Assistant Director, Enterprise Portfolio Management Group

Northwestern Mutual; Milwaukee (WI); Hybrid; USD 108,160 - 186,600; Full time

Job summary

Northwestern Mutual in Milwaukee seeks an Assistant Director to drive enterprise governance for the portfolio. You will execute governance routines, produce executive-ready materials, and partner with senior leaders to shape future-state portfolio management.

With 7+ years in governance or portfolio management and a strong finance/business operations background, you will translate complex information into clear decisions, manage intake and prioritization, and ensure alignment with enterprise

Qualifications

• Minimum 7 years of related experience in governance, enterprise portfolio management, finance, business operations, strategy execution, or a related field.
• Strong design, execution, and improvement of governance routines, operating cadences, reporting mechanisms, and decision forums.
• Comfort operating in ambiguity with the ability to bring structure and move work forward.
• Demonstrated ability to synthesize complex information and communicate implications clearly to senior leadership.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills for executive-ready materials and leadership discussions.
• Strong attention to detail and ability to manage multiple priorities in fast-moving environments.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and manage large, complex assignments with enterprise-wide impact.
• Team player with initiative and motivation.

Responsibilities

• Execute enterprise governance processes: support and run governance routines, including committee activities, portfolio reviews, intake and prioritization, portfolio reporting, risk escalation, and Quarterly Business Review support.
• Bring rigor to portfolio reporting: surface risks, watchpoints, dependencies, tradeoffs, and metrics status for timely leadership action.
• Prepare senior leader materials: develop agendas, pre-read materials, executive summaries, decision-ready updates, and meeting outcomes.
• Translate complex portfolio information into clear written and verbal communications.
• Support intake and prioritization: manage intake, evaluation, prioritization, and governance of enterprise work to ensure clarity and decision-readiness.
• Escalate risks and watchpoints: identify patterns and risks, frame issues, and support practical mitigation or leadership decisions.
• Shape future-state governance: partner to define future governance processes, metrics, operating cadence, and decision forums.
• Connect strategy, finance, delivery, and governance: apply business and financial acumen to relate portfolio decisions to enterprise priorities.
• Drive clarity through program management and communication across governance activities, maintaining momentum without a rigid project mgmt playbook.

Skills

Adaptive Communication

Analytical Thinking

Business Acumen

Change Adaptability

Emotional Intelligence

Process Mindset

Program Governance

Education

Bachelor's degree in business/finance/management

Job description

About the Job

The Enterprise Portfolio Management Group is seeking an Assistant Director to help execute and evolve enterprise governance processes that enable senior leaders to make clear, informed decisions about the portfolio of work across Northwestern Mutual. This role will report directly to the VP, Enterprise Planning and, along with the Sr Director Business Program Manager, will be responsible for both operating the current governance routines with discipline and helping define the future-state approach for enterprise portfolio management. This is role suited for someone who is comfortable with ambiguity, brings structure to complex work, and can move between detailed process execution and strategic thought partnership. The right candidate will have strong governance, portfolio management, finance, or business operations experience; excellent written and verbal communication skills; and the executive presence to work effectively with senior leaders.

What You’ll Do

• Execute enterprise governance processes: Support and help run core Enterprise Portfolio Management Group governance routines, including Enterprise Portfolio Management Committee activities, enterprise portfolio reviews, intake and prioritization, portfolio reporting, execution risk and watchpoint escalation, and Quarterly Business Review support.
• Bring rigor to portfolio reporting: Review and synthesize enterprise portfolio information to surface execution risks, watchpoints, dependencies, tradeoffs, and metrics status in a way that enables timely leadership action.
• Prepare senior leader materials: Develop agendas, pre-read materials, executive summaries, decision-ready updates, and meeting outcomes for senior leadership forums.
• Translate complex portfolio information into clear, concise written and verbal communications.
• Support intake and prioritization: Help manage the intake, evaluation, prioritization, and governance of enterprise work, ensuring submissions are clear, comparable, and decision‑ready.
• Escalate risks and watchpoints: Identify patterns, execution risks, gaps, and points of friction across the portfolio; frame issues clearly; and support practical recommendations for escalation, mitigation, or leadership decision.
• Help shape future-state governance: Partner with the VP, Enterprise Planning and Enterprise Portfolio Management Group leaders to define future enterprise portfolio management processes, including Quarterly Business Reviews, metrics and value realization, operating cadence, decision forums, and ways of working.
• Connect strategy, finance, delivery, and governance: Apply business and financial acumen to help leaders understand how portfolio decisions connect to enterprise priorities, capacity, value, risk, and execution realities.
• Drive clarity and organization through program management and communication across governance activities, maintaining momentum without relying on a rigid project management playbook.

