Portfolio Manager - Operational Excellence

Unum Group • Portland, ME

1d

About The Position

Our Fortune 500 company is driving a digital transformation and looking for forward-thinking innovators to disrupt how our industry thinks about and uses technology. As one of the world's leading employee benefits providers, we help millions of people gain affordable access to benefits that help them protect their families, their finances and their futures. Are you an asker of questions, a solver of problems, and a challenger of the status quo? Our mission is to provide a differentiated customer experience and exceed the expectations people have of technology at any company — not just insurers. We are seeking individuals to join our team of talented IT professionals who share never-ending passion and an unwavering focus on our customer experience. Team members comfortable working in an agile, fast-paced, and delivery-focused environment thrive in our environment where we value an entrepreneurial spirit and those who challenge the status-quo. Unum is changing, and we’re excited about what’s next. Join us. General Summary: Unum is seeking a highly skilled Transformation Portfolio Manager to support and drive execution across our Operational Excellence portfolio within the Leave & Claims organization. In this role, you will partner closely with senior leadership to streamline operations, enhance ways of working, and ensure coordinated delivery of critical transformation initiatives. You will lead the creation of stakeholder updates and executive-ready communications. This role requires strong independence, exceptional communication skills, and the ability to keep cross-functional partners aligned and accountable. You will support leadership during key meetings and travel, and help build greater structure, organization, and operational rigor within the program.

Requirements

• Bachelors degree, or equivalent relevant work experience
• Has 6+ years of experience with a focus in finance, project management, systems, or IT is preferred
• Extensive knowledge/understanding of SDLC methodologies
• Effectively uses technical project management tools
• Exceptional ability to work effectively in a dynamic, rapidly changing business and technical environment
• Exceptional initiative and ability to set stretch goals
• Exceptional ability to negotiate effectively with business and IT partners on business requirements and timeframes on large initiatives
• Exceptional ability to rally support among peers and work effectively in challenging situations
• Exceptional analytical and problem solving skills and the ability to balance the need to gather detail with the need to solve the problem
• Exceptional general management skills including: Conflict resolution and negotiation skills Facilitation and elicitation skills
• Exceptional consultative advisory skills
• Exceptional ability to effectively articulate difficult ideas and concepts through clear and concise verbal or written communication
• Exceptional ability to identify and apply different communication mediums based on content and audience at all levels (both internal and external to Unum) to achieve intended goal
• Has advanced PC skills (Excel, Power Point, Word, etc.).

Nice To Haves

• PMP designation is preferred

Responsibilities

• Delivers results for medium and large cross-functional project initiatives within established timeframes and quality measures.
• Utilizes advanced level project management skills and extensive knowledge of the System Development Lifecycle (SDLC) methodologies to manage assigned projects.
• Consults with business leaders to translate a project idea into a defined project with goals, objectives and scope.
• Identifies resources needed, negotiates with people managers as required to lead a project team, ensuring clarity of project roles and responsibilities, so that all project plans are completed within defined timeframes, meeting objectives and strategic goals.
• Develops and implements communication and reporting mechanisms to manage issues, risks, and timely delivery of initiative results.
• Translates project goals and objectives into a defined future state and project success measures that can be understood by project stakeholders, project team, and others.
• Ensures business needs and objectives are effectively captured in functional and non-functional business requirements for a system, process, or workflow.
• Oversees business requirements to meet expected business solutions and traces delivery of requirements through testing to final implementation.
• Generally, understands business requirement management and quality management in order to provide expected business solutions.
• Manages project quality through activities such as conducting appropriate reviews, obtaining approvals, and taking corrective action when necessary, with mentoring by a more experienced program manager, if applicable.
• Ensures that project documentation is complete, current and archived appropriately.
• Articulates project management best practices with peer group and others within Unum, as applicable.
• Contributes to adjustments to the corporate system development methodology.
• Proactively identifies barriers and resolves issues, determining contingency plans (executing as needed), while mitigating risk.
• Escalates issues to appropriate audiences for awareness and/or additional support.
• Proactively establishes and maintains cooperative, productive cross-functional partnerships on current projects and deliverables and prepares for future project opportunities.
• Promotes the benefits of change and acts as a catalyst for change across the corporation and adapts to changes imposed by others.
• Organizes and directs the activities of cross-functional project teams.
• Prioritize tasks to meet deliverables and commitments on time.
• Ensures that project members’ time and experience is well utilized.
• Recommends alternatives/options to minimize any schedule delay.
• Shares project experience/knowledge and mentors others across the corporation to help build project management skills.

Benefits

• Unum offers a portfolio of benefits and rewards that are competitive and comprehensive including healthcare benefits (health, vision, dental), insurance benefits (short & long-term disability), performance-based incentive plans, paid time off, and a 401(k) retirement plan with an employer match up to 5% and an additional 4.5% contribution whether you contribute to the plan or not.
• All benefits are subject to the terms and conditions of individual Plans.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees