Senior Project Manager

ABM•Sugar Land, TX

1d•$110,000 - $155,000

About The Position

ABM is seeking a highly disciplined, executive-facing IT Portfolio Manager to lead a pillar portfolio of enterprise technology initiatives and serve as the Pillar VP’s portfolio chief-of-staff and trusted advisor—turning delivery noise into decision-ready options, crisp recommendations, and measurable outcomes, while protecting leadership time and ensuring commitments turn into follow-through. In our PMO operating model, portfolio managers manage the portfolio of work — not the project managers. Project Managers run their projects end-to-end as independent leaders; people-management and performance reviews sit with a separate line manager. This role succeeds through influence and orchestration: shaping intake, forcing prioritization tradeoffs, unblocking delivery, and translating execution into decision-ready insights, financial discipline, and transparency for leadership.

Requirements

5–10 years in IT portfolio/PMO leadership in complex, matrixed enterprise environments; program management experience is a plus, but this role is explicitly portfolio-level (prioritization, tradeoffs, governance, exec decision support).
Demonstrated success partnering with VPs/CIO-staff using executive decision packets, governance cadences, and transparent prioritization.
Proven ability to influence without authority across business, infrastructure, security, data, vendors, and delivery teams.
Strong facilitation and stakeholder management; builds and nurtures trust-based relationships, navigates strong personalities with diplomacy and backbone.
Expertise in prioritization/sequencing, dependency and risk management, and capacity-based planning.
Financial stewardship experience: forecasting, budget alignment to priorities, variance narratives, and funding tradeoffs.
Exceptional executive communication — can compress an ocean of complex detail into the right altitude for each audience (1-page briefs, dashboards, and clear decision asks).
Experience with portfolio tooling, reporting, and decision logs strongly preferred.
Demonstrated ability to build and operate executive-facing portfolio dashboards and KPI sets with clear definitions, baselines, and targets that support decisionmaking.
Candidates with a track record of continuous improvement — building simpler, faster portfolio processes that reduce friction and increase adoption — will be strongly considered.

Nice To Haves

PMP or PMI PgMP/PfMP preferred but not required

Responsibilities

Own the pillar portfolio across PMO + non-PMO work from intake through outcomes; maintain a single source of truth and an exec-ready view (RYG health, key milestones, blockers, decisions) that leaders can absorb in minutes.
Produce concise briefs and pre-reads for the VP/CIO-Staff: clear recommendation (continue/defer/stop), options, tradeoffs, risks, dependencies, decision owner, and the exact decision needed.
Operate as the Pillar VP’s day-to-day portfolio advisor: run the portfolio decision agenda, pre-brief the VP ahead of key forums, represent the VP’s intent in crossfunctional sessions when appropriate, and ensure every decision has a named owner, due date, and closure.
Translate portfolio, financial, and capacity detail into plain-English executive insight and strategic recommendations—avoiding PMO/technical jargon and framing decisions in the language leaders will act on.
Run a light but rigorous operating cadence that protects executive time: default to async updates; use meetings only for decisions; and do not bring items forward until the decision packet is complete (required inputs, clear recommendation/options, financials, risks/dependencies, and necessary SME/architecture/security input) so decisions aren’t delayed by ‘need more info’ or follow-up actions.
Drive intake readiness: ensure initiatives have defined outcomes, sponsor, business case/ROI, total cost, resource assumptions, KPIs, required approvals, and a clear decision ask before consuming executive time.
Facilitate prioritization and sequencing based on value, strategic alignment, mandatory work, dependencies, fiscal-year timing, and capacity.
Make tradeoffs explicit and recommend what to start, stop, or defer so the portfolio remains achievable (and teams are not overloaded).
Partner with sponsors and PMs to decompose bundled asks into clean initiatives; route work to the right leader/forum at the right stage (idea → refine business case → approve); maintain clear owners, success measures, and delivery approach.
Identify cross-project dependencies and timing collisions; coordinate across teams/pillars to resolve issues before they become escalations; maintain awareness of the broader IT portfolio and flag inter-pillar conflicts/tradeoffs early.
Maintain portfolio-level RAID and escalation paths; surface risks early with mitigation options and decision requirements.
Proactively communicate and escalate: concise status narrative, early escalation, and clear decisions/next steps.
Convert resource strain into executive tradeoffs: if we take this on, what slips; if we accelerate, what changes; if we keep everything, what breaks.
Track benefits and value delivery (outcomes, not activity); identify quick wins, and recommend course corrections, de-scopes, or stops when value is at risk.
Own portfolio-level budget tracking and forecasting; align spend to priorities, flag variances early, and recommend reallocations to avoid trapped dollars and yearend surprises.
Clarify financial and fiscal-year implications into plain decisions (CapEx vs OpEx, earmark vs approval, carryover risk, purchase timing).
Drive continuous improvement of the portfolio system (templates, dashboards, data hygiene, governance) to make decisions faster—and build a culture of transparent metrics and radical prioritization.