Senior Project Manager

Solaire Resort; Quezon City; On-site; PHP 1,800,000 - 3,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Solaire Resort in Manila is seeking a Senior Project/Program Manager to oversee the COO's portfolio, ensure alignment of strategic initiatives, and govern complex cross-functional programs within a large hospitality operation.

You will translate priorities into charters, develop plans, track milestones, manage risk, and report concise updates to executives, coordinating with Department Heads and external partners.

Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Management, or related field; postgraduate degree an advantage.
• 8+ years of progressive project/program/transformation experience, including leading cross-functional initiatives at senior management level.
• Experience in a large, 24/7 service-oriented organization; preferred in integrated resort/hospitality sector.
• Strong command of project planning, governance, risk/issue management, change control, and benefits realization.
• Ability to manage multiple executive priorities, translate strategy into clear plans and drive accountability.
• Proven communication and executive presentation skills; capable of concise updates for senior leaders.
• Digital/analytical capability with Excel, PowerPoint, and collaboration/reporting tools; PMP/PRINCE2/Agile a plus.
• Structured, proactive, resilient, and results-oriented with strong judgment in a 24/7 resort environment.

Responsibilities

• Maintain a consolidated view of the COO's strategic programs and priority initiatives and provide executive visibility of portfolio health.
• Translate priorities into clearly defined project charters, scope, outcomes, and governance.
• Develop and maintain practical project plans, milestones, budgets, dependencies and resource needs.
• Establish governance, status reporting, risk/issue registers and escalation protocols per initiative.
• Drive day-to-day execution, coordinate workstreams and surface variances to executives.
• Manage risk, issues and dependencies; assign owners and due dates; elevates critical matters as needed.
• Oversee budgets and resources; flag cost pressures; support justified changes.
• Provide concise, fact-based dashboards and updates to the COO; ensure decision-ready information.
• Coordinate with Department Heads, SMEs, and external partners; facilitate cross-functional sessions.
• Record key decisions, actions, and ensure follow-through; support change/operational readiness.
• Lead or support special projects, transformation initiatives, or rapid assessments as required.
• Ensure project outputs meet business requirements and conduct post-implementation reviews or benefits realization.

