Sr. IT Project & Portfolio Manager

SUMMARY

The Senior IT Project & Portfolio Manager is a senior individual contributor responsible for leading selected strategic and cross-functional technology projects while strengthening and operating a practical project and portfolio management framework for IT. The position provides portfolio visibility, governance, executive reporting, risk and dependency management, resource capacity insight, and project management coaching across IT. Success requires strong technical fluency, executive-level communication, disciplined follow-through, and the ability to influence leaders and project teams without direct authority.

***** THIS POSITION WILL BE BASED ONSITE IN OUR BLOOMINGDALE, IL CORPORATE OFFICE

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES include but are not limited to the following.

• Strategic and Cross-Functional Project Delivery
• Lead selected complex IT projects from intake and initiation through implementation, operational transition, stakeholder acceptance, and closure.
• Manage cross-functional initiatives involving infrastructure, cybersecurity, data center and facilities technology, enterprise applications, compliance, vendors, and business stakeholders.
• Develop and maintain project charters, integrated delivery plans, schedules, budget tracking, milestones, and dependencies appropriate to project size and complexity.
• Coordinate internal teams, business stakeholders, vendors, contractors, and implementation partners, including tracking ownership, statements of work, deliverables, commitments, and project financial status.
• Lead project meetings, steering reviews, decision forums, implementation readiness activities, and post-project retrospectives as appropriate.
• Proactively identify and manage risks, issues, dependencies, assumptions, decisions, resource constraints, and delivery trade-offs; escalate with clear options and recommendations.
• Ensure required testing, change management, security, architecture, operational readiness, documentation, and support handoffs are incorporated into project plans.
• IT Project Portfolio Governance
• Serve as the process owner for IT project and portfolio governance, including reporting standards, update cadence, minimum documentation, project health definitions, risk escalation, and closure requirements.
• Create, maintain, and continuously improve the enterprise IT project portfolio dashboard, providing accurate visibility into project health, milestones, risks, dependencies, decisions, resource constraints, and financial status.
• Prepare concise executive-level portfolio reports, presentations, dashboards, and decision materials.
• Establish and facilitate a consistent portfolio review cadence to evaluate priorities, sequencing, delivery confidence, dependencies, and risks; validate reported project status; hold project owners accountable for timely and supportable updates; and identify corrective actions, recovery plans, or escalations when warranted.
• Portfolio Intake, Prioritization, and Capacity Planning
• Help establish a transparent project intake, evaluation, and prioritization process aligned with business value, strategic objectives, risk reduction, compliance requirements, cost, urgency, effort, and available capacity.
• Partner with the Head of IT and IT leaders to establish project intake criteria, ownership, sponsorship, and appropriate governance requirements.
• Develop practical resource capacity-planning tools and processes that provide visibility into availability, demand, competing commitments, and critical skill constraints.
• Identify resource bottlenecks and delivery conflicts before they materially affect project outcomes.
• Recommend project sequencing, scope adjustments, resource alternatives, or deferrals to support leadership prioritization and trade-off decisions.
• Help prepare business cases by coordinating estimates and soliciting input regarding costs, benefits, risks, alternatives, resource needs, and expected outcomes.
• Project Management Framework, Standards, and Education
• Assess, strengthen, and evolve the existing IT project management framework to support Waterfall, Agile, hybrid, Kanban, and vendor-led delivery approaches.
• Create and maintain practical project templates, standards, and guidance, including charters, project plans, status reports, risk, assumption, issue, and dependency (RAID) logs, implementation-readiness controls, and closure documentation.
• Establish tiered governance, documentation requirements, stage gates, and quality checkpoints based on project complexity, risk, and organizational impact.
• Develop RFP templates, evaluation tools, vendor-selection guidance, implementation governance practices, and related processes for the IT team.
• Coach IT leaders, project owners, and technical leads on planning, estimation, risk management, stakeholder communication, documentation, and project management best practices.
• Use lessons learned, retrospectives, and portfolio performance to improve delivery practices, tools, transparency, and accountability without introducing unnecessary bureaucracy.
• ServiceNow and Tool Enablement
• Own the functional requirements, adoption, data quality, and continuous improvement of ServiceNow capabilities used for IT project and portfolio management.
• Partner with ServiceNow administrators and implementation partners to enhance project intake, workflows, dashboards, reporting, demand, portfolio, and resource-management capabilities; limited hands-on configuration may be performed based on experience.
• Leadership and Collaboration
• Participate as a member of the senior IT leadership team, providing objective insight into portfolio health, delivery risks, resource constraints, and organizational priorities.
• Build trusted relationships across Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, Enterprise Applications, Service Desk, IT Operations, business functions, vendors, and implementation partners.
• Lead through influence, sound judgment, facilitation, constructive challenge, and disciplined follow-through rather than direct organizational authority.
• Partner with the Head of IT and senior IT leadership team to translate strategic priorities into actionable plans, monitor commitments, and provide timely visibility and recommendations regarding delivery risks, blockers, resource conflicts, and unresolved decisions.

SAFETY RESPONSIBILITY STATEMENT

Supports a culture of safety; follows all workplace health and safety procedures. Responsible for safety performance in respective area. Ensures the implementation of, adherence to, and enforcement of workplace health and safety requirements. Ensures activities are completed to promote and enforce safe behaviors by supervisors and employees. Ensures injury prevention efforts are effectively implemented. Fulfills responsibilities as outlined in the company safety management plan.