Senior Manager, Portfolio & Delivery

Avison Young Canada•Toronto, ON

1d•CA$125,000 - CA$155,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Senior Manager, Portfolio & Delivery executes the IT, business process and platform change programs defined by Global IT. Global IT sets the strategy, standards and change agenda; this role plans, resources and delivers against it across our core platforms for CRM, finance, HR, service delivery and data & AI, and the process changes that go with them. Working day to day with the CRM, Finance and Service Line Platform Leads, and alongside regional and service line leadership, Finance, HR, Operations and our outsource partner, the postholder runs delivery governance and keeps the change agenda honest: clear scope, realistic dependencies, visible risk, and benefits that are measured rather than assumed. Where priorities or capacity cannot be reconciled, they present the options and a recommendation to the VP, Enterprise Architecture for decision.

Requirements

A track record of running several overlapping, interdependent projects or programs at once without losing control of scope, schedule or quality.
Excellent reporting discipline — clear, accurate, decision-ready reporting, and an honest account of status rather than an optimistic one.
Strong risk, issue and dependency management, particularly where risks sit between projects rather than within one.
Experience leading project managers directly while also getting delivery from designated resources who report elsewhere — in the business, in other technology teams, or with an outsource partner.
Familiarity with one or more major enterprise platforms — CRM, finance or ERP, HR, professional services automation, or data and analytics — enough to challenge plans and estimates credibly. Deep expertise in any one is not required; domain depth sits with the Platform Leads.
Clear written and verbal communication, able to make complex change understandable to a leadership audience.
Bachelor's degree in business, technology, finance or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice To Haves

Experience in commercial real estate or another professional services environment with a partner or principal-led culture.
Commercial and financial confidence — budget management, forecasting and benefits tracking.
Comfortable adapting the delivery approach to the problem, whether structured, agile or a mix of the two.
Experience working across a North American and international footprint, including multi-currency and multi-entity considerations.
Familiarity with an outsourced or managed service delivery model and the governance it requires.
Exposure to control and compliance environments such as SOX readiness, ISO standards or privacy legislation.
Working knowledge of AI and automation and how they are practically applied to business process improvement.
Bilingual English and French.
A program, project or portfolio management certification (PMP, PgMP, MSP, PRINCE2 or SAFe) is an asset, as is a change management certification such as Prosci.

Responsibilities

Delivery portfolio management and governance: Maintain the delivery portfolio for the change programs defined by Global IT — objectives, sponsors, scope, cost, timing and dependencies. Act as the single point of execution across cross-related initiatives, working with the Platform Leads so that programs touching the same platforms, processes or people are delivered as one coherent effort. Plan the approved agenda against delivery capacity, business readiness and platform dependencies, surfacing conflicts early and recommending trade-offs where the plan is over-committed. Run the delivery governance defined by Global IT — stage gates, change control and escalation — and prepare investment approvals for decision. Maintain the integrated roadmap and dependency map across platforms, regions and service lines, and act early where dependencies slip. Track portfolio budget and spend with Finance, with clear variance commentary.
Transformation delivery: Lead end-to-end delivery of the change programs defined by Global IT, from mobilization through benefits realization to closure. Apply the Global IT delivery standards — business cases, plans, RAID logs, status reporting, quality gates and closure reviews — proportionate to size and risk. Identify and resolve risks, issues and interdependencies early, escalating with clear options and a recommendation. Coordinate delivery resources across internal teams, our outsource partner and third-party implementation partners. Hand solutions cleanly into support, with documentation, training and ownership agreed before go-live.
Team leadership and capability: Lead a team of Project Managers as direct reports, supplemented by designated resources from the business, other areas of Global IT and our outsource partner for the duration of an initiative. Allocate and flex the team across overlapping initiatives, reallocating quickly when priorities move. Set clear objectives and delivery standards, coach the team, and manage performance and development. Get the best from designated resources who do not report into this role — agreeing what they will deliver and holding them to the same standards as the core team. Supplement the team with contract or partner resource where demand exceeds capacity. Take the project manager role personally on a workstream or initiative where scale, criticality or capacity makes that the right call, while continuing to hold the wider portfolio.
Stakeholder engagement: Partner closely with the CRM, Finance and Service Line Platform Leads and the Business Partners within Global IT, aligning delivery plans, resourcing and release timing, and escalating competing demands that cannot be resolved between them. Translate the Global IT change agenda into clearly scoped initiatives, and delivery reality back into plain language for leadership audiences. Prepare portfolio dashboards, decision papers and progress updates, and present them to leadership forums. Facilitate workshops, design reviews and prioritization sessions with business and technology participants. Agree business ownership, resource commitment and sign-off at each stage, and confirm scope changes through the agreed change control route.
Reporting, risk and benefits: Provide accurate, timely reporting across the portfolio — progress, spend, risk and dependencies — flagging problems early rather than at the point of failure. Manage portfolio-level risk and issue tracking, including cross-program risks that no single initiative owns. Track benefits through to realization and report honestly where they are not being achieved. Produce a single portfolio reporting pack for leadership. Use data to challenge assumptions, surface delivery trends and improve estimating and planning over time.
Change, adoption and partner management: Ensure every initiative has a proportionate change and adoption plan covering communications, training, readiness and post-go-live support. Work with business process owners so that process decisions sit with the business and technology delivery supports them, rather than the other way round. Monitor adoption after implementation and drive corrective action where usage or data quality falls short. Manage delivery performance of implementation partners and the outsourced technology provider against agreed scope, milestones and quality expectations, working with Procurement and Legal where commercial or contractual matters arise. Continuously improve portfolio and delivery practice — templates, cadence, tooling and reporting — keeping it as light as it can safely be.