Director of Project and Program Management

JLL•Chicago, IL

4d•$160,000 - $200,000•Remote

About The Position

JLL empowers you to shape a brighter way. Our people at JLL are shaping the future of real estate for a better world by combining world class services, advisory and technology for our clients. We are committed to hiring the best, most talented people and empowering them to thrive, grow meaningful careers and to find a place where they belong. Whether you’ve got deep experience in commercial real estate, skilled trades or technology, or you’re looking to apply your relevant experience to a new industry, join our team as we help shape a brighter way forward. Role Summary The PMO Lead owns and operates the Technical Project Management Office (TPMO) within Workplace Management Technology, leading a team of Project and Program Managers who deliver the software and platform roadmap. This role is the delivery backbone of WPMT product development: it owns how work is prioritized, sequenced, tracked, and shipped once it has entered the delivery pipeline, and ensures rigor in the discipline of capturing ROI and business value at the requirements stage. The PMO Lead is a people leader first, directly managing the PjM/PgM team, and a process owner second, responsible for the operating mechanics (prioritization frameworks, delivery tracking, status reporting) that keep a complex, multi-workstream technology organization moving. This role owns everything downstream of intake once work is accepted into the delivery pipeline. The role is also expected to model and lead AI-driven ways of working by using AI tools to increase their own and their team's efficiency, and driving adoption of AI-enabled practices across the broader delivery organization.

Requirements

7-10+ years of experience in project/program management, with 3+ years leading a PMO or a team of project/program managers, ideally in a technology or software delivery organization.
Demonstrated experience owning backlog/portfolio prioritization frameworks and delivery governance at scale (multiple concurrent workstreams).
People management experience: performance management, coaching, and team development.
Strong command of SDLC/Agile delivery models and the practical mechanics of running them (sprints, releases, gates) in a matrixed organization.
Excellent executive communication skills — able to synthesize complex, messy delivery status into a clear, honest narrative for senior leadership.
Rigorous, detail-oriented, and comfortable holding a team accountable to process and data quality.
Hands-on fluency with AI tools (e.g., generative AI assistants, AI-enabled reporting/analysis tools) and a demonstrated track record of using them to improve personal or team productivity.

Nice To Haves

PMP, PgMP, SAFe, or equivalent project/program management certification.
Experience in real estate, workplace management, facilities technology, or enterprise SaaS product organizations.
Experience with Agent-centric development practices with an understanding of how to support related processes
Track record of building or maturing ROI/business-case discipline within a requirements or intake process.
Experience leading AI adoption or digital-efficiency initiatives within a project/delivery organization, including change management to drive team uptake.

Responsibilities

Directly manage a team of Project/Program Managers: set goals, conduct 1:1s, manage performance, coach on delivery and stakeholder skills, and own hiring/staffing decisions for the team.
Build team capability and bench strength; identify utilization gaps and rebalance workload across PjMs/PgMs as priorities shift.
Establish a consistent PjM/PgM standard of practice across the team (status reporting, risk/issue escalation, stakeholder cadence) so delivery quality doesn't depend on which PjM is assigned.
Own the prioritization and sequencing framework for the product development backlog: maintain scoring criteria, facilitate prioritization decisions, and keep the backlog defensible and current.
Own end-to-end delivery tracking across all active initiatives: milestones, dependencies, risks, and status, rolled up into a single reliable view for leadership.
Design and enforce the discipline for capturing ROI, business case, and value assumptions during requirements/intake handoff, so every prioritized item enters delivery with a defensible cost/benefit rationale.
Continuously improve delivery operating mechanics (SDLC/ADLC checkpoints, governance gates, reporting templates) to reduce cycle time and improve predictability.
Represent the PMO in leadership and governance forums; provide accurate, source-backed status on portfolio health, risks, and resourcing.
Partner closely with Product Management and Product Operations on the boundaries between intake and delivery, ensuring clean handshakes with no dropped context.
Build trusted relationships with Product, Engineering, and business stakeholders to resolve cross-team dependencies and unblock delivery.
Own portfolio-level reporting (executive updates, delivery dashboards) with a bias toward source-verified data over informally synthesized summaries.
Identify systemic delivery bottlenecks and drive process fixes rather than one-off firefighting.
Personally adopt AI tools to improve own productivity and model that behavior for the team.
Lead AI adoption across the PjM/PgM team: identify high-value use cases in delivery work, pilot them, and scale what works.
Champion AI-enabled ways of working with broader delivery stakeholders to raise overall organizational efficiency, not just PMO efficiency.
Balance AI-driven efficiency gains with data integrity and governance. Ensure AI-assisted outputs are still source-verified and defensible to leadership.