Director, Project Portfolio Mgmt.

Pacific Life • Newport Beach, CA

16h • Hybrid

About The Position

Pacific Life is seeking a Project Portfolio Management Director for the Portfolio and Program Management Office (PPMO) in its Consumer Markets Division, based in Newport Beach, California. The role follows a hybrid schedule with four days in the office; relocation assistance is offered to well-qualified candidates who are not located near the office.

The Director leads portfolio planning, governance, and execution discipline across the Consumer Markets Division, connecting strategy to execution by strengthening planning, prioritization, capacity management, resource allocation, investment governance, and benefits realization. The position is a people-leadership role overseeing a team of portfolio and planning experts. The Director works with divisional and enterprise stakeholders to align priorities and funding, integrate cross-portfolio plans, provide decision-ready insights, and improve portfolio and program delivery practices.

Requirements

• 10 or more 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, Lean Portfolio Management, Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Certified Scrum Professional (CSP), or similar Agile or Lean certification.
• Experience supporting Agile PI Planning with Annuities and Life teams, release train engineers, product leaders, and technology partners.
• Experience in regulated industries such as insurance, financial services, or healthcare.
• 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 to deliver high-value outcomes and support strategic objectives.
• Integrate program plans and roadmaps across the division to identify dependencies, sequencing needs, and trade-offs.
• Provide decision-ready insights and recommendations through executive materials, governance forums, dashboards, newsletters, and centralized repositories.
• Partner with release train engineers to align priorities and capacity for Annuities and Life quarterly Program Increment planning across divisional and company-level forums.
• Strengthen portfolio and program delivery standards, methodologies, reporting practices, and execution disciplines while maintaining agility and alignment 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 and Life PI planning with divisional ways of working to maximize investment returns and prioritize high-value work.
• Continuously improve practical PPMO standards, playbooks, and planning routines.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage.
• Wellbeing Reimbursement Account for employees 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 located near the office.
• Additional incentive pay may be available to most employees.

What This Job Offers

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