Director, PMO & Strategic Portfolio Delivery

Panera LLC; United States; On-site; USD 177,000 - 213,000; Full time

Job summary

Panera LLC is seeking a Director of Project Management to lead the Operations Services project-management function, ensuring strategic initiatives are delivered on time and within budget. This role oversees five Managers of Project Management and drives governance, standards, and portfolio decisions aligned with executive sponsorship.

Location: Newton, MA moving to Weston, MA in 2027. Competitive pay with a wide annual range offered to reflect experience and market considerations.

Qualifications

• Education & Experience: Bachelor's degree required; master's degree preferred.
• 5+ years of progressive project management experience leading complex, cross-functional initiatives.
• Demonstrated people-leadership experience with responsibility for project managers or complex portfolios.
• Experience partnering with executive sponsors and senior leaders.
• Restaurant, retail, hospitality, franchise, or multi-unit operations experience strongly preferred.
• PMP or equivalent certification preferred.

Responsibilities

• Own portfolio health and delivery performance.
• Establish project intake, evaluation, prioritization, sequencing, approval, and portfolio review processes.
• Partner with executive sponsors to define outcomes, success measures, sponsorship, and priorities.
• Identify capacity constraints, dependencies, timing conflicts, and tradeoffs and recommend portfolio decisions.
• Lead, coach, and develop five Managers of Project Management.
• Assign projects based on complexity, capacity, priority, and capability.
• Set expectations for outcomes, stakeholder experience, and execution quality.
• Build project-management competencies, coaching routines, and career development.
• Design and improve methodologies, stage gates, tools, templates, and minimum standards.
• Establish requirements for charters, integrated plans, governance, risk, financial tracking, change control, deployment, and closeout.
• Conduct portfolio and project health reviews and intervene when work is off track.
• Serve as the primary project-management advisor to executive sponsors.
• Lead steering committees, portfolio reviews, and critical decision forums.
• Oversee budgets, forecasts, variances, vendor commitments, resources, and investment tradeoffs.
• Ensure projects incorporate change management, field readiness, communications, training, and adoption.

Skills

Leadership

Executive sponsorship

Cross-functional collaboration

Project management

Strategic portfolio management

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's degree

Tools

Microsoft Office

Job description

Panera LLC is seeking a Director of Project Management to lead the Operations Services project-management function, ensuring strategic initiatives are delivered on time and within budget. This role oversees five Managers of Project Management and drives governance, standards, and portfolio decisions aligned with executive sponsorship.

Location: Newton, MA moving to Weston, MA in 2027. Competitive pay with a wide annual range offered to reflect experience and market considerations.