Senior Director, Technology PMO

Church's Texas Chicken•Atlanta, GA

About The Position

The Senior Director, Technology PMO provides strategic leadership and executive governance for the Technology Program Management Office. The role sets portfolio direction, decision frameworks, and standards for prioritizing, resourcing, and delivering programs and projects across restaurant operations, infrastructure, and enterprise back-office portfolios. It is a hands-on player-coach position: the Senior Director personally plans and leads the organization’s largest, most complex, and most critical initiatives while setting strategy and making autonomous portfolio decisions on behalf of the SVP, Chief Technology Officer. The role is accountable for the technology portfolio’s health, predictability, and business value. As the organization’s senior-most PMO leader and primary interface between Technology and the business, the Senior Director independently manages relationships with senior business and franchise stakeholders, represents portfolio performance and investment trade-offs to executives and the Board when called upon, and mentors project and program managers across the organization. The position leads a team of program and project management professionals, including Senior Managers, and reports to the SVP, Chief Technology Officer. Travel is up to 20%.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Business, Hospitality Management, or a related field.
10+ years of combined restaurant business and technology experience, including significant executive- or senior-leadership-level experience within QSR or multi-unit retail/restaurant operations.
A demonstrated record of independently setting technology portfolio strategy and making high-stakes resourcing and prioritization decisions with enterprise-wide impact.
Hands-on experience personally planning and leading large, complex, or high-risk technology programs and projects in addition to portfolio-level leadership.
Strong project planning skills and experience conducting structured alternatives analysis, including build-versus-buy, vendor and solution options, sequencing, and resourcing trade-offs.
Experience and demonstrated interest in mentoring and developing project and program managers in planning, estimation, risk management, alternatives analysis, and delivery execution, including beyond direct reports.
Experience building trusted relationships with C-suite executives and franchise leaders, and the ability to prepare and present effectively to a Board of Directors or equivalent governing body when needed.
Fluency in waterfall and agile delivery methodologies and the judgment to set organization-wide methodology and governance standards.
Extensive experience diagnosing and resolving enterprise-level program risk and making recovery and resourcing decisions under pressure.
Experience overseeing portfolio-level visibility across a large, complex program portfolio using Monday.com, Smartsheet, or an equivalent enterprise PPM platform, and delivering board- and executive-level status presentations.
Experience negotiating and governing vendor and strategic partner relationships at an executive level.
PMP certification or equivalent is required.
Employees must be able to perform the essential functions of the position with or without reasonable accommodation.

Nice To Haves

MBA or another advanced degree.
Direct experience in or extensive exposure to franchise business models and franchisee relationship dynamics.
Agile/Scrum certification such as CSM, SAFe, or equivalent.

Responsibilities

Personally plan and lead delivery of the organization’s largest, most complex, and most critical programs and projects, owning plans, schedules, scope, budgets, and stakeholder outcomes.
Conduct and lead structured alternatives analysis, including build-versus-buy, vendor and solution options, sequencing, and resourcing trade-offs.
Coach and mentor project and program managers in planning, estimation, risk management, alternatives analysis, and delivery execution, including people outside the direct reporting team.
Set technology portfolio strategy, priorities, decision rights, risk-tolerance frameworks, and governance; make program and project approval, resourcing, and prioritization decisions on behalf of the CTO.
Build and manage executive-level relationships with franchise leaders and business-unit executives, negotiate competing priorities, and resolve conflicts without escalation.
Prepare and deliver decision-ready presentations to the Board of Directors and executive leadership on portfolio performance, risks, and investment trade-offs when called upon.
Act as the final escalation and decision authority for troubled or at-risk programs, determining recovery strategy, resourcing, and go/no-go decisions and engaging senior stakeholders as needed.
Define and evolve enterprise PMO standards, governance frameworks, planning methodologies, portfolio intake and prioritization models, tools, and reporting cadences for waterfall and agile environments.
Partner with Operations, Finance, Marketing, Franchise, and Supply Chain executive leadership to shape alignment on major initiatives.
Govern vendors and strategic partners at the executive level, including contract strategy input, executive relationships, performance escalations, and remediation decisions.
Sponsor and govern enterprise change management and technology adoption initiatives, securing executive and franchise buy-in and organizational readiness.
Lead and develop PMO professionals, including Senior Managers, and make decisions on team structure, staffing, succession depth, and development investment.