Skills

Portfolio management

Executive reporting

Cross-functional leadership

Risk management

Stakeholder influence

Leadership under ambiguity

Education

Bachelor's degree in Business Administration/Management

Tools

Microsoft Excel

PowerPoint

Microsoft Project

Smartsheet

Jira

Power BI

Job description

• Project portfolio and COO priority management. Maintain a consolidated view of the COO's strategic programs, projects and priority initiatives. Support prioritization based on strategic value, urgency, risk, customer or team member impact, financial benefit, resource requirements and interdependencies, and ensure the COO has clear visibility of overall portfolio health.
• Project initiation and business case discipline. Translate executive priorities into clearly defined project charters covering business need, objectives, scope, expected outcomes, success measures, governance, key stakeholders, resource assumptions, high-level risks and decision rights. Challenge ambiguous scope and assumptions before significant resources are committed.
• Integrated project planning. Develop and maintain practical project plans, work breakdown structures, milestones, critical paths, resource requirements, budget assumptions, dependencies, implementation sequencing and handover requirements. Establish realistic baselines and ensure changes are formally assessed and approved.
• Project governance and delivery standards. Establish fit-for-purpose project governance, meeting cadence, status reporting, change control, decision logs, risk and issue registers, action trackers and escalation protocols. Apply governance proportionate to the size, risk and complexity of each initiative.
• Execution management and milestone control. Drive day-to-day execution of assigned projects, coordinate workstreams, monitor progress against approved milestones and resolve delivery gaps. Hold workstream owners accountable for commitments and promptly surface material schedule, scope, cost, resource or quality variances.
• Risk, issue and dependency management. Maintain active risk, issue, assumption and dependency management throughout the project lifecycle. Facilitate mitigation planning, assign clear owners and due dates, identify cross-project conflicts and elevate matters requiring executive intervention before they materially affect delivery.
• Budget, resource and commercial oversight. Work with Finance, Procurement and project owners to track project budgets, commitments, forecasts, resource capacity, purchase requirements and vendor deliverables. Highlight emerging cost or resource pressures and support timely corrective action or approval of justified changes.
• Executive reporting and decision support. Provide concise, fact-based project dashboards and executive updates to the COO, clearly distinguishing completed work, upcoming milestones, decisions required, risks, issues, dependencies, financial position and expected outcomes. Ensure information is decision-ready rather than activity-focused.
• Stakeholder and cross-functional coordination. Coordinate Department Heads, subject matter experts, support functions and external partners to maintain alignment on scope, responsibilities, timelines and required decisions. Resolve unclear ownership and facilitate productive working sessions when cross-functional handoffs or competing priorities threaten delivery.
• Decision and action management. Maintain a structured record of key executive decisions, Steering Committee directions, commitments and action items. Follow through with accountable owners, monitor due dates, ensure decisions are reflected in project plans and elevate overdue actions that affect critical milestones.
• Change, implementation and operational readiness. Ensure projects address operational readiness, communications, training, process and policy updates, system readiness, controls, staffing implications, customer or team member impact and transition support. Coordinate go-live readiness reviews and ensure unresolved critical issues are visible before implementation.
• Quality assurance and acceptance. Define project deliverable and acceptance criteria with business owners, verify that required testing, validation and approvals are completed and confirm that final outputs meet agreed business requirements before closure or handover.
• Benefits realization and post-implementation review. Establish measurable project outcomes and benefits at initiation, develop baselines with business owners and track whether intended operational, financial, service, risk or productivity benefits are achieved after implementation. Conduct post-implementation reviews and recommend corrective actions where expected outcomes are not realized.
• Vendor and external partner coordination. Where projects involve third parties, coordinate with Procurement, Legal, Finance and business owners to monitor vendor commitments, deliverables, timelines, dependencies, acceptance requirements and performance against agreed contractual obligations.
• Project management capability and continuous improvement. Develop practical templates, playbooks and lessons-learned practices that improve project execution across SQC. Coach project owners and workstream leads on planning, risk management, reporting, action discipline and structured problem solving, while simplifying governance wherever possible.
• Confidential and sensitive initiatives. Manage confidential or commercially sensitive assignments for the COO with appropriate discretion, access control, information handling and stakeholder management. Maintain objective records and protect sensitive business information throughout the project lifecycle.
• Special projects and executive support. Lead strategic, operational, transformation, regulatory or time-critical initiatives assigned by the COO, including rapid assessments and recovery plans for projects requiring executive intervention. Perform other responsibilities consistent with the purpose and seniority of the role.

Qualifications:

• Education. Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Management, Industrial Engineering, Operations Management, Finance, Information Technology, or a related field. A relevant postgraduate degree is an advantage.
• Experience. At least eight (8) years of progressive project, program, transformation or business implementation experience, including at least three (3) years leading complex cross-functional projects or programs at a management or senior management level.
• Industry exposure. Demonstrated experience in a large, complex, 24/7 and highly service-oriented organization. Experience in an integrated resort, casino, hospitality, real estate, financial services or similarly complex operating environment is strongly preferred.
• Project and program management capability. Strong command of project planning, governance, critical-path management, risk and issue management, change control, implementation, closure and benefits realization.
• Portfolio and executive support capability. Ability to manage multiple concurrent executive priorities, distinguish strategic issues from routine activity, maintain portfolio-level visibility and convert broad leadership direction into clear plans, decisions, accountabilities and follow-through.
• Commercial and financial acumen. Ability to interpret budgets, forecasts, business cases, vendor proposals and operating impacts; monitor project financial performance; assess cost-benefit trade-offs; and support financially sound recommendations.
• Risk, governance and control mindset. Strong understanding of project risk management, governance, internal controls, compliance requirements, documentation standards and escalation principles, with the judgment to apply sufficient discipline without creating unnecessary administrative burden.
• Stakeholder and leadership capability. Proven ability to influence senior leaders and cross-functional teams without relying solely on formal authority, facilitate difficult discussions, challenge assumptions constructively, resolve competing priorities and establish accountability for commitments.
• Communication and executive presentation. Excellent written, verbal, facilitation and presentation skills, with the ability to summarize complex project information into concise executive updates, clearly articulate risks and trade-offs and frame decisions required from senior management.
• Digital and analytical capability. Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint and strong working knowledge of project planning, collaboration and reporting tools. Experience with Microsoft Project, Smartsheet, Jira, Monday.com, Power BI or comparable tools is an advantage.
• Preferred certifications. Project Management Professional (PMP), PRINCE2, Agile or Scrum certification, Lean Six Sigma, Change Management or other relevant project, program or transformation credentials are advantageous.
• Personal attributes and work requirements. Structured, pragmatic, proactive, resilient and results-oriented, with strong integrity, discretion, attention to detail and sound judgment. Comfortable operating with ambiguity and senior-level visibility, and able to provide support outside regular office hours when required by the 24/7 nature of resort operations.