Global Program Manager Advanced Manufacturing Technology

Johnson Controls•San Antonio, TX

4d•Hybrid

About The Position

The PMO Program Manager is accountable for the governance, portfolio management, and execution discipline that turns nine independent Advanced Manufacturing and Digital Transformation SME roadmaps into a single, governed, fundable, trackable portfolio. This is a foundational, Year 1 role: it must be stood up early, alongside the SMEs themselves, so that the standards, technology roadmaps, and capital requests coming out of Joining & Surface Finishing, Functional Test, Manufacturing Quality, Material Flow, Automation & Robotics, Maintenance & Reliability, Manufacturing Systems/ERP, Digital Twin, and Industrial IoT are prioritized, funded, and executed against one common framework rather than nine separate ones. The role owns the operating model, prioritization framework, consolidated capital plan, and execution tracking across every factory in the network — Stiva 1, 2, 3, and 5, Durango, and Cienega — and reports directly to the VP of Advanced Manufacturing. This is explicitly not a desk-bound or office-based role: it is run through modern, purpose-built digital program-management tools — live visual dashboards, digital action-plan and governance platforms, AI-assisted meeting capture — rather than static spreadsheets, and it is led from the factory floor and the finance conference room in equal measure, not from behind a screen. The PMO Program Manager must be equally fluent partnering with finance on capital business cases and ROI, and with factory personnel — schedulers, engineers, operators, and plant leadership — at Gemba, seeing firsthand how initiatives are actually landing. Success requires the credibility to act as a leader of leaders: holding nine technical SMEs and plant leadership accountable to a common governance model without owning any of their technical domains directly; the financial and program-management rigor to consolidate capital decisions across a multi-site, multi-country network; and an intense, urgent, hands-on, highly organized approach that converts the roadmap into funded, executing, benefit-delivering initiatives rather than a well-organized backlog.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Business, or a related field; PMP or equivalent program/project management certification
12+ years of progressive experience in program or portfolio management, ideally within manufacturing, industrial, or other capital-intensive operations
Demonstrated experience building and running a PMO or portfolio governance function from the ground up, not just operating within an existing one
Experience managing multi-million dollar capital portfolios across multiple sites or geographies
Experience designing and driving adoption of a stage-gate or prioritization framework across technical and engineering stakeholders who do not report to the role
Track record of hands-on engagement with technical teams and plant leadership, not just producing reports from a distance; this is explicitly not a desk-bound or office-based role, and success requires regular, direct presence at the factory sites
Demonstrated fluency operating comfortably in both finance conversations (capital business cases, ROI, budget trade-offs) and factory-floor conversations (with schedulers, engineers, operators, and plant leadership) — equally credible in both worlds
Experience running a PMO through modern, purpose-built digital program/project management platforms and live visual dashboards — not manual spreadsheet-based tracking — including digital action-plan and governance tools and AI-assisted meeting-minutes/action-item capture
Experience partnering directly with finance on capital planning, business cases, and benefits realization tracking
Willingness and ability to travel internationally (approximately 30–50%) across the US and Mexico plant network
Portfolio and program management methodologies (stage-gate, hybrid-Agile, PMI standards)
Capital planning and business case/ROI methodology (payback, IRR/NPV fundamentals)
Financial acumen sufficient to partner credibly with finance on capital versus operating expense decisions
Change management and adoption frameworks for rolling out standards across a diverse, technical stakeholder base
Risk management methodology (RAID logs, escalation frameworks)
Modern digital PMO tooling: purpose-built program/project management platforms, live visual dashboards, digital action-plan and governance systems, and AI-assisted meeting-minutes and action-tracking tools — used in place of manual spreadsheets
Data and dashboard tools for portfolio-level reporting
Ability to operate as a credible peer to technical SMEs without needing to master their individual technical domains

Nice To Haves

PgMP or PfMP (program or portfolio management) certification in addition to PMP
Experience specifically in advanced manufacturing, automotive, HVAC, or other complex engineer-to-order/high-mix manufacturing environments
Direct experience with modern PPM and digital governance tools (e.g., Planview, Smartsheet, Monday.com, Asana, Jira/Confluence) and BI/visual dashboard tools (e.g., Power BI, Tableau), and with AI-assisted meeting-capture/action-tracking tools (e.g., Microsoft Copilot, Otter.ai, Fireflies.ai) as a replacement for manual, spreadsheet-based governance
Lean or Six Sigma certification, or equivalent operational excellence experience
Prior experience standing up a PMO in a global, multi-country organization
Bilingual English/Spanish, given the US-Mexico plant footprint

Responsibilities

Establish and maintain the portfolio governance charter that defines decision rights across SMEs, plant leadership, and finance — what can be approved locally versus what requires steering committee sign-off.
Own the RACI across the SME network, plants, and finance, and run the recurring steering committee cadence with the VP of Advanced Manufacturing and plant leadership so the portfolio gets discussed and decided, not just reported.
Own and continuously maintain the master technology and capital roadmap, consolidating the initiatives coming out of all nine SMEs into one sequenced view by factory and by year.
Establish and apply a standard prioritization framework — SQDIP impact, investment tier, and speed-to-value — so initiatives across every SME and factory are compared on the same basis.
Own the stage-gate process (Identify → Pilot → Business Case → Deploy → Scale → Sustain) that operationalizes the organization's experiment-deploy-scale philosophy and keeps initiatives from stalling indefinitely at any one gate.
Consolidate the capital plan across all factories and SMEs — committed versus available capital, by site and by year — and partner directly with finance to keep it current.
Own the business case template and ROI standard used by every SME so capital requests are comparable and auditable.
Track benefits realization after deployment, closing the loop on whether a funded initiative actually delivered the safety, quality, delivery, inventory, or productivity improvement it was funded to deliver.
Maintain the portfolio through modern, purpose-built digital program and project management tools — live visual dashboards, digital action-plan and governance platforms, and AI-assisted meeting-minutes and action-item capture — covering status, spend, schedule, and risk across every active initiative, SME, and factory.
Own the RAID log and the escalation path for risks and issues, with particular attention to anything on the critical path of a capital-speed priority.
Manage resource and capacity planning across the SME and plant engineering network so competing initiatives don't silently collide over the same scarce plant teams in the same quarter.
Build and maintain the template and tools library — charter, business case, stage-gate checklist, status reporting, lessons-learned — used consistently across all nine SMEs, delivered through the same modern digital platforms rather than emailed spreadsheets.
Stand up and run the center-of-excellence/lessons-learned repository so a solution piloted at one factory doesn't get silently re-invented at another.
Track not just whether a global standard was published, but whether it was actually adopted at each factory.
Spend the majority of working time directly at the factory sites and with the SMEs — not in a home office building reports — to see firsthand whether governance is translating into real execution.
Be equally fluent and comfortable in two very different rooms: the finance conversation, where capital business cases, ROI, and budget trade-offs have to be made credibly and precisely; and the factory floor, where schedulers, engineers, operators, and plant leadership have to trust that this role understands their reality, not just their status reports.
Personally lead the resolution of the highest-priority portfolio-level blockers (funding gaps, resource conflicts, stalled gates) with a visible sense of urgency, acting as a leader of leaders across a network of SMEs and plant leaders who do not report to this role, and hold self and others accountable for converting the roadmap into funded, executing, benefit-delivering initiatives, not a well-organized backlog.