Project Manager

Northwestern Mutual•Milwaukee, WI

About The Position

The Project Manager is responsible for planning and delivering cross‑functional initiatives that support the Talent department’s objectives. This role manages projects from initiation through delivery, ensuring alignment to business requirements, timelines, and quality expectations. The Project Manager partners with HR stakeholders, cross‑functional teams, and technical partners to support effective execution of talent processes and enterprise initiatives, with guidance from senior leaders or program oversight as needed. What You’ll Do Project Planning & Execution Develop and maintain project plans, timelines, milestones, and resourcing needs. Coordinate internal resources, SMEs, and external partners to support on‑time and on‑scope delivery. Apply project management fundamentals using Agile, Waterfall, or hybrid approaches, with coaching as needed. Stakeholder Management Build productive working relationships with HR, technology, and enterprise partners. Facilitate cross‑functional discussions to ensure shared understanding of objectives, risks, and dependencies. Provide regular project updates, status reporting, and issue escalation to stakeholders and leaders, with coaching as needed. Risk & Issue Management Identify project risks and issues, partnering with leaders to define mitigation strategies. Monitor project health and escalate concerns appropriately to ensure timely resolution. Process & KPI Management Track delivery progress and key measures to support operational visibility. Contribute to process improvements that increase efficiency and consistency. Use data and reporting to surface insights and inform day‑to-day decision‑making. Team Collaboration & Communication Support project teams through clear communication, organization, and follow‑through. Promote collaboration across workstreams and help identify and remove blockers. Serve as a liaison between project contributors and leadership, as appropriate to project scope. Documentation & Reporting Create and maintain core project documentation, including project plans, RAID logs, status reports, and retrospectives. Ensure project artifacts are organized and up to date to support transparency and knowledge sharing.

Requirements

3+ years of experience supporting or leading projects across one or more business areas.
Working knowledge of Agile, Waterfall, or hybrid project methodologies.
Strong communication and organizational skills, with the ability to collaborate across teams.
Detail‑oriented with the ability to manage multiple priorities.
Experience using project management tools (e.g., Wrike).
Adaptive Communication: Formulates strategies to be used to convey complex information about services, products, or systems, or processes to targeted audiences; communicates and liaises between technical and non-technical audiences.
Business Acumen: Applies knowledge of both general and organization-specific business issues/financial implications for the organization to problem solve.
Change Adaptability: Becomes adaptable in response to continual changes; shows an openness to new ways of working, new methods, work-in-progress improvements and changes and seamlessly navigates the changing business environment and adjusts behavior as appropriate to the situation.
Emotional Intelligence: Includes self-awareness and self-management, empathy towards stakeholders (internal and external) via active listening. Builds trusting relationships and establishes credibility with peers, managers and stakeholders to influence optimal outcomes for employees and clients.
Project Management: Delivers projects in alignment to business requirements, specific success criteria, and stakeholder expectations. Plans, manages, and completes projects keeping cost and time considerations in mind.
Risk Management: Identifies risks and conducts risk analysis, prioritizes risks based on level of severity, ensures appropriate reporting, monitoring and control of risks. Drives recommendations and consulting to work towards a resolution. Provides transparency around risks and communicates status and outcomes to appropriate stakeholders.
Stakeholder Relationship: Organizes, influences, monitors, and improves relationships with key stakeholders; systematically identifies stakeholders and analyzes their needs and expectations to support in planning and decision making while implementing various tasks to engage with them.

Responsibilities

Project Planning & Execution Develop and maintain project plans, timelines, milestones, and resourcing needs.
Coordinate internal resources, SMEs, and external partners to support on‑time and on‑scope delivery.
Apply project management fundamentals using Agile, Waterfall, or hybrid approaches, with coaching as needed.
Stakeholder Management Build productive working relationships with HR, technology, and enterprise partners.
Facilitate cross‑functional discussions to ensure shared understanding of objectives, risks, and dependencies.
Provide regular project updates, status reporting, and issue escalation to stakeholders and leaders, with coaching as needed.
Risk & Issue Management Identify project risks and issues, partnering with leaders to define mitigation strategies.
Monitor project health and escalate concerns appropriately to ensure timely resolution.
Process & KPI Management Track delivery progress and key measures to support operational visibility.
Contribute to process improvements that increase efficiency and consistency.
Use data and reporting to surface insights and inform day‑to-day decision‑making.
Team Collaboration & Communication Support project teams through clear communication, organization, and follow‑through.
Promote collaboration across workstreams and help identify and remove blockers.
Serve as a liaison between project contributors and leadership, as appropriate to project scope.
Documentation & Reporting Create and maintain core project documentation, including project plans, RAID logs, status reports, and retrospectives.
Ensure project artifacts are organized and up to date to support transparency and knowledge sharing.