Senior Project Manager

Responsibilities

Lead a portfolio of complex, high-risk client engagements from initiation through closure, owning delivery plans, budgets, resources, risks, and client outcomes. Build executive-level client relationships, coordinate cross-functional teams, maintain accurate project and financial reporting, and mentor less experienced project managers.

Requirements

A bachelor's degree in a relevant field or equivalent experience and at least five years of client-facing project management experience are required; professional services or technology delivery experience is strongly preferred. Candidates should have strong communication, financial and operational management, risk identification, and team leadership skills, with working knowledge of Agile, Waterfall, and hybrid delivery methods; PMP, PRINCE2, PMI-ACP, or Certified Scrum Master certification is preferred.

Skills

• Project Portfolio Management
• Client Relationship Management
• Project Planning
• Budget Management
• Financial Management
• Risk Management
• Stakeholder Communication
• Team Leadership
• Agile
• Waterfall
• Hybrid Project Delivery
• Scope Management
• Resource Management
• Change Management
• Executive Presentations
• Coaching And Mentoring

Benefits

• Medical Insurance
• Dental Insurance
• Vision Insurance
• 401(k)
• Paid Company Holidays
• Paid Time Off
• Paid Parental Leave
• Paid Caregiver Leave

About this role

AHEAD builds platforms for digital business. By weaving together advances in cloud infrastructure, automation and analytics, and software delivery, we help enterprises deliver on the promise of digital transformation.
At AHEAD, we prioritize creating a culture of belonging, where all perspectives and voices are represented, valued, respected, and heard. We create spaces to empower everyone to speak up, make change, and drive the culture at AHEAD.
We are an equal opportunity employer, and do not discriminate based on an individual's race, national origin, color, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, marital status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law, whether actual or perceived.
We embrace all candidates that will contribute to the diversification and enrichment of ideas and perspectives at AHEAD.

Job Summary
The Senior Project Manager is the leader and owner of a portfolio of AHEAD's complex, highest-risk, and highest-visibility Client engagements — directly accountable for planning, executing, leading the project team, and finalizing each project according to Client timelines and budget constraints, serving as the single point of knowledge and control for the aggregate effort. This ownership is what shapes how the Senior Project Manager manages resources, coordinates the efforts of team members, both internal and external. The Senior Project Manager leads the engagement and drives the Client relationship — including at the executive level — rather than simply administering tasks, keeping everything moving toward the outcome the Client came to AHEAD for.
The Senior Project Manager is expected to know the outcome of every engagement in their portfolio and to proactively identify what could get in the way of the project or the Client's outcome — heading it off before it becomes a problem rather than reacting after the fact — while tailoring communication and status reporting, from working-level detail to executive-level, to the target stakeholder audience.
The Senior Project Manager is accountable for applying AHEAD's three Operating Pillars — World Class Customer Experience, Ensure Customer Outcomes, and Accelerate & Manage the AHEAD Business — across every project in their portfolio, from initiation through closure, and for coaching and mentoring less experienced Project Managers as needed.
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Duties & Responsibilities:
Pillar 1: World Class Customer Experience
Own the Client relationship for a portfolio of projects, maintaining a structured, ongoing communication cadence with every Client that is independent of project status updates, and surfacing concerns or unmet expectations before they become issues.
Gather Client context from Sales beyond the Statement of Work ahead of kickoff, establish the Client's definition of success at kickoff, and maintain a documented record of Client alignment at every significant project stage and outcomes confirmation.
Tailor all communication, status updates, and project summaries to the role and level of the Client stakeholder receiving them.
Proactively address stakeholder concerns directly. Communicate with a plan and treat every escalation as a signal to identify and close the gap that allowed it.
When a client has multiple projects in flight at once, coordinate with the other AHEAD Project Managers, practices, or Managed Services teams involved so the Client experiences one consistent AHEAD standard across every engagement, and surface and help resolve any inconsistency in delivery standards or communication across those accounts.
Build and maintain a working relationship with Sales and Presales aligned to assigned accounts, and feed lessons learned from delivery back into future scoping and estimating.
Pillar 2: Ensure Customer Outcomes
Be able to articulate the business outcome each engagement in the portfolio is delivering and the Client's own indicators of success.
Anchor Client conversations in outcomes rather than status: what the Client is trying to achieve, how the engagement is moving them toward it, and what AHEAD needs to do to get them there.
Proactively escalate to the Client and with AHEAD management when delivery indicates that the scoped approach will not achieve the intended outcome or that something critical is missing.
Proactively identify and act on risks, issues, and early warning signs that could prevent projects from realizing customer success criteria and business objectives.
Lead project teams to identify opportunities to further enhance the Client's outcome and translate those opportunities into terms the Client can act on.
Maintain working knowledge of AHEAD's Unified Messaging Framework (UMF) and Unified Delivery Framework (UDF) and maintain and apply to deliver customer outcomes
As a project approaches closure, confirm directly with the Client that the intended outcome was achieved. Capture lessons learned to feed back into future scoping, proposals, and delivery standards.
Pillar 3: Accelerate & Manage the AHEAD Business
Owner the delivery of the scope of work defined in the Statement of Work as well as AHEAD business and margin.
Utilize AHEAD systems and management tools (PSA and other tools) to maintain current and accurate project data across the portfolio — including RYG status, resource assignments, RAID log entries, project stage, revenue status, and other required fields.
Define, develop, and execute project plans, scope, activities, schedules, financial budgets, and deliverables across a portfolio of related projects, identifying needed resources and defining major project roles, and serving as the single point of knowledge and control for projects.
Review the margin, utilization, forecast, and RYG status of the full portfolio on an ongoing basis, act on what is found to drive AHEAD margin and business outcome.
Have appropriate financial conversations with the aligned Practice(s) as shortfalls are identified.
Manage and drive a...

About AHEAD

IT Services and IT Consulting · 1,001-5,000 employees · headquartered in Chicago, Illinois