Senior Project Manager – IT Portfolio Change
12-Month Daily Rate Contract – Circa 600 eur per day DOE
Location: Dublin 1 (Hybrid – 50% onsite / 50% remote)
Sector: Insurance & Financial Services
Reporting to: Chief Information Officer (CIO)
Eligibility Requirements
Applicants must have full and unrestricted rights to work in Ireland. Candidates must hold either:
- An Irish or EU passport, or
- A valid Irish employment permit providing unrestricted access to the Irish labour market.
Please note that visa sponsorship is not available for this position.
Overview
Our client, a leading organisation within the Insurance and Financial Services sector, is seeking an experienced Senior Manager – IT Portfolio Change to establish and maintain a single, enterprise-wide view of all technology change activity.
This is a highly visible role operating at the intersection of portfolio governance, agile delivery, strategic planning, and financial oversight. Working directly with the CIO and senior technology leadership, the successful candidate will provide transparency across the IT change landscape, ensuring initiatives are clearly structured, appropriately governed, financially controlled, and aligned to business priorities.
This position is ideally suited to a senior portfolio professional who is comfortable influencing at executive level, driving portfolio maturity, and challenging delivery teams constructively without direct authority.
Key Responsibilities
IT Portfolio Oversight & Change Governance
- Establish and maintain a consolidated view of all IT change activity, including programmes, projects, product enhancements, strategic initiatives, and operational change.
- Develop and continuously improve portfolio management processes, governance frameworks, reporting mechanisms, and portfolio tooling.
- Deliver accurate and insightful portfolio reporting to executive leadership, providing visibility of progress, dependencies, risks, and delivery performance.
- Monitor cross-functional dependencies and proactively identify risks, blockers, and resource constraints impacting delivery outcomes.
- Act as the central coordination point for portfolio-wide planning and prioritisation activities.
Agile Portfolio Management
- Support and challenge technology teams to structure initiatives into manageable, value-driven work aligned to Agile delivery principles.
- Promote portfolio-level Agile practices and help drive continuous improvement in planning, prioritisation, and delivery execution.
- Facilitate quarterly planning activities, portfolio reviews, dependency mapping sessions, and delivery health assessments.
- Guide teams in articulating roadmaps, backlogs, milestones, and release plans in a clear and consistent manner.
- Encourage transparency and measurable outcomes across the change portfolio.
Financial & Investment Management
- Partner with finance teams, programme leads, and technology managers to monitor portfolio investment, budget consumption, and forecasting.
- Ensure all initiatives comply with established governance, investment approval, risk management, and change control processes.
- Identify budget variances, governance exceptions, and scope-related risks, providing recommendations and escalation where required.
- Maintain appropriate documentation and audit evidence to support internal controls and regulatory requirements.
Stakeholder Management
- Build strong relationships across technology, business, and executive leadership teams.
- Present complex portfolio information in a clear and concise manner tailored to different audiences.
- Influence senior stakeholders and delivery teams to improve portfolio transparency, governance, and delivery effectiveness.
- Act as a trusted advisor to technology leadership on portfolio performance, prioritisation, and change management best practices.
Required Experience
- Significant experience in IT Portfolio Management, Enterprise PMO, Technology Change, or Delivery Management within a complex organisation.
- Proven track record of managing large-scale technology portfolios and delivering executive-level reporting and insights.
- Strong understanding of Agile methodologies including Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, or equivalent frameworks.
- Experience operating within formal governance, investment approval, risk management, and financial control environments.
- Demonstrated ability to influence stakeholders and challenge delivery teams effectively without direct line management responsibility.
- Strong experience managing portfolio-level dependencies, planning cycles, and strategic change initiatives.
Desirable Experience
- Experience within Insurance, Financial Services, Banking, or other highly regulated environments.
- Knowledge of portfolio management and delivery tools such as Jira, Azure DevOps, ServiceNow PPM, or similar platforms.
- Exposure to Agile transformation, organisational change, or portfolio maturity initiatives.
- Relevant professional certifications such as SAFe, AgilePM, PRINCE2, PMP, MSP, or equivalent.
Skills & Competencies
- Exceptional stakeholder management and communication skills.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities with the ability to translate complex information into actionable insights.
- Highly organised with the ability to manage multiple priorities across a broad change landscape.
- Commercially aware with strong financial and governance acumen.
- Self-motivated, proactive, and comfortable operating as a standalone senior contributor.
- Ability to balance Agile ways of working with regulatory, governance, and financial requirements.
What's on Offer
- High-profile contract reporting directly to the CIO.
- Opportunity to shape and mature enterprise-wide technology portfolio governance.
- Significant exposure to executive stakeholders and strategic technology initiatives.
- Hybrid working model with a 50/50 onsite and remote arrangement based in Dublin 1.
- Competitive daily rate.