Vice President, Enterprise PMO

Situation Overview

ZRG has been engaged to recruit a Vice President, Enterprise PMO for a top, privately held, employee-owned national construction organization. The Enterprise PMO is being established to ensure the organization’s most important strategic initiatives are planned, sequenced, and delivered as one connected body of work rather than a collection of disconnected projects.

The Position

The Vice President, Enterprise PMO will serve as the organization’s enterprise strategy execution leader, accountable for translating strategic priorities into one integrated portfolio of initiatives and driving that portfolio through execution and measurable results. Reporting to the Chief Strategy Officer, this leader will build the Enterprise PMO capability, including its team, operating model, governance, portfolio management disciplines, standards, and executive decision-making forums. The Vice President will also help build the organization’s Enterprise Change Management capability, ensuring major initiatives are not only delivered but successfully adopted across the enterprise. Success requires someone who can operate strategically with senior leadership while remaining close enough to execution to understand dependencies, resolve competing priorities, sequence investments and resources, and drive accountability across a highly matrixed enterprise.

Key Responsibilities

1. Facilitate the Execution of the Integrated Enterprise Strategic Plan

• Manage the enterprise view of strategic initiatives as one integrated portfolio, connecting strategy, execution, investments, resources, dependencies, risks, and business impact.
• Prioritize and sequence initiatives based on enterprise-level dependencies, capacity, competing timelines, and downstream impacts, continuously adjusting as priorities and conditions evolve.
• Surface conflicts, tradeoffs, and execution risks to executive leadership early, providing a clear and connected view of progress across the strategic portfolio.

2. Build the Enterprise PMO and Center of Excellence

• Create the EPMO’s vision, mandate, operating model, roadmap, and service portfolio in alignment with enterprise strategy and business priorities.
• Build and lead a high-performing team with the portfolio, program, change, analytics, and governance capabilities required to support enterprise priorities.
• Establish the EPMO as a practical center of excellence that provides standards, tools, expertise, coaching, and decision support without adding unnecessary bureaucracy.
• Define clear roles, decision rights, engagement models, and escalation paths for how the EPMO partners with business units and functions on enterprise-priority work.
• Develop enterprise delivery and change leadership capability broadly across the organization.
• Create bench strength and succession capability so enterprise execution does not depend on any single individual.

3. Enterprise Portfolio Governance and Prioritization

• Establish an enterprise-wide portfolio governance framework that connects strategic priorities, investments, capacity, risks, dependencies, and expected business value.
• Partner with executive leaders to evaluate, sequence, and prioritize initiatives using transparent criteria and enterprise-level tradeoffs.
• Design and facilitate executive governance forums that enable timely decisions, resolve cross-enterprise constraints, and maintain accountability for outcomes.
• Create a consistent approach for initiative intake, business cases, stage gates, health assessments, benefits realization, and closure.
• Develop executive dashboards and concise portfolio narratives that surface progress, decisions, interdependencies, risk, capacity, and value.
• Use portfolio data and scenario analysis to improve investment decisions, resource allocation, and the sequencing of enterprise work.
• Advance the use of modern project and portfolio management platforms, workflow automation, data, and AI-enabled tools to improve visibility and execution.
• Build enterprise program management capability through assessment, learning, communities of practice, coaching, and talent development.

4. Standards, Methods, and Delivery Excellence

• Develop scalable standards, playbooks, templates, and minimum controls for portfolio, program, and project management across the organization.
• Establish common definitions and reporting practices for scope, milestones, financials, resources, risks, issues, dependencies, and value realization.
• Apply the appropriate mix of agile, hybrid, and traditional delivery approaches based on initiative complexity, risk, and business need.
• Lead independent health reviews and recovery planning for strategically important initiatives when greater enterprise support or intervention is needed.

