Head of Enterprise Portfolio & Delivery

AXIS • Alpharetta, NY

11d

About The Position

The Head of Enterprise Portfolio & Delivery is accountable for directing AXIS’s technology and AI investments toward high-value enterprise priorities and ensuring predictable delivery with measurable business outcomes. The role leads enterprise portfolio planning, prioritization, investment governance, and delivery-performance oversight, giving leadership clear insight and recommendations on value, capacity, risk, and execution. It also matures AXIS’s Agile business-technology delivery model by strengthening accountabilities, decision rights, ways of working, and delivery discipline.

The role leads divisional Portfolio Leads across North America, Reinsurance & CUO, Global Markets, Claims, and Corporate, and reports to the Head of Technology & AI Strategy. Its focus includes operating the portfolio engine behind enterprise planning and governance, finding and addressing root causes in troubled programs, and coaching Portfolio Leads and delivery teams to build portfolio and delivery capabilities across the organization.

The position owns strategic portfolio governance and planning, funding and value management, AI investment portfolio oversight, OKR and performance reporting, and intervention in troubled projects. It leads and develops Portfolio Leads and continues to mature the Agile business-technology delivery model through standards, hands-on coaching, and measurement. Success over 18–24 months includes tying technology and AI spending to quantifiable OKRs, improving delivery-model maturity and predictability, realizing planned benefits, recovering troubled projects early, and building a strong Portfolio Lead team.

AXIS currently expects to offer a base salary of $200,000 to $225,000 for this position in New York. The offer will depend on factors including experience and work location. The role also includes target incentive compensation based on corporate and individual performance and a comprehensive benefits package.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in business administration, computer science, finance, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Proven experience in portfolio and project management, strategic planning, or a related field.
• Experience leading an enterprise portfolio function and a team of Portfolio Leads.
• Track record leading an enterprise Agile delivery or product operating model transformation, including value stream funding and OKRs.
• Track record turning around troubled programs.
• Experience presenting investment trade-offs and recommendations to an Executive Committee.
• Ability to structure ambiguous problems, identify root causes quickly, and drive practical solutions through resolution.
• Ability to build alignment and drive action across business, technology, and vendor leaders outside direct authority, and to coach rather than command.
• Clear, concise, compelling communication skills, including translating complex portfolio data into decision-ready insight for an Executive Committee and having candid conversations about projects that are off track.
• Financial and delivery acumen, including building and challenging business cases, understanding capex/opex and capacity-based funding, and using delivery metrics such as predictability, cycle time, and benefits realization to drive decisions.

Nice To Haves

• Insurance or financial services experience.

Responsibilities

• Lead enterprise portfolio planning and prioritization, working with Transformation Leads and Value Stream Leads to align divisional ambition, demand, capacity, OKRs, and business case benefits.
• Shape enterprise portfolio and investment forum agendas and recommendations; challenge evidence on value, financials, capacity, and dependencies; frame leadership trade-offs; and follow decisions through to closure.
• Own project readiness and stage gating in proportion to project size and risk, challenge proposals that are not ready, and confirm required partner reviews and sign-offs before work begins.
• Establish lean, proportionate portfolio governance with clear mandates and decision rights, and evolve it as the delivery model matures.
• Work with FP&A on annual capacity allocation across divisions and value streams, and drive quarterly and in-year start, scale, pause, or stop decisions based on value and delivery evidence.
• Challenge business cases, test assumptions and alternatives, assess fully loaded costs and benefits, and ensure committed benefits are tracked consistently through realization.
• Manage the AI use-case portfolio from idea through scaled value with AI governance, prioritizing, scaling, or stopping investments based on evidence; use AI in portfolio management to predict delivery risk and automate insight where possible.
• Run the enterprise approach to cascading and tracking OKRs and KPIs, and provide leadership with a consolidated view of value and delivery predictability, using automated ADO data and AI where possible.
• Use portfolio data and early-warning signals to identify troubled projects and lead deep dives into critical projects.
• Diagnose root causes of project issues, bring business and technology teams together to agree recovery options, and follow through to resolution.
• Address recurring project causes through improvements to standards, readiness criteria, planning practices, and vendor management.
• Lead, coach, and develop divisional Portfolio Leads to a consistent standard, helping them operate as partners to Transformation Leads and Value Stream Leads and influence portfolio direction and course corrections.
• Ensure Portfolio Leads provide consolidated divisional views of budget, scope, resourcing, risk, and schedule, drawing on team tools such as Azure DevOps rather than manual reporting.
• Run a Portfolio Lead community of practice, deliver role-based training, and build portfolio talent.
• Mature AXIS’s Agile business-technology delivery model across structure, governance, ways of working, culture and talent, and tooling and technology.
• Own the business-technology delivery playbook and standards, and coach delivery teams hands-on alongside live work.
• Set leading and lagging metrics against a baseline to measure delivery-model maturity and refine the model based on evidence.

Benefits

• Medical plans for the employee and family
• Health and wellness programs
• Retirement plans
• Tuition reimbursement
• Paid vacation
• Competitive target incentive compensation based on overall corporate and individual performance

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Executive