IT Portfolio Manager - Alex Lee

The IT Portfolio Manager is the primary liaison supporting IT and Business teams in overseeing and managing the entire life cycle of technology initiatives to achieve organizational goals and objectives. This role is critical to increasing the value realized from technology investments and capabilities. The IT Portfolio Manager will be generally aligned to either the retail or wholesale side of operations and responsible for understanding the business, assisting in the prioritization of projects, ensuring projects align with overall technical or business strategy, guiding resource allocation, and driving the development of project or program execution plans.
In this role a successful candidate will establish solid partnerships with both IT and Business teams to effectively act as a primary resource for communication with business project leaders, steering committees, and executive leaders on the performance of initiatives within the portfolio. The IT Portfolio Manager will help maintain focus on critical priorities and steward quality project management standards and practices across the organization.

1) Oversee project management practices ensuring we are maximizing value and deploying resources appropriately. As part of the oversight sustain necessary IT Project Portfolio structure to include:
a. Demand management and strategic alignment of projects.
b. Project evaluation, selection, and prioritization processes.
c. Project execution, tracking, and results measurement practices.
2) Lead the IT prioritization process and regular review processes in collaboration with business unit leaders.
3) Guide the requirements gathering process in conjunction with Business Analysts on the team.
4) Support coordination of technology resources (analysts, project managers, and developers) in support of initiatives within the IT Project Portfolio.
5) Consistently and continuously track performance to plan and communicate appropriately.
6) Manage project portfolio weekly.
7) Collaborate as necessary with technical development resources and solution architecture teams to ensure solutions are meeting client expectations.
8) Coordinate meetings with team and business stakeholders to ensure project alignment is maintained throughout planning and execution.
9) Conduct recurring review sessions with senior IT and Business executives, steering committees, and other stakeholders to communicate performance of the IT Project Portfolio, facilitate change request decisions, and discuss reprioritization as necessary to satisfy shifting business needs.
10) Manage escalation process for any critical initiatives, projects or programs that have run into challenges and provide recommendations on how the effort should proceed.
11) Oversee and coordinate dependencies across the initiatives in the portfolio and resolve or escalate conflicts.
12) Mentor and advise team members in areas of program management (scope, timeline and budget). Oversee the creation and maintenance of the required portfolio documentation and artifacts.

• Capable of completing multiple assignments with potentially conflicting priorities while simultaneously providing support where needed and providing consulting value.
• Works independently with little or no supervision. Provides functional guidance to others.
• Strong leadership skills, with the ability to develop and communicate the portfolio objectives, inspire and motivate teams, and maintain alignment with business strategy.
• High degree of astuteness and ability to use the informal power structure of the organization to overcome obstacles and achieve portfolio success.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to “tell the story” of the portfolio performance to the business and to technical leadership.
• Strong business acumen, including industry- and domain-specific knowledge of the organization and its business units. Familiarity with industry trends and innovation and how other organizations are using them.
• High level of empathy and the ability to vary styles of interaction to match the needs of a variety of business and technical audiences, as well as temperaments and personalities.
• Influencing and negotiation experience and skills in an environment with high competition for resources.
• Strong analytical, conceptual strategic planning and execution skills.
• Familiarity with at least one delivery methodology or framework, such as: PMI standards, Agile, etc. and the use of reporting tools and metrics to analyze portfolio activities or performance.
• Experience across a range of projects and programs