Senior Project Manager, PMO

Ornua Co-operative Limited•Evanston, IL

71d•$114,000 - $130,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Ornua Foods Americas is seeking a Senior Project Manager, PMO to lead complex, cross-functional initiatives across innovation and commercialization, strategic growth, new supply chains, and other enterprise priorities. The role translates business objectives into executable plans and leads teams from concept through implementation, adoption, and value realization. It operates as a portfolio leadership role, providing delivery certainty, surfacing risks and decisions early, and strengthening accountability across the business. The Senior Project Manager will lead projects and assigned initiatives across the enterprise, apply the globally defined Stage-Gate process, establish fit-for-purpose governance, and provide decision-oriented communication to project teams, sponsors, Steering Committees, and senior leadership. The role will also contribute to practical improvements in PMO, portfolio management, governance, reporting, training, and organizational capability. The position is hybrid in Evanston, Illinois, full-time, with a Monday–Friday schedule from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. It reports to the VP of Supply Chain. The salary range is $114,000–$130,000, with the final salary commensurate with experience.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Business, Supply Chain, Engineering, Operations, Food Science, Marketing, Finance, or a related discipline.
At least 7 years of progressive project, program, or portfolio-management experience leading complex cross-functional initiatives.
Demonstrated experience working within a mature, best-in-class PMO or formal governance environment and applying those disciplines pragmatically in a less structured or process-maturing organization.
Experience leading initiatives from concept through implementation, adoption, and benefits realization, including Stage-Gate, commercialization, new-product development, transformation, strategic growth, or new-capability delivery.
Ability to establish credible integrated plans, critical paths, budgets, resource requirements, risk frameworks, and governance routines.
Demonstrated ability to influence, challenge constructively, and hold stakeholders accountable without direct authority.
Strong business and financial acumen, including business cases, trade-off analysis, investment logic, and benefits tracking.
Exceptional facilitation, executive communication, problem-solving, and decision-preparation skills, with the ability to navigate ambiguity and competing priorities.

Nice To Haves

PMP, PgMP, PRINCE2, Agile, Lean, Six Sigma, or comparable project-management certification.
Experience in consumer packaged goods, food, dairy, manufacturing, life sciences, industrial products, retail, healthcare, or another complex adjacent industry.
Experience leading innovation and commercialization across technical and commercial workstreams.
Experience in a global or matrixed organization where enterprise standards are owned centrally and executed locally.
Experience contributing to PMO maturity, portfolio governance, capability building, training, or change-management initiatives.

Responsibilities

Lead complex, high-impact projects from concept through implementation, adoption, and post-launch review, owning scope, outcomes, schedule, budget, risks, and dependencies.
Translate strategic objectives into integrated project plans, critical paths, milestones, deliverables, decision points, and measurable success criteria.
Test assumptions, validate functional lead times, drive pace and accountability, and ensure projects deliver intended outcomes and benefits.
Maintain an enterprise view across assigned initiatives and identify resource constraints, sequencing requirements, collisions, and cross-project dependencies.
Recommend prioritization, timing, trade-offs, resourcing, recovery actions, and whether work should proceed, pause, be resequenced, or escalated.
Support portfolio reviews and provide transparent visibility into progress, value, risk, capacity, and required decisions.
Lead innovation and commercialization initiatives through the globally defined Stage-Gate process from idea to shelf and through post-launch review.
Ensure Stage-Gate decisions are supported by appropriate evidence, including business cases, propositions, technical feasibility, critical paths, resourcing, risks, and launch readiness.
Coordinate technical and commercial workstreams, prepare decision-ready Gate reviews, and lead Learn From Experience and post-launch reviews.
Establish fit-for-purpose governance using Global PMO standards and OFA business requirements.
Identify risks, issues, assumptions, and dependencies early; assign owners and response dates; and drive mitigation and resolution.
Escalate material barriers with a concise statement of impact, options, recommendation, decision owner, and decision date, while maintaining scope and change control.
Lead multifunctional teams across Marketing, Sales, R&D, Technical, Quality, Regulatory, Supply Chain, Operations, Procurement, Finance, Customer Service, ICT, and Global functions.
Clarify responsibilities, influence without direct authority, resolve conflict constructively, and hold stakeholders accountable for commitments and decisions.
Contribute to PMO, Stage-Gate, portfolio-management, reporting, training, governance, and capability improvements using practical external best practices.
Provide concise, decision-oriented updates to teams, sponsors, Steering Committees, and senior leadership.
Communicate progress, critical path, value, trade-offs, risks, decisions, and requests with a clear point of view.
Maintain accurate and transparent project and portfolio reporting while prioritizing leadership and delivery.