Ahmed El Cherbini
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Toronto, ON, Canada
Toptal member since April 19, 2020
Ahmed is a PMP and CSPO certified project manager specializing in fintech projects. He is passionate about helping clients enhance their digital offerings and see results by simplifying complex requirements and translating them into a strategic vision through transformative and value-adding projects.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile
- Agile Project Management
- Banking & Finance
- Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)
- Project Management
- Project Management Professional (PMP)
- Scrum
Work Experience
Project Manager
HSBC
- Managed the program for HSBC Canada as part of a global project to enhance numerous system capabilities and ensure adherence to the regulation.
- Developed applications on Qlik Sense to transition the financial reporting requirements, which enhanced data analysis on reports and doubled the reporting efficiency process.
- Oversaw the project requirements to transition from IBOR by developing the business requirements and milestones and coordinating resources to meet the timeline.
Freelance Project Manager
Toptal Projects
- Led the discovery phase for a Silicon Valley fintech consumer debt application to determine the goals, scope, and limitations and creating a fully estimated backlog of features and user stories.
- Managed the day to day activities as the scrum master, including prioritizing the features in preparation for sprints, illustrating user journeys, facilitating team/client meetings, and mentoring the team on agile principles.
- Developed the project roadmap for various releases as well as managed the resource requirements.
Client Manager
Standard Chartered Bank
- Managed the stakeholder documentation and backlog prioritization for enhancing the client experience in the UAE from initiation to execution using an agile methodology.
- Developed the user journey through deep-dive interviews and focus groups, highlighting the areas for improvement through a customer-centric approach.
- Collaborated on the advisory of investments and the execution of trades such as equities, REITs, mutual funds, fixed coupon notes, and interest rate swaps averaging an aggregate volume of $2 million and monthly revenue of $100,000.
- Led the onboarding of a multi-tier trust structure in under two weeks—the fastest on record in the department—to ensure client deadlines were met.
Associate Regional Project Manager — AME
Standard Chartered
- Directed the end-to-end project lifecycle of small and large projects ($500K to $5 million) across six countries while ensuring stakeholder communication, regulatory compliance, scope control, and risk management, adhering to strict timelines.
- Strategized analytical approaches to the client journey using data-driven metrics and models, and presented the business case to senior management reporting the forecasted cash flow and ROI—successfully achieving the $1.2 million budget.
- Spearheaded the launch of a new digital channel that markedly improved the process and improved customer experience resulting in a reduced turnaround time by 35%.
- Analyzed the post-go-live financial performance of projects using regression techniques against the success KPIs.
- Coordinated the stakeholder change management for a global $250 million project into our digital wealth capabilities.
International Wealth Graduate
Standard Chartered Bank
- Devised several regression scenarios on mutual fund returns concerning hundreds of corporate actions with financial implications in the millions of dollars.
- Moderated two quarterly business offsite reviews for regional heads from Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Pakistan.
- Completed central bank coordination and the approval process for eight structured investment products.
Consultant
Sanabel — Microfinance Network
- Organized our annual micro-finance conference in Dubai, including sessions, speakers, and contract negotiation for around 500 participants from 12 different countries.
- Generated reports on members highlighting market opportunities and key strengths for various regional business review meetings.
- Produced and managed daily content for the website as well as email content for our members.
Project History
Fintech Rounding Application (Toptal)
Led a fintech project whose goal was to create a mobile app that rounds up clients' purchases through credit cards and automatically saves that amount to reduce their debt.
Key Responsibilities:
• Defined the product roadmap and built a product backlog.
• Wrote user stories and acceptance criteria.
• Defined the scope of the MVP and subsequent milestones.
• Created the timeline and staff requirements.
• Managed day-to-day scrum activities and ceremonies.
• Identified client needs and value to be added.
Digital Life Insurance Implementation
Launched a new digital channel for life insurance in Kenya, allowing the front-line team to run the client through the life insurance process without the need for paper forms. The app met all insurance requirements and T&Cs within a fantastic UX.
This resulted in reducing all manual paperwork involved in purchasing a life insurance policy and decreased turnaround time for the entire process by 35%. It significantly reduced reverts due to errors in completing the proper forms.
Key Responsibilities:
• Created the project plan and scope
• Defined the timeline with third-party developers
• Received all approvals from country heads and relevant stakeholder
• Managed the communication of several remote teams
Equities Trading Mobile Application
Developed the first regional online trading applications for the bank, giving customers the ability to purchase securities on their mobile devices with the touch of a button.
Key Responsibilities:
- Defined the critical path
- Served as a scrum master and implemented agile strategies
- Managed a remote team of developers
- Created use cases and test requirements
- Performed UAT and UVT testing
Client Onboard Journey
Re-imagined the client onboarding journey for private bank clients through deep-dive interviews and focus groups to get at the core of their needs, resulting in greatly enhancing clients' satisfaction and reduce turnaround time.