5. Build Enterprise Change Management Capability

• Ensure every major initiative in the integrated strategic plan carries an explicit change management approach tied to its business outcomes.
• Build and mature the Enterprise Change Management capability by using active enterprise strategic initiatives as the proving ground, embedding change leadership, standardizing practices, and upskilling the organization as the work happens rather than treating change management as a separate exercise.
• Partner with Human Resources, Learning and Organizational Development, Corporate Communications, and business leaders to establish a mature, enterprise-wide change management capability, with clearly defined and mutually agreed ownership across functions.
• Coach and influence executives and business leaders to strengthen enterprise execution capabilities through governance, coaching, and continuous improvement, not just tools and templates.

6. Matrixed Leadership and Cross-Functional Partnership

• Influence senior leaders and the Executive Committee without relying on direct authority, building shared ownership for enterprise standards, portfolio transparency, and delivery outcomes.
• Balance enterprise consistency with the realities of a regional, business unit, and functional operating environment.
• Partner closely with Strategy, Finance, Operations, Technology, People and Human Resources, Learning and Organizational Development, and Corporate Communications to connect strategic intent to execution.
• Build a strong EPMO community across the enterprise, creating shared practices and mutual accountability with business units and functional partners engaged in enterprise-priority work.

Leadership Expectations

Success in this role requires the ability to:

• Lead the enterprise portfolio as one integrated strategic plan, understanding how each piece of work affects every other piece and the broader organization.
• Bring executive presence and credibility to influence senior leaders and the Executive Committee.
• Lead through influence and shared ownership across a highly matrixed organization, without relying on direct authority alone.
• Introduce governance and standards in a way that improves speed, clarity, and accountability rather than creating process for its own sake.
• Facilitate difficult tradeoff and sequencing decisions among competing executive priorities.
• Build change leadership capability into the organization’s operating practices by embedding it in real, active initiatives.
• Communicate complex, interdependent strategic work simply and candidly for executive audiences.

Experience and Qualifications

• 15+ years of progressive leadership experience in enterprise portfolio management, transformation, strategy execution, program management, or a related discipline, including significant experience leading complex, multi-year enterprise initiatives.
• Demonstrated success building, transforming, or resetting an enterprise PMO, portfolio management, or transformation function, including establishing the mandate, operating model, governance routines, standards, and adoption roadmap.
• Proven success leading multi-year strategic transformation initiatives and enterprise operating model evolution.
• Demonstrated ability to build and mature an Enterprise Change Management capability by leveraging active strategic initiatives to embed change leadership and upskill the organization.
• Experience establishing enterprise delivery standards, governance frameworks, and organizational execution capabilities, including investment prioritization, resource and capacity planning, financial management, risk and dependency management, executive reporting, and benefits realization.
• Proven ability to operate across a highly matrixed organization and influence executive stakeholders, business leaders, and functional partners without relying on direct authority.
• Track record building high-performing teams and communities of practice, while coaching and enabling leaders and project teams to adopt practical portfolio, program, and project management practices.
• Strong strategic planning, financial acumen, executive communication, and organizational influence.
• Experience in construction, engineering, infrastructure, or another complex, project-intensive, matrixed enterprise is a plus.
• Bachelor’s degree required; an advanced degree such as an MBA and relevant credentials such as PMP, PgMP, PfMP, or equivalent are preferred.

What Makes You Stand Out

• You lead the enterprise portfolio as one connected strategic plan. You instinctively look for how initiatives affect each other and sequence delivery accordingly, rather than managing projects in isolation.
• You combine strategic perspective with execution excellence, creating the discipline, accountability, and operating rhythms required to turn strategy into measurable results.
• You build trust quickly, listen well, and create alignment across leaders with different priorities and operating models.
• You know how to introduce standards and governance in a way that improves speed, clarity, and accountability rather than creating process for its own sake.
• You bring a relentless focus on execution quality, ensuring enterprise initiatives have clear ownership, practical milestones, visible risks, and the follow-through needed to deliver outcomes at pace.
• You are comfortable building a function from the ground up, shaping the mandate while also establishing the foundational team, routines, and tools.
• You lead with courage, integrity, partnership, and enduring strength, and create an inclusive environment where diverse perspectives improve decisions.
• You are curious about emerging technology and use data, automation, and AI responsibly to improve portfolio insight and delivery effectiveness.