience in technology-enabled business transformation, including substantial leadership of complex programs in banking, lending, or financial services.
• Demonstrable mortgage experience in the Netherlands, with strong end-to-end understanding of mortgage business processes, operating models, and technology landscapes.
• Proven success managing large, complex, multi-service-line and multi-vendor programs with senior executive visibility and material business impact.
• Strong experience in pursuit leadership, consultative selling, proposal development, solution shaping, contract transition, and account growth.
• Executive presence and the ability to influence C-suite and senior business and technology stakeholders without relying on formal authority.
• Advanced program governance capabilities, including integrated planning, RAID, dependency management, financial and commercial management, contract governance, quality assurance, benefits realization, and change management.
• Experience working with global delivery models and distributed onshore, nearshore, and offshore teams.
• Fluent professional Dutch and English, with excellent facilitation, negotiation, presentation, and written communication skills.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience; a degree in business, technology, engineering, finance, or a related discipline is preferred.
• Legal authorization to work in the Netherlands and ability to travel to program locations as required.

These Will Help You Stand Out

• Certification in PMP, PRINCE2, MSP, SAFe, Scrum, or a comparable program-management framework.
• Master's degree or MBA.
• Experience with mortgage platform modernization, cloud transformation, data migration, digital customer journeys, workflow/decisioning, core banking integration, or servicing transformation.
• Experience leading regulated change involving privacy, cybersecurity, operational resilience, model or decision governance, and audit remediation.
• Commercial experience with outcome-based, fixed-price, managed-service, or multi-party contracting models.
• Awareness of Dutch market practices and institutions relevant to residential mortgages, including AFM, DNB, NHG/WEW, and Nibud-related affordability principles.

Leadership Attributes We Value

• Customer-first and outcome-oriented, with the judgment to balance relationship, delivery, risk, and commercial priorities.
• Calm and decisive under pressure, with the courage to surface difficult facts early and propose practical options.
• Highly collaborative across organizational boundaries, cultures, and disciplines.
• Strategically minded enough to shape the destination and operationally rigorous enough to drive execution detail.
• Committed to ethical leadership, inclusion, transparency, and building sustainable team and program capability.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary
• NS Business Card
• Laptop and smartphone
• Pension scheme
• 25 paid holidays
• Access to Udemy and Cognizant Academy for continuous learning and development
• Work in a technology-driven organization with an open team spirit and international environment