Portfolio Manager

Gallagher Bassett; Rolling Meadows (IL); On-site; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive pay

Benefits program

Career development

Collaborative culture

Job summary

Gallagher Bassett seeks a Portfolio Manager – Global Client Implementations and Enhancements to lead the end-to-end lifecycle of client implementations across regions. You will own the global portfolio and governance, drive prioritization, and coordinate with Client Services, Sales, and IT to align client needs with standard offerings and secure delivery success.

The role requires 5+ years in portfolio management, strong executive communication, and experience guiding cross-regional initiatives.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in computer science, IT, business administration, or a related field.
• 5+ years in client implementations portfolio management or similar role.
• Experience engaging executives and global coordination across regions.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills.

Responsibilities

• Own and manage the consolidated global pipeline and portfolio of client implementations and enhancements.
• Drive cross-region consistency and document justified regional variations.
• Lead intake and demand evaluation across regions and clients for prioritization decisions.
• Translate client needs into high-level IT requirements and ensure smooth handoff to delivery teams.
• Prioritize work based on commitments, value, and capacity; drive from intake to closure.
• Lead recurring governance meetings and ensure follow-through with action owners.
• Provide concise executive reporting on portfolio health, milestones, and risks.
• Identify conflicts and facilitate trade-offs with escalation when needed.
• Drive continuous improvement based on lessons learned from deployments.

Skills

Portfolio management

Executive communication

Demand evaluation

Prioritization

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor’s degree or higher in CS/IT/Business

Job description

Introduction

At Gallagher Bassett, we're there when it matters most because helping people through challenging moments is more than just our job, it’s our purpose. Every day, we help clients navigate complexity, support recovery, and deliver outcomes that make a real difference in people’s lives. It takes empathy, precision, and a strong sense of partnership—and that’s exactly what you’ll find here. We’re a team of fast-paced fixers, empathetic experts, and outcomes drivers — people who care deeply about doing the right thing and doing it well. Whether you're managing claims, supporting clients, or improving processes, you’ll play a vital role in helping businesses and individuals move forward with confidence. Here, you’ll be supported by a culture that values teamwork, encourages curiosity, and celebrates the impact of your work. Because when you’re here, you’re part of something bigger. You’re part of a team that shows up, stands together, and leads with purpose.

How you'll make an impact

The Portfolio Manager – Global Client Implementations and Enhancements is accountable for moving client implementation and enhancement work through the full lifecycle, from intake and demand evaluation through prioritization, solution alignment, delivery oversight, closure and outcome review. This role owns the consolidated global portfolio and leads its recurring governance, driving consistent processes across all Gallagher Bassett (GB) regions while accommodating legitimate regulatory, operational, client and market-specific requirements. The role leads portfolio-level prioritization and trade-off discussions, drives decisions and follow-through within agreed governance authority, and escalates decisions beyond that authority to the appropriate leaders. Strong executive presence, exceptional communication and broad technology understanding are essential to translating client needs into high-level IT requirements and aligning business, client and delivery stakeholders. IT delivery teams retain accountability for technical design and execution; this role owns portfolio alignment, visibility and lifecycle progression.

Key Responsibilities:

• Global portfolio ownership: Own and actively manage the consolidated global pipeline and portfolio of new client implementations and existing-client enhancements, ensuring complete records, accurate status and clear accountability.
• Cross-region consistency: Drive consistent portfolio practices across all GB regions, accommodating legitimate regulatory, operational, client and market-specific requirements and documenting justified regional variations.
• Intake and demand leadership: Own intake and evaluate demand across regions and clients. Lead collaborative discovery to clarify objectives, scope, business value, commitments and dependencies, preparing requests for prioritization and decision-making.
• Client and technology advisory: Build trusted partnerships with executives in Client Services, Sales and Implementation teams. Explain technology options and trade-offs, guide clients toward standard offerings where appropriate, and validate feasibility, constraints, integrations, data and security with IT experts before commitments. Translate client needs into high-level IT requirements and ensure a clear handoff to delivery teams.
• Prioritization and lifecycle authority: Prioritize and sequence work based on client commitments, business value, strategic importance, regulatory requirements, delivery capacity and technology dependencies. Drive work from intake through closure, making decisions within delegated authority and securing approvals where required.
• Governance and process ownership: Within approximately two months of onboarding, assume ownership of recurring meetings and governance for client implementations and client-specific technology work. Lead decision forums, assign action owners and ensure follow-through.
• Conflict resolution and escalation: Identify competing priorities, capacity constraints and cross-portfolio conflicts; facilitate trade-off decisions and document their impacts. Establish and consistently apply escalation standards for unresolved conflicts, threatened commitments, material risks and decisions requiring leadership attention.
• Executive portfolio visibility: Own concise executive reporting across the global pipeline and active implementations and enhancements, covering portfolio health, milestones, risks, dependencies, capacity constraints and financial outlook. Highlight decisions and escalations requiring leadership attention, with recommendations and clear next steps.
• Outcome management and improvement: Align with client and business stakeholders on objectives and success measures, monitor progress against agreed outcomes, and lead portfolio-level closure and lessons-learned reviews. Use findings to improve portfolio practices and inform future implementations and enhancements.

About You

Required:

Typically requires a University Degree and minimum 3 years of prior relevant experience, or equivalent experience.

Education: Bachelor’s degree or higher in computer science, Information Technology, Business Administration, or a related field, with both technical and business credentials a plus.

Experience: Minimum of 5 years of experience in a similar role with accountability for client implementation and enhancement portfolios, demand management and lifecycle governance, preferably within the insurance industry. Demonstrated experience leading intake, prioritization, recurring governance, cross-functional trade-off decisions, escalation and executive portfolio reporting. Experience engaging business executives and clients, partnering with sales and implementation teams, translating client needs into high-level IT requirements, and tracking client and business outcomes is required. Experience managing work across global regions is preferred.

Skills: Strong ownership, executive presence and exceptional spoken and written communication. Ability to lead collaborative processes, facilitate decisions, influence across regions and functions, resolve competing priorities, and apply sound judgment within delegated authority. Strong portfolio management, demand evaluation, prioritization, outcome tracking and escalation skills, including the ability to assess capacity, financial outlook, risks and technology dependencies. Broad understanding of enterprise applications, integrations, data and security; ability to quickly grasp client needs, ask insightful questions and translate requirements for IT. Ability to explain technology trade-offs in business terms, build trusted partnerships, produce concise executive reporting and drive continuous improvement.

Compensation and benefits

At Gallagher, we believe supporting our colleagues goes far beyond the role itself. For more information, visit our Benefits page.

• Competitive compensation
• Comprehensive benefits programs designed to support your well-being
• Career development opportunities and ongoing learning
• A collaborative, people-first culture with accessible leadership
• The opportunity to do meaningful work with global reach and local impact

At Gallagher, we are dedicated to building an inclusive and authentic workplace. If your past experience doesn’t align perfectly, we encourage you to join our Talent Community to stay connected to additional career opportunities. At times, we will consider transferable skills from previous roles.

Gallagher is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer (Minorities/Females/Veterans/Disabled).