Director – Strategic Portfolio Management

Director – Strategic Portfolio Management

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, finance, or business administration, or related field.
• 10 years specific experience including:
• 5-7 years leading a team (with direct reports)
• 4 to 5 years of strategic portfolio management experience
• 2 to 3 years of direct management of transformation program/project management teams or a project management office.

Responsibilities

• Executive reporting on portfolio and transformation status (weekly, monthly, and quarterly). Development of on-line executive dashboards and reports to enable executive level self-service status checking.
• Leads the coordination, execution, and reporting of portfolio status during the annual operations planning process for the operational, strategic, and innovation portfolios.
• Coordinates and leads the annual Objective & Key Result (OKR) planning and alignment process with all system entities, schools, and shared service teams. Tracks OKR performance in aggregate across the WGU system for quarterly status reporting.
• Weekly coordination and alignment with the other portfolio and project management teams in the WGU system (academic offering product team, education technology product team, business program & project teams) to ensure governance through agreement on standards and practices.
• Leadership member of the Service Now SPM Steering Committee and a driver of the Service Now feature and capability implementation roadmap with a focus on operational improvement and effectiveness.
• Partners with leaders on the development of system-level initiatives with measurable outcomes aligned to the 5-Year strategic plans and strategic capability roadmaps.
• Implements standards and structures to support portfolio development and execution, including cross-functional reviews to give line of sight and support coordination across the portfolio of initiatives.
• Establishes processes to support and communicate initiative status and progress towards established goals.
• Establishes system initiative, program, and project standards and track compliance.
• Continuously improves portfolio processes to support nimbleness (more timely adjustments, improved pace from opportunity identification to action). Establish a rolling model of Demand intake and approval.
• Develops and implements enterprise-wide strategic communication plans.
• Designs implementation and management of processes, tools (software systems) and policies related to the strategic portfolio management.
• Thought leader and change agent in the establishment of enterprise-wide strategy for unified portfolio, initiative, program, and project management across all university entities.
• Provides regular updates on portfolio performance, status, and value delivery.
• Manages large, complex initiatives or programs in a results driven environment. Ensures alignment and understanding of decision- impact across teams. Leverages relationships and insights to reduce ambiguity to drive for results. Clearly articulates goals, communicates and defends (or redefines) the value proposition.
• Applies best practices for portfolio execution and management and actively demonstrates expertise in enterprise level strategic portfolio and program/project management systems, software, and aligned tools.
• Collaborates with university leadership, business owners, and other stakeholders, to refine goals, and then to define approaches to achieve them. Defines the business case and ensures alignment with the business vision and strategy.
• Oversees the execution of transformation initiatives, programs, and projects ensuring they are delivered on time, within budget, and to quality standards.
• Executes change management requires as needed on transformation work executed by the team.
• Hires, leads, manages, coaches, develops and evaluates direct and indirect reports.
• Performs other job-related duties as assigned.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s degree in engineering, finance, or business administration, or related field.
• Experience in a “digital business” model where value is delivered to customers through technology driven on-line systems in part or in full.
• Experience with Strategic Portfolio Management tools, techniques, systems, and operational execution.
• Experience in Higher Education, Business Transformation, or other on-line service industries.