What You’ll Bring to the Role

• Minimum 7 years of related experience in governance, enterprise portfolio management, finance, business operations, strategy execution, or a related field.
• Bachelor’s degree in business, finance, management, or a related field preferred, or equivalent directly related work experience.
• Strong process orientation with the ability to design, execute, and improve governance routines, operating cadences, reporting mechanisms, and decision forums.
• Comfort operating in ambiguity, with the ability to bring structure, define the problem, clarify choices, and move work forward before every answer is known.
• Demonstrated ability to synthesize complex information, identify themes and tradeoffs, and communicate implications clearly to senior leadership.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to create crisp, executive‑ready materials and facilitate productive leadership discussions.
• Strong attention to detail and follow‑through, with the ability to manage multiple priorities and maintain quality in fast‑moving environments.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and manage large and highly complex assignments including those with enterprise‑wide impact.
• Team player with a high degree of personal initiative and motivation.

Skills You Have

• Adaptive Communication: Formulates strategies to be used to convey complex information about services, products, systems, or processes to targeted audiences; communicates and liaises between technical and non‑technical audiences.
• Analytical Thinking: Organizes and compares various aspects of a situation to comprehend and identify key or underlying complex issues through the use of quantitative data and analysis; leverages strong business acumen, problem solving, and interpersonal skills to think critically about situations from multiple perspectives and consistently seeks ways to improve processes.
• Business Acumen: Applies knowledge of both general and organization‑specific business issues/financial implications for the organization to problem solve.
• Change Adaptability: Becomes adaptable in response to continual changes; shows an openness to new ways of working, new methods, work‑in‑progress improvements and changes and seamlessly navigates the changing business environment and adjusts behavior as appropriate to the situation.
• Emotional Intelligence: Includes self‑awareness and self‑management, empathy towards stakeholders (internal and external) via active listening. Builds trusting relationships and establishes credibility with peers, managers and stakeholders to influence optimal outcomes for employees and clients.
• Process Mindset: Demonstrates ability to define processes to organize people, activities, and milestones. Understands how to separate and combine tasks into efficient workflow; creates metrics to measure success. Identifies opportunities for synergy and integration where others can't. Simplifies complex processes and produces more out of fewer resources.
• Program Governance: Establishes and manages policies, processes, and structures to guide the decision‑making, roles and responsibilities, and overall direction of the program. Defines the framework to ensure the program is aligned with organizational goals and is executing in compliance with requirements.

LI‑Hybrid Compensation Range

• Compensation Range: Pay Range - Start: $108,160.00
• Pay Range - End: $162,240.00
• Geographic Specific Pay Structure: Structure 110: $118,960.00 USD - $178,440.00 USD
• Structure 115: $124,400.00 USD - $186,600.00 USD

We believe in fairness and transparency. It’s why we share the salary range for most of our roles. However, final salaries are based on a number of factors, including the skills and experience of the candidate; the current market; location of the candidate; and other factors uncovered in the hiring process. The standard pay structure is listed but if you’re living in California, New York City or other eligible location, geographic specific pay structures, compensation and benefits could be applicable.

Grow your career with a best‑in‑class company that puts our clients' interests at the center of all we do.

Northwestern Mutual is an equal opportunity employer that welcomes talented individuals of all backgrounds. We are committed to creating and maintaining an environment in which each employee can contribute creative ideas, seek challenges, assume leadership and continue to focus on meeting and exceeding business and personal objectives.

At Northwestern Mutual, we believe relationships are built on trust. That our lives and our work matter. These beliefs launched our company over 160 years ago. Today, they’re just a few of the reasons why people choose to build careers at Northwestern Mutual. What started in Milwaukee, WI has grown into 7,000+ home office professionals split across 3 campuses: New York City, Franklin and downtown Milwaukee (HQ) - each one bringing with it its own unique talent and culture. In a company with such a long and storied history, this may be the most exciting and important time to be a part of Northwestern Mutual as we are growing our digital and tech capabilities and are always on the lookout for bright, tech‑savvy candidates.

Northwestern Mutual is an equal opportunity employer that welcomes talented individuals of all backgrounds. We are committed to creating and maintaining an environment in which each employee can contribute creative ideas, seek challenges, assume leadership and continue to focus on meeting and exceeding business and personal objectives.