Key Responsibilities:
- Conducted customer focus groups
- Developed requirements, mind mapping, and affinity diagrams
- Defined the user journey and highlighted pain points
- Prioritized product backlog to focus on the best value-added stories
Fixed Income Mobile
Spearheaded the launch of an innovative new mobile application that allowed customers to purchase investments directly through their phones, a first for the bank in a major growth market.
This simple-to-use application enabled the company to generate another channel of revenue not previously available.
Key Responsibilities:
- Led the project from funding initialization and the cash flow model forecast
- Collaborated on the solution architecture for the project
- Defined the scope of the MVP and subsequent milestones
- Developed the user journey and personas
- Created user stories and acceptance criteria
Regional Digital Revamp
Coordinated the change management of several stakeholders from various counties and led the stakeholder management of the regional digital revamping of our wealth management capabilities.
Key Responsibilities:
- Captured and visualized the requirements through flow charts
- Managed organizational change
- Coordinated requirements’ capturing from numerous stakeholders
- Acted as the main source of contact for all regional matters
Resolvability Regulatory Delivery
Ensured that HSBC Canada met the regulatory requirements outlined by the Bank of England to demonstrate its resolvability in a crisis.
Key responsibilities:
• Managing the resolvability program for HSBC Canada, ensuring the bank can demonstrate to the central bank and public its preparedness in the event of resolution during a period of intense stress and continued ability to deliver as part of a robust, consolidated, global assessment under the Bank of England regulation to establish resolvability.
• In charge of gathering information, developing plans, and enhancing numerous system capabilities
• Heading the change management process; ensuring the proper stakeholder engagement, impact assessment, analysis, and Runbooks are developed
Asana Migration
Managed the Asana migration of the organization for a fin-tech company.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
• Created a change management plan based on project management best practices to ensure usage
• Supported in migrating the data from Trello
• Created an enhanced workflow for several teams, updating the process and reducing turnaround time
• Provided project, task, and form templates for each team.
• Provided several training workshops and created ‘How-to’ decks for Asana
Education
Master of Science Degree in Consumer Behavior
University of Manchester - Manchester, United Kingdom
Bachelor's Degree in Finance
American University in Cairo - Cairo, Egypt
Certifications
Certified Scrum Master
Scrum Alliance
Design Thinking Certification
Stanford University | Graduate School of Business
AWS Cloud Practitioner
Amazon Web Services
Project Management Professional - PMP
Project Management Institute
Certified Scrum Product Owner
Scrum Alliance
Certified Associate Project Manager - CAPM
Project Management Institute
CFA Level 1
CFA institute
Skills
Tools
Asana, Jira, Microsoft Project, Confluence, Project Management & Work Tracking Tools, SQL, Tableau, Photoshop CS5, MURAL, Trello, Miro, Qlik Sense
Paradigms
B2C, Agile, Waterfall Delivery, Scrum, Kanban, Agile Project Management, Agile Product Management, Agile Software Development, Requirements Analysis, Agile Delivery, Agile Leadership, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Design Thinking, Change Management
Platforms
Android, iOS, SharePoint, Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Industry Expertise
Digital Banking, Banking & Finance, Insurance
Other
Product Discovery, Mobile Banking, Fintech, Stakeholder Management, Product Owner, Program Management, Business Processes, Mobile, Backlog Management, Project Estimation, User Stories, Online Banking, Accounting, Equity Investment, Alternative Investments, Investments, Investment Strategy, Mobile Apps, Project Management, Microsoft 365, Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Digital, CFA Level 1, PMI, Mobile UI, Mobile Applications, Project Discovery, Finance, Scope Management, User Requirements, Project Planning, Discovery Workshops, Waterfall Methodology, Project Scoping, Project Timelines, Relationship Building, Resource Management, Stakeholder Engagement, Time Management, Enterprise Project Management, Planning, Timelines, Project Support, Feature Backlog Prioritization, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Product Roadmaps, Requirements, Estimation & Planning, Estimations, Financing, Project Delivery, Requirements & Specifications, Staffing, Clarity PPM, Impact Assessment, Risk Assessment, Backlog Grooming, Implementation, Resourcing, Software Implementation, Sprint Ceremonies, Agile Sprints, Dashboards, Event Planning, Project Tracking, Reporting, Sprint Planning, Sprint Retrospectives, Sprints, Workflow, Accountability, Process Flows, Digital Transformation Program Management, Project Consultancy, Feature Analysis, Process Optimization, Project Management Office (PMO), Project Reporting, Task Automation, Task Management, Technical Project Management, Coaching, Feature Prioritization, Tracking, Best Practices, Process Improvement, Web Applications, System Integration, App Integration, Risk Management, Cloud, Customer Data Platform (CDP), Scrum Master, CRM Systems, Websites, Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs), Facilitation, User Experience (UX), Loans & Lending, Lending, Negotiation, Critical Path Analysis, Software Project Management, Training & Training Content Development, Lean Startups, Mentorship, Mentorship & Coaching, Operations, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), Microsoft, Data Analytics, Product Management, Product Investment, Excel VBA, Training
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