Vice President, Head of Project Management

About the Role

Our client, a premier global market infrastructure provider serving financial market participants worldwide, is undergoing an enterprise-wide transformation. They are recruiting an experienced Head of Project Management to establish and steer a centralized project management team committed to driving strategic execution, governance, and operational excellence across the company.

Position Overview

This leadership role is pivotal in evolving the project management function into an enterprise-level centralized model. Responsibilities include consolidating approximately 20 project management professionals into a federated center of excellence, overseeing enterprise portfolio governance, and reporting directly to the Executive Leadership Team. The position operates within a multifaceted, regulated, multi-entity environment, demanding a strategic leader adept at balancing executive-level strategy formulation with effective delivery oversight.

Key Responsibilities

• Craft and refine an enterprise project management operating model to integrate currently decentralized practitioners into a unified structure through influential stakeholder engagement.
• Establish governance frameworks, career advancement pathways, and integrate PM operations with existing business unit delivery setups.
• Manage a phased transition of project management duties from diffused teams while ensuring execution continuity and resource sufficiency.
• Lead and develop project managers, instituting succession plans, structured learning paths, and clear performance and accountability standards.
• Champion a collaborative, accountable, and improvement-oriented organizational culture.
• Direct comprehensive program execution, embedding rigorous change management and execution discipline.
• Collaborate with business leaders to align portfolios with strategic priorities using consistent frameworks and KPI tracking.
• Foster transparency via metric-driven reporting to enhance decision-making speed and quality.
• Align initiatives with objectives involving growth, innovation, and risk while coordinating cross-functional execution.
• Design and enforce a federated project management model balancing enterprise standards with domain-specific delivery efficiency.
• Develop enterprise-wide portfolio visibility tools to improve prioritization and resource allocation at the executive level.
• Standardize project tracking and communication across geographies and disciplines such as software, infrastructure, and operations.
• Instill execution discipline by optimizing meeting structures, decision-making processes, escalation procedures, and communications at all organizational levels.
• Drive PM practice enhancement using AI, Jira, Confluence, and promote continuous learning and improvement.
• Oversee budget development and monitoring in collaboration with support departments.
• Build resource forecasting and allocation frameworks that optimize enterprise delivery and capture value realization.
• Model required capacity through consolidation phases to maintain adequate resourcing.
• Define and monitor KPIs and benefit realization metrics, providing executive-level reporting on delivery health.
• Act as the primary liaison for senior leaders, executive sponsors, and cross-functional teams.
• Facilitate coordination among business, technology, operations, risk, and regulatory groups, managing the interplay between technical and business stakeholders.
• Navigate regulatory and operational constraints across multiple international entities, balancing enterprise project management standards with local compliance requirements.
• Identify and manage program risks and issues, implementing mitigation strategies aligned with organizational risk policies and ensuring adherence to regulatory and internal controls.

Candidate Profile

• Proven leadership experience managing large-scale programs or portfolios within complex, regulated sectors such as financial services, exchanges, fintech, or capital markets.
• Experience leading project management organizational transformations or consolidations is highly preferred.
• Strong leadership skills with demonstrated success in growing teams, influencing across different organizational levels, and managing change in matrixed environments.
• Strategic acumen to translate broad enterprise strategies into executable programs with clear, measurable outcomes, capable of handling both transformational and steady-state initiatives.
• Excellent written and oral communication abilities, especially in preparing executive-level reports and engaging diverse stakeholders.
• Expertise in project management methodologies and tools, including AI-enhanced delivery, Jira Programs, and Jira Plans.

Additional Information

Location: Chicago, IL (on-site presence required four days per week)

Compensation: Total package (base salary, short-term and long-term incentives) ranges from $450,000 to $500,000+