Director of Program Management Office (PMO)

Dedicated Computing•Waukesha, WI

About The Position

The Director of PMO will lead and strengthen Dedicated Computing's Program Management Office, with responsibility for all programs and projects across the business, including customer-specific developments and standard systems for Health, Life Sciences, Defense, and Training and Simulation. This is a hands-on leadership role for someone prepared to roll up their sleeves and put in place the governance, operating rhythm, and execution discipline required to deliver complex hardware programs predictably—without adding unnecessary bureaucracy or diminishing DC's speed and flexibility. The role owns the continued evolution of DC Gates, DC's Phase Gate process, in collaboration with cross-functional teams under EVOLVE, DC's Continuous Improvement program. The Director of PMO also partners closely with Business Development within the Sales organization, in collaboration with the SVP Sales, validating the execution path before commitment and owning disciplined delivery after award—particularly for Defense programs, where credibility with primes and DoD stakeholders is essential. The role reports to the Chief Executive Officer as a senior member of the executive team. Project Managers currently support the portfolio; the Director of PMO will assess resourcing needs and build the team structure required to support DC's growth.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree required
10+ years leading complex program or project management, including meaningful team leadership, portfolio ownership, budget accountability, and cross-functional execution.
Proven experience building or materially upgrading an enterprise PMO and phase-gate development process in a small, mid-sized, or growth-stage organization—not only operating within a mature large-company bureaucracy.
Must be comfortable driving positive change with limited resources and personally engaging in the details required to make the new framework work.
Direct experience facing Defense customers, prime contractors, or DoD program stakeholders is required, including a practical understanding of their key performance measures and concerns regarding schedule, cost, technical performance, compliance, and risk.
Strong command of integrated schedules, requirements and change control, product cost, development budgets, risk, configuration management, and launch readiness.
Working knowledge of Defense contracting and compliance expectations including FAR/DFARS, ITAR, AS9100, CMMC, MIL-SPEC, and EVMS principles.

Nice To Haves

Experience in a private equity-backed or growth-stage environment is a plus.
Experience in a Health, Life Sciences, or Training and Simulation markets is also valuable.
Familiarity with DoD 5000-series acquisition pathways is a plus.
Advanced degree (MBA, MS Engineering, or equivalent) a plus
PMP/PgMP and an active or obtainable security clearance (Secret or higher) preferred

Responsibilities

Build on the existing DC Gates foundation and implement a scalable enterprise PMO framework, consistent governance, standard work, reporting, budget controls, and escalation processes across all programs and projects.
Establish a practical operating cadence including portfolio reviews, phase-gate reviews, program reviews, Weekly and Monthly Business Reviews (WBRs/MBRs), executive reporting, and Board-level visibility.
Assess the program management resourcing required to support the portfolio, then build, develop, and scale a team of Project Managers—establishing clear accountability, consistent methods, and appropriate portfolio assignments as DC grows.
Create the framework required to deliver projects and programs on time and on budget, adding common discipline where needed while retaining the speed, adaptability, and practical decision-making that support DC's nimble execution model.
Collaborate with cross-functional teams under EVOLVE to drive improvements and process innovation across program structure.
Establish and maintain integrated schedules, critical paths, dependencies, ownership, milestone evidence, and recovery plans for on-time delivery.
Protect approved customer and product requirements through disciplined scope and change control.
Manage design-to-cost, sourcing assumptions, lifecycle risk, and variance to the approved product cost to achieve costed BOM.
Control engineering effort, tooling, certification, outside services, capital requirements, and other non-recurring investment against the approved plan to achieve development cost and project budget.
Drive all programs and projects across Engineering, Product Marketing, Lifecycle, Supply Chain, Operations, Quality, Compliance, Sales, Finance, and other participating functions.
Work hands-on with teams to remove barriers, resolve issues, and establish practical accountability rather than managing only through reports.
Establish measurable workstream outputs and proof metrics below each DC Gate; keep gate decisions focused on readiness, risk, investment, and whether the program should proceed.
Own portfolio risk, issue resolution, resource conflicts, configuration control, documentation, launch readiness, and corrective action.
Lead customer-facing program reviews and provide credible, transparent communication to Health, Life Sciences, Defense, and Training and Simulation OEM customers.
Anticipate the concerns of primes and DoD stakeholders for Defense programs, including schedule credibility, technical maturity, cost control, compliance, configuration management, supply-chain resilience, and the early identification and mitigation of risk.
Support qualification of major pursuits by validating scope, schedule, development investment, cost targets, resource capacity, compliance, and risk before commitments are made.
Accept clean handoffs from Business Development and translate awarded opportunities into executable baselines, ownership, and governance.
Keep Business Development engaged on customer continuity and commercial expansion while PMO owns execution and delivery commitments.