Director, Project Portfolio Mgmt.
About The Position
Pacific Life is seeking a Project Portfolio Management Director to join the Portfolio and Program Management Office (PPMO) for its Consumer Markets Division in Newport Beach, California. The position follows a hybrid schedule with four days in the office; relocation assistance is available to well-qualified candidates who are not currently near the office. The Director leads portfolio planning, governance, and execution discipline across the Consumer Markets Division, connecting strategy to execution through stronger planning, prioritization, capacity management, resource allocation, investment governance, and benefits realization. The role leads a team of portfolio and planning experts and partners with functional, divisional, and company leaders to support portfolio decisions and delivery. Success in the role includes enabling timely, strategically grounded portfolio decisions; keeping roadmaps and governance materials consistent and decision-ready; surfacing portfolio risks, dependencies, and capacity constraints early; providing leaders with reliable insights and recommendations; and continuously improving practical, adopted PPMO standards and planning routines. The role also connects Annuities & Life Program Increment planning with divisional ways of working to maximize investment returns and prioritize high-value work.
Requirements
- At least 10 years of experience in portfolio management, program management, project management, strategic planning, governance, or business transformation, including leadership of matrixed and direct teams.
- Four-year degree or equivalent experience.
- Experience managing complex business and technology portfolios in a matrixed environment.
- Ability to diagnose business issues and recommend practical processes, operating models, and shared-service improvements.
- Strong executive communication, facilitation, prioritization, stakeholder management, and influence skills.
- Experience with enterprise portfolio planning, cross-functional planning, prioritization, capacity planning, dependency mapping, sequencing and trade-offs, risk and financial management, and value tracking.
- Ability to translate portfolio data into clear insights, dashboards, executive materials, and governance-ready recommendations.
- Experience with portfolio, project, reporting, and collaboration tools such as Planview, Smartsheet, Azure DevOps, Jira, SharePoint, Power BI, Kanban boards, dashboards, or similar platforms.
Nice To Haves
- Project Management Professional (PMP), Program Management Professional (PgMP), Portfolio Management Professional (PfMP), or PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) certification.
- SAFe Agilist (SA), Lean Portfolio Management, Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Certified Scrum Professional (CSP), or similar Agile or Lean certification.
- Experience supporting Agile Program Increment planning with Annuities & Life teams, release train engineers, product leaders, and technology partners.
- Experience in regulated industries such as insurance, financial services, healthcare, or similar environments.
- Consulting experience or demonstrated ability to advise leaders, shape ambiguous problems, and build coalitions around pragmatic solutions.
- Advanced executive storytelling, data visualization, and decision-support capabilities.
Responsibilities
- Align Consumer Markets Division strategy, priorities, capacity, and funding with Enterprise priorities to deliver value and support strategic objectives.
- Integrate cross-portfolio program plans and roadmaps to identify dependencies, sequencing needs, and trade-offs.
- Provide decision-ready insights, executive recommendations, governance forums, dashboards, newsletters, and centralized repositories.
- Partner with release train engineers to align Annuities & Life priorities and capacity for quarterly Program Increment planning events at divisional and company levels.
- Strengthen portfolio and program delivery standards, methodologies, reporting practices, and execution disciplines while maintaining agility and aligning with Enterprise portfolio standards and the Center of Excellence.
- Partner with product, underwriting, operations, distribution, technology, finance, program, and project leaders to drive decisions and remove execution friction.
- Lead a team of portfolio and planning experts.
- Surface portfolio risks, issues, dependencies, sequencing conflicts, and capacity constraints early, with clear ownership.
- Connect Annuities & Life Program Increment planning with divisional ways of working to maximize investment returns and prioritize high-value work.
- Continuously improve PPMO standards, playbooks, and planning routines.
Benefits
- Medical, dental, and vision coverage.
- Wellbeing Reimbursement Account for the employee or eligible dependents.
- Paid time off, holiday schedules, and Financial Planning Time Off.
- Paid parental leave.
- Adoption assistance program.
- 401(k) savings plan with company match and an additional contribution regardless of participation.
- Relocation assistance for well-qualified candidates who are not currently located near the office.
- Additional incentive pay may be available to most employees.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Director
