Portfolio Management Lead (PMO) - Financial Services

Key Responsibilities

• Strategic Portfolio Alignment: Partner with executive leadership to define the portfolio strategy. Prioritize initiatives based on ROI, strategic fit, and risk profile to ensure the business is "doing the right things," not just "doing things right."

• Executive Leadership & Influence: Act as the primary liaison between the delivery teams and the Executive Committee. You will facilitate portfolio steering committees and provide the high-level narrative for business performance and transformation.

• Team Leadership & Capability Building: Lead, recruit, and mentor a team of PMO Managers and Analysts. Foster a center of excellence (CoE) culture, driving professional development and setting the standard for project leadership across the firm.

• Resource & Capacity Optimization: Oversee enterprise-wide resource planning. Identify bottlenecks and cross-functional dependencies to ensure the portfolio is realistic and achievable within budget constraints.

• Investment & Value Realization: Establish frameworks to measure the actual business value realized from completed projects. Shift the focus from "on-time/on-budget" to "benefit delivery and strategic impact."

• Enterprise Risk Management: Oversee the aggregated risk profile of the entire portfolio, identifying systemic issues that could impact the organization's overall transformation roadmap.

• Experience: 15+ years of experience in Project/Portfolio Management, with at least 5 years in a dedicated leadership or team lead capacity within Financial Services or Insurance.

• Strategic Mindset: Proven track record of managing portfolios exceeding USD 50M+ and influencing organizational strategy.

• Leadership: Extensive experience managing and developing direct reports and building high-performing PMO teams.

• Stakeholder Mastery: Exceptional ability to navigate political landscapes and challenge C-suite executives with data-driven insights.

• Certification: Advanced certifications such as MoP (Management of Portfolios), P3O, or PfMP are highly preferred, alongside PMP/Agile.

• Visionary: Ability to see the "big picture" and connect disparate projects into a cohesive strategy.

• Decisive: Comfortable making high-stakes trade-offs and "killing" projects that no longer align with business value.

• Empowering: A leader who focuses on removing roadblocks for their team rather than micro-managing tasks.