Mariel Lowe

Executive summary

Mariel is a Risk Advisory Director with BDO in Melbourne. She is a seasoned leader in program assurance, risk mitigation, and digital transformation oversight.

Mariel delivers structured independent oversight, ensuring transformation initiatives stay on course, proactively manage risks, and align seamlessly with business objectives. She champions program assurance as an early warning system, identifying risks as they start to emerge and addressing them before they escalate into costly and disruptive failures.

Mariel has extensive experience at two top-tier professional services firms and a global systems integrator. Throughout her 17-year career, she has developed a holistic perspective on complex transformations across diverse industries, including telecommunications, financial services, public sector, and healthcare.

Expertise

• Program assurance
• Transformation program management
• Organisational change management
• Business process improvement
• Data migration and master data management
• Testing and validation
• Information security
• Benefits realisation and performance monitoring

Experience

• A wholesale broadband provider - Oversaw the program assurance and management of the tender development, vendor evaluation, and selection processes to deliver the operational support systems (OSS) and business support systems (BSS) for Singapore’s wholesale fibre broadband provider. Applied robust risk management practices throughout the tender process to promote a fair, transparent, and defensible selection process, ensuring alignment with stakeholder expectations and governance protocols.
• A telecommunications company - Program assurance for a Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) implementation. Led the program assurance for a large-scale ERP implementation program, ensuring streamlined business processes and enhanced operational efficiencies. Identified and assessed potential risks affecting the ERP implementation and developed effective mitigation strategies to ensure program success.
• An insurance company - Led program assurance and transformation risk services to operationalise the Target Operating Model (TOM) for an insurance company. Mobilised eight platform teams and 14 business units. Defined the program charter, RACI, baselined program plan, delivery approach/methodology, and governance frameworks.
• An insurance company - Co-designed the finance vision, strategy, and technology roadmap. Conducted interviews with the direct reports of the CFO to understand the pain points and improvement opportunities in Finance. Sized the efforts/cost to implement as well as the tangible business benefits. Conducted prioritisation workshops with key stakeholders to ensure alignment and buy-in. Developed a three-year roadmap based on prioritisation.
• An insurance company - Managed the intake process for initiatives, including facilitating idea generation, business case development, prioritisation of initiatives, and resource management. Developed the framework and methodology for business case development to ensure tangible business benefits and total costs were evaluated. Prioritised initiatives based on efforts/costs to build vs benefit. Provided transparency to any portfolio risks and issues.
• A telecommunications company - Organisational management for a Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) ERP implementation. Led the development of the business change strategy, change impact assessments, and change management plans. Provided best practice guidance for the TO-BE process design across finance, procurement, supply chain, billing, and HR. Created and activated the change network to drive engagement, adoption, and advocacy. Orchestrated integrated change management plans to ensure timely and tailored interventions, communications, and training aligned with the ERP implementation timeline.

Qualifications and affiliations

• Bachelor of Commerce
• Bachelor of Information Systems
• Change Management Practitioner, APMG
• Professional Scrum Master, Scrum.org
• SAFe 5 Product Owner / Product Manager, Scaled Agile, Inc.
• Prince2 Foundations, APMG
• ITIL Foundation Certificate (Service Management Essentials), ProActive