Description/Overview: The Portfolio Manager is a key leadership role within the PPO team proactively managing a subset of projects from the Book of Work. This role requires a strong command of traditional waterfall methodologies for structured project execution, as well as SAFe Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) practices to align agile delivery with enterprise strategy. The ideal candidate will bridge the gap between legacy project governance and modern agile frameworks, ensuring value delivery across the organization. The Portfolio team consists of three portfolio managers overseeing four portfolios in Japan.
The Opportunity: The right candidate will have the opportunity to be a cornerstone member of a project management office at the forefront of a scaled-agile transformation. You will play a pivotal role in shaping how we prioritize, govern, and deliver our portfolio of projects and programs. This is a unique opportunity to influence both strategic planning and tactical execution, working closely with senior leadership, agile release trains (ARTs), and project managers. This is a role for someone that wants to implement meaningful changes and better portfolio management.
General Accountability:
- Lead the end-to-end portfolio management process using both Waterfall and SAFe LPM frameworks for one of the four portfolios in MLJ. (Manulife ODF and CDF frameworks)
- Align portfolio initiatives with business strategy, ensuring optimal resource allocation and value delivery. Connect strategic level objectives to project OKRs.
- Facilitate portfolio-level planning, budgeting, and forecasting (including Quarterly Increment Planning -- QIP)
- Monitor and report on portfolio performance, using OKRs and metrics to drive continuous improvement.
- Be a leader in the ongoing CDF transformation, championing CDF/Agile methodologies at the project and portfolio level.
- Connect directly to leadership to proactively manage the portfolio (LT/AVP/Director level) linking to technology resource and capacity.
- Book of Work planning; Actively plan the next years BoW as part of the yearly budgeting/planning cycle.
Further details on accountabilities/responsibilities:
Portfolio ownership and management
- Take full ownership of the portfolio (one of four total portfolios comprising 50M+ USD in yearly spend)
- Support business case development for initiatives within the portfolio ensuring correct linkage to strategic level OKRs/Objectives. Work with business sponsors and project managers to have the business case progressed.
- Run monthly update meetings with business teams and technology teams to ensure full transparency of the portfolio with all stakeholders. Support the development of PowerBI enabled portfolio level reporting
- Own and run the quarterly portfolio planning session (called QIP) to actively manage the portfolio backlog. Confirm current quarter results and plan next quarter plans. Working closely with delivery teams, and business stakeholders. (using SAFe LPM techniques)
Portfolio function maturation
- Work with the other portfolio managers and PMO team to help mature the portfolio function. Move from reactive reporting to a proactive change mindset and drive delivery of strategic objectives.
- Develop new tools, reports, processes to better develop the portfolio function.
- Enable and support business executives to be more engaged in the active management of the portfolio.
- Liaise with the governance team, strategy team, and regional teams to maintain alignment within current processes and governance (but suggesting where changes can be made if needed)
Book of Work planning
- Be at the forefront of the yearly project planning process (BoW). The planning of next years portfolio is a 4-6 month cycle each year that is owned and driven by the portfolio team.
- Establish short and long range roadmaps of business roadmaps.
- Track ongoing progress of inflight and pipeline projects and monitor potential impacts to the following years planning cycle.
CDF implementation and coaching
- Champion CDF (lean-agile and SAFe LPM) methods and mindset.
- Support the on-going CDF transformation in Manulife
- Implement CDF techniques into the portfolio management function.
- Coach stakeholders, especially senior managers and executives in how CDF can improve the portfolio delivery.
Key challenges:
-This role requires excellent communications across multiple stakeholders including leadership and delivery teams with a broad understanding of short and long term objectives and motivations. Much of the success of this role will depend on relationships built on trust.
-The portfolio function continues to evolve and mature. The candidate needs to be able to grow and evolve with the role and, more importantly, direct and drive this growth proactively.
-Understanding what is a priority, controlling your own workload, and dealing with ambiguity is key. Must be able to self-manage and act with little supervision.
Qualifications:
§ University degree or similar
§ 5+ years experience in either a project delivery function or a PMO function
§ 3+ years in the insurance industry (Life Insurance or Financial Institutions preferred)
§ 3+ years in managing teams of people, either direct reporting or through projects
§ Hands-on experience in project delivery and/or strategic planning of projects
§ Solid understanding of the Waterfall and Agile methods of delivery
§ PMP, Prince2, Agile, SAFe or other project related certification is required.
§ PowerBI and Planview (or other PMM system) experience an advantage
Competencies:
§ A passion for project management and a desire to make changes to improve and mature the function.
§ A self-starter attitude to formulate improvement plans and deliver on plans to improve the function with little guidance needed from above.
§ Possess excellent leadership, diplomatic and motivational skills to lead cross-functional teams and coach/advise peers and staff.
§ Detail orientated. An ability to track and follow multiple projects and ensure that all are progressing to plan and conforming to standards. Tracking details in either excel, SharePoint, confluence, Kanban boards, or other tracking tools is required.
§ Self-motivated, confident and willing to take ownership of the portfolio.
§ Ability to successfully manage interaction with internal stakeholders with professionalism and collaboration. Act as a coach and trusted advisor to stakeholders.
§ Reporting – creating presentations for various stakeholders. In particular senior executive level/quality reports that are not simply information sharing but help drive decisions.
§ Ability to think and work creatively and work around traditional roadblocks.
§ Bilingual (business level) in Japanese & English is required.
About Manulife and John Hancock
Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services provider, helping people make their decisions easier and lives better. To learn more about us, visit https://www.manulife.com/en/about/our-story.html.
Manulife is an Equal Opportunity Employer
At Manulife/John Hancock, we embrace our diversity. We strive to attract, develop and retain a workforce that is as diverse as the customers we serve and to foster an inclusive work environment that embraces the strength of cultures and individuals. We are committed to fair recruitment, retention, advancement and compensation, and we administer all of our practices and programs without discrimination on the basis of race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, religion or religious beliefs, creed, sex (including pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions), sexual orientation, genetic characteristics, veteran status, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, family status, disability, or any other ground protected by applicable law.
It is our priority to remove barriers to provide equal access to employment. A Human Resources representative will work with applicants who request a reasonable accommodation during the application process. All information shared during the accommodation request process will be stored and used in a manner that is consistent with applicable laws and Manulife/John Hancock policies. To request a reasonable accommodation in the application process, contact [email protected].
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