Director, Program and Portfolio Management

Fanatics Commerce•Redwood City, CA

12h•Remote

About The Position

The Director, Program & Portfolio Management owns the operating rhythm, tooling, and delivery standards for the Fanatics Technology portfolio. This role is crucial in establishing governed, AI-powered portfolio delivery discipline across Fanatics Technology. The Director will define the Project, Program & Portfolio Playbook, set up the tooling and taxonomy infrastructure, and embed AI as the default operational method. The goal is to bring one standard of governance and discipline to enterprise programs including ERP, PLM, Fulfillment, Distribution, and Manufacturing & Logistics networks that power a significant eCommerce and wholesale business. This is an active-build role focused on delivering business and fan impact through BOLD leadership, execution excellence, and leveraging data, automation, and AI-enabled insights.

Requirements

8+ years of experience in program or portfolio management, ideally within technology or supply chain/operations environments, with a demonstrated ability to operate across a complex, multi-workstream portfolio.
Proven track record standing up or scaling PPM tools, governance models, or portfolio operating rhythms from the ground up — not simply inheriting and running an established system.
People management experience with a demonstrated ability to develop a team of Project and Program Managers and hold them accountable to a consistent delivery standard.
Strong business and transformation acumen — able to separate what's important from what's noise across a complex portfolio and comfortable managing up to senior leadership on where focus and attention should sit.
Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to distill complex, multi-workstream detail into clear, executive-ready materials and decision-ready narratives.

Nice To Haves

Hands-on experience using AI tools (e.g., Claude, ChatGPT) to run delivery workflows — status reporting, schedule/risk analysis, work-item creation, deck generation — with a genuine point of view on where AI should change program and portfolio management, not just automate the current process.
Prior experience running or co-facilitating executive-level reporting cadences (SteerCo or equivalent) and/or leading large enterprise-wide transformation programs such as ERP or WMS implementations in a wholesale or retail environment.

Responsibilities

Partner closely with Product Management leadership, Engineering, and business sponsors to keep portfolio delivery status aligned to product roadmaps and priorities.
Surface and resolve scope, resourcing, and prioritization conflicts before they escalate.
Drive Change Management across Fanatics Technology to ensure the Project, Program & Portfolio Playbook is adopted and held to consistently organization-wide.
Support and help continuously improve the SteerCo, Monthly Leader Review, and Tech Bi-weekly cadences, ensuring prep and follow-through on actions and decisions are consistent with portfolio objectives.
Manage a team of Project and Program Managers; set expectations and hold the team accountable to consistent delivery standards, status reporting quality, and data integrity.
Coach the team on AI-assisted ways of working as a baseline skill, building the next generation of program and project management practice within Fanatics Technology.
Develop team members into stronger operators by modeling the standard of practice the broader organization is pulled up to.
Go direct to business, Product, and engineering stakeholders to understand where the current operating rhythm and reporting genuinely fail them and fix root causes.
Translate complex, multi-workstream program detail into decision-ready executive narratives that give senior leadership a clear, accurate picture of delivery health, risk, and resourcing.
Ensure value realization and value-based decisioning are built into every forum, report, and piece of content.
Provide portfolio-level visibility to senior leadership in a way that enables faster, better-informed decisions.
Make AI the default way the team operates — leveraging tools like Claude for status reporting, work-item creation, schedule and risk analysis, and deck generation — and own the longer-term vision for next-gen program and portfolio management.
Simplify fragmented, ad hoc portfolio reporting into one governed standard, replacing manual status decks and spreadsheets with a single Golden Record.
Pilot AI-enabled ways of working even while tooling and standards are still being defined.
Drive the portfolio toward a genuinely predictive — not just retrospective — view of delivery health and resourcing, leveraging AI-assisted forum content and the maturing Portfolio Layer.
Own the portfolio, program, and project taxonomy, hierarchy structure, and data standards across the Fanatics Technology portfolio.
Hold the line on playbook standards once set, even against pushback from teams or stakeholders accustomed to prior ad hoc approaches.
Flex across whatever the portfolio requires week to week — stepping into a workstream short a Project Manager, picking up an executive deliverable with no obvious owner, or building the next piece of standard process before anyone asks for it.
Treat early missteps in the AI-enabled build as learning, not a reason to retreat to manual processes, maintaining momentum and standard even through ambiguity.
Apply AI and technology to improve efficiency, quality, and outcomes.
Use data and digital tools to inform decisions and enhance performance.
Demonstrate curiosity and adaptability in adopting new technologies and ways of working.
Contribute to a culture of innovation and continuous improvement.