Want to know if this job is worth applying to?
Belleville, Illinois, United States
Remote only
At Ascent Global Logistics, we strive not only to ensure that all voices within Ascent have a seat at the table but that all seats at the table use their voice. Our full potential is realized when we seek out the diverse experiences and perspectives of our employees. Our combined efforts allow us to be both human-centric and client-obsessed. We offer a competitive compensation package as well as a full range of benefits. We invite you to discover why Ascent is the opportunity you’ve been looking for.
The Director of PMO leads governance and delivery oversight for the IT project portfolio, ensuring work is aligned with business priorities, transparently funded, realistically planned, and executed with accountability. The role owns portfolio-level project intake and prioritization facilitation, IT project financial tracking and forecasting, the Fusion Team operating framework, and executive-level project reporting for the Executive Leadership Team (ELT), Senior Leadership Team (SLT) and Board of Directors.
Working closely with business sponsors, technology leaders, Finance, Contracts, Product Owners, and delivery teams, the Director establishes consistent standards, identifies risks and dependencies, drives timely decisions and escalations, and supports Agile and other appropriate delivery methods. Business Owners retain accountability for what is built and its business priority; IT leadership retains accountability for technical approach, cost estimates, and technical readiness.
- Own and continuously improve the enterprise IT project intake process, ensuring requests have documented objectives, business ownership, expected benefits, estimated cost, capacity needs, dependencies, and decision status.
- Facilitate transparent evaluation and prioritization of new requests and the active portfolio with business and IT leaders, considering strategic alignment, business value, urgency, capacity, risk, and financial implications.
- Maintain a consolidated, decision-ready portfolio roadmap and prioritized backlog; document approvals, deferrals, trade-offs, and changes in scope or sequence.
- Coordinate portfolio capacity and resource conflicts, including cross-platform dependencies; escalate unresolved trade-offs through established governance forums.
- Maintain project-level and consolidated IT portfolio financial tracking, including approved budgets, commitments, actual spend, forecast-to-complete, and estimated total cost at completion.
- Partner with Finance, IT leaders, and project owners to reconcile expenditures, validate forecasts, analyze budget variances, and identify potential overruns early.
- Incorporate spend, affordability, and resource implications into project intake, prioritization, Fusion Team reviews, and leadership decision materials.
- Track changes to project funding assumptions and approvals, escalating material variances and requests above applicable approval thresholds.
- Lead implementation and ongoing operation of the Fusion Team governance model across IT platforms, including team kickoff, charters, rosters, operating cadence, and consistent PMO Lead practices.
- Ensure Fusion Teams conduct recurring prioritization and delivery reviews, with visibility into outcomes, backlog, capacity, blockers, dependencies, and spend.
- Coach and coordinate PMO Leads in validating strategic alignment and business cases, maintaining delivery plans and decision logs, coordinating UAT schedules, and tracking owners, commitments, and escalations to closure.
- Publish consolidated weekly Fusion Team status for leadership and facilitate the monthly Cross-Team Review for shared dependencies, capacity conflicts, and unresolved escalations.
- Reinforce decision rights: Business Owners determine what is built and in what order; IT determines how it is built, cost, and technical readiness; the PMO facilitates governance and execution accountability.
- Oversee project planning and execution against agreed scope, milestones, resources, budgets, and measurable business outcomes.
- Establish and maintain PMO standards, policies, templates, KPIs, dashboards, and practical Agile-compatible governance practices.
- Proactively identify schedule, budget, scope, staffing, testing, adoption, and cross-team risks; maintain mitigation plans and escalate critical issues promptly.
- Coordinate readiness, stakeholder communication, project reviews, post-implementation assessments, and lessons learned.
- Own the project and portfolio status content for recurring ELT, SLT and Board presentations, working with the CTO and relevant executives to develop accurate, concise, decision-oriented materials.
- Provide consolidated reporting on strategic initiatives, milestones, delivery health, approved versus forecast spend, material risks, dependencies, resource constraints, outcomes, and leadership decisions required.
- Maintain a reliable source of truth for status, financials, commitments, and escalations; ensure reporting is timely, consistent, and supported by project owners.
- Clearly distinguish approved commitments, emerging changes, forecast risks, and decisions requiring executive action.
- Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Information Technology, Project Management, or equivalent experience.
- 7+ years of project/program management or PMO experience, including experience leading complex cross-functional technology initiatives; prior people or portfolio leadership preferred.
- Demonstrated experience with IT project budgets, actuals, forecasting, variance analysis, and financial reporting in partnership with Finance.
- Experience facilitating demand intake, portfolio prioritization, executive governance, and cross-functional delivery accountability.
- Strong proficiency in Jira and project/portfolio reporting tools; advanced Excel and executive PowerPoint presentation skills.
- Working knowledge of Agile delivery, software development lifecycles, resource planning, risk management, and business requirements/UAT coordination.
Personal Attributes
- Strong leadership, facilitation, judgment, and ability to influence without direct authority.
- Clear, concise written and verbal communication, including the ability to translate detailed project data into executive-level insights.
- Financial discipline, attention to detail, strong organization, and ability to manage competing priorities.
- Collaborative, proactive, and comfortable holding business and IT stakeholders accountable for decisions and commitments.
This is a remote position.
Disclaimer: This job description indicates in a general way the nature and levels of work, knowledge, skills, abilities, and other essential functions; it is not intended as a comprehensive listing of all duties or responsibilities.
Salary Range: $175,000 - $225,000