Manager, PMO

PowerPlan, Inc • Atlanta, GA

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

PowerPlan is looking for a Manager to lead, coach, and hold accountable a team of six to ten project managers delivering enterprise software implementation, upgrade, and optimization engagements. This is a front-line leadership role, not an administrative one: the Manager will establish evidence-based visibility into portfolio health, strengthen how project managers apply the PMO operating model, and build PMs who can lead engagements independently. Success is measured by team capability and portfolio discipline, not by how many projects the Manager personally has to rescue.

PowerPlan develops enterprise-grade tax, accounting, reporting, and workflow automation software built specifically for energy industry organizations, where financial accuracy, regulatory compliance, and operational reliability are critical. Our Professional Services organization partners with customers through implementations, upgrades, and optimization engagements that deliver measurable outcomes for the office of the CFO. This role sits within a PMO built to make delivery predictable, scalable, and proactive.

Requirements

• Experience independently validating project health, financials, and forecasts against evidence rather than accepting status reports at face value.
• A track record coaching project managers through real project situations, building judgment and decision quality rather than only enforcing template compliance.
• Ability to apply governance and delivery standards proportionately, tailoring rigor to engagement size, complexity, and risk.
• Working knowledge of project financials, margin, estimate to complete, backlog, and change management practices.
• Experience leading customer escalations and governance conversations at the executive level, and knowing when to step back once an issue is stabilized.
• Direct people-management experience holding delivery professionals accountable while supporting their growth and independence.
• Strong analytical and communication skills, with the judgment to distinguish symptoms from root causes.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience.

Responsibilities

• Establish evidence-based control of the portfolio (First 60-90 days and ongoing): Independently validate that every assigned project's reported health, financials, staffing, and forecasts are actually supported by evidence. Ensure materially at-risk engagements have time-bound recovery plans with clear owners, and deliver a formal written portfolio-health baseline to the Director, PMO at day 90. Review each engagement's plan, milestones, financials, staffing, dependencies, and customer behavior against what's being reported, on a set cadence of weekly project-level reviews and monthly portfolio-level reviews. Set clear thresholds for when a status needs to be challenged. Require corrective-action plans for projects outside tolerance and track recovery through closure.
• Coach and hold project managers accountable through real-situation development (Ongoing): Build a team of project managers who lead their projects with the PMO operating model rather than just completing templates against it. Coach using real, current project situations and case-based learning, while holding each PM to clear, direct performance expectations. Hold regular one-on-ones focused on decision quality, not just status. Use live project situations as coaching material rather than hypotheticals. Give timely, specific, evidence-based feedback. Calibrate each PM's capability against the PowerMe framework. Address performance concerns directly and promptly rather than letting them ride, and differentiate skill gaps from capacity or accountability issues before deciding how to respond.
• Drive consistent, proportionate application of the PMO operating model (Ongoing): Ensure the PMO operating model is applied consistently enough across the portfolio to create real accountability, while keeping the model proportionate to each engagement's size, complexity, and risk so it doesn't become unnecessary administrative burden. Hold the team to standard operating cadences: weekly project status, monthly portfolio reviews, and quarterly business reviews with key customers. Reinforce lifecycle, governance, and stage-gate requirements. Confirm required artifacts, RAID logs, and status reports are current and actually useful rather than performative. Coach PMs on tailoring governance to engagement size and risk, and require a documented exception when standard governance genuinely doesn't fit. Hold PMs accountable for repeated failure to meet required operating standards, and raise low-value process and methodology improvement ideas directly to the Director, PMO.
• Strengthen financial and commercial discipline across the portfolio (Ongoing): Ensure project managers understand and actively manage the financial and commercial condition of their engagements, maintaining reliable visibility into revenue, budget, margin, estimate to complete, unscheduled backlog, and change exposure across the portfolio. Review financial performance and forecasts with PMs regularly. Validate estimate-to-complete and estimate-at-completion assumptions rather than accepting them at face value. Actively manage the unscheduled backlog so future demand and forecasts stay reliable. Monitor margin exposure and identify unplanned or out-of-scope effort early. Challenge unsupported revenue or completion forecasts, and require financial recovery actions when engagements move outside agreed tolerances. Partner with Finance and Practice Leadership on material exposure rather than owning it alone.
• Lead customer governance and cross-functional escalation (Ongoing): Support or directly lead customer governance and escalations when complexity, risk, or relationship strain exceeds a project manager's current authority, and help project managers resolve cross-functional dependencies with Product, Engineering, Support, Sales, and Finance. Participate selectively in kickoff, steering committee, and recovery meetings. Establish clear escalation paths. Intervene directly when customer confidence or project viability is materially at risk, ensure commitments made during escalations are realistic and tracked, and transition leadership back to the PM once the issue is stabilized. Ensure cross-functional dependencies have named owners and dates, and escalate blockers with clear business and customer impact to the Director, PMO.

What This Job Offers

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