Sr. Director, Project Management

Come join one of America’s fastest-growing insurance companies. Since 1848, National Life Group has aimed to keep our promises, providing families with stability in good times and in bad. Throughout that history, we have provided peace of mind to those families as they plan their futures.

Our mission extends beyond the insurance and annuities policies that we offer. We strive to make the world a better place through our grants from our charitable foundation, paid volunteer time for our employees, environmentally sustainable and healthy workplaces, and events that promote the work of nonprofits in our own backyard.

We foster a collaborative environment with opportunities for growth and encourage our associates to live our values: Do good. Be good. Make good.

Please note that we do not offer visa sponsorship for this position.

Role Summary

The Project Management Practice Lead is accountable for building and continuously evolving the enterprise Project Management capability to enable disciplined execution, sustained delivery momentum, and effective delivery of complex business and technology initiatives.

The role establishes the professional standards, competencies, methods, tools, governance, and development pathways that enable Project Managers to successfully orchestrate delivery across business, technology, suppliers, operational teams, and shared services. The Practice Lead ensures project management practices strengthen execution without creating unnecessary administrative overhead, adapting the discipline as delivery methods, organizational needs, and technology capabilities evolve.

The Practice Lead serves as the leader and steward of the Project Management profession, developing Project Managers who can operate with increasing autonomy, business acumen, systems thinking, and executive influence. The role partners closely with Portfolio Management, Business Analysis, Technology Delivery, Business Architecture, and enterprise leadership to identify systemic delivery friction, strengthen cross-functional ways of working, and continuously improve the organization's ability to translate investment decisions into successful

This position currently offers an onsite work schedule, with the expectation that you are in the office four days per week during onsite core days. Our current onsite core days are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  The work schedule type and core days are subject to change with advance notification and manager discretion.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Project Management Capability & Practice Leadership

• Define and continuously evolve the enterprise Project Management operating model, professional standards, delivery principles, methodologies, tools, and practices.
• Establish clear expectations for how Project Managers own integrated project plans, orchestrate cross-functional delivery, manage dependencies and risks, enable decisions, and maintain focus on intended business outcomes.
• Ensure Project Management practices are appropriately scalable based on initiative complexity, risk, regulatory requirements, and organizational impact.
• Maintain consistency in core delivery disciplines while allowing Project Managers to adapt their approach to the needs and conditions of individual initiatives.
• Establish clear role boundaries and effective ways of working between Project Management, Portfolio Management, Business Analysis, Technology Delivery, Architecture, Quality Engineering, business stakeholders, suppliers, and operational teams.

Talent & Career Development

• Own and continuously evolve the Project Management career architecture, competency framework, role expectations, and promotion criteria, ensuring clear standards for progression across all PM levels.
• Assess PM capability and establish development plans that strengthen delivery planning, orchestration, decision facilitation, business acumen, systems thinking, stakeholder leadership, and executive influence.
• Coach Project Managers through progressively complex assignments, enabling growth from creating delivery discipline to maintaining delivery momentum and ultimately optimizing delivery flow across complex enterprise initiatives.
• Develop and scale onboarding, learning, mentoring, experiential development, and certification opportunities that build a strong pipeline of Project Management talent for current and future enterprise needs.
• Foster a culture of accountability, curiosity, continuous learning, candid feedback, and professional excellence across the Project Management community.

Delivery Excellence & Practice Assurance

• Establish clear expectations for integrated planning, delivery health, risk and dependency management, stakeholder communication, decision support, implementation readiness, governance, and post-implementation stabilization.
• Assess Project Management effectiveness across the enterprise, identifying where coaching, capability development, intervention, or changes in delivery approach are needed to strengthen execution.
• Coach Project Managers through complex delivery situations, strengthening their ability to structure tradeoffs, resolve ambiguity, facilitate difficult decisions, and maintain delivery momentum while preserving their ownership and accountability.
• Identify recurring delivery patterns, systemic bottlenecks, decision delays, governance friction, and cross-functional issues, using these insights and lessons learned to improve Project Management practices and broader ways of working.
• Promote disciplined, outcome-focused execution while simplifying governance and eliminating administrative practices that create burden without materially improving delivery outcomes.

Governance, Risk & Organizational Improvement

• Establish and continuously evolve risk-based Project Management governance that provides appropriate control, transparency, and accountability while scaling requirements to initiative materiality, complexity, and enterprise risk.
• Ensure Project Management practices meet regulatory requirements, financial controls, delivery standards, and organizational policies through effective partnership with Risk, Audit, Finance, Technology, and business stakeholders.
• Define meaningful measures of Project Management effectiveness focused on delivery confidence, decision velocity, predictability, stakeholder confidence, business outcomes, and organizational flow rather than administrative compliance alone.
• Use project-level insights to identify systemic enterprise risks, recurring delivery constraints, and opportunities to strengthen organizational execution.
• Translate lessons learned across initiatives into improvements in governance, Project Management practices, and broader organizational ways of working.

Modern Delivery & AI-Enabled Practice

• Continuously evolve Project Management practices to reflect modern predictive, Agile, hybrid, product-oriented, and continuous planning approaches as enterprise delivery needs change.
• Identify and scale high-value uses of AI and automation across planning, risk and dependency analysis, scenario development, status synthesis, reporting, meeting intelligence, and project knowledge management.
• Redesign Project Management work as technology automates administrative activities, shifting PM capacity toward orchestration, judgment, decision enablement, stakeholder leadership, and business outcomes.
• Establish responsible standards for AI-enabled Project Management that accelerate and improve delivery while preserving appropriate human judgment, governance, and accountability.
• Develop Project Managers' skills and ways of working to lead effectively in increasingly dynamic, AI-enabled, and technology-driven delivery environments.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.
• 12+ years of progressive experience leading complex business and technology initiatives including significant experience developing Project Management talent or leading Project Management capabilities.
• Life & Annuity industry experience with strong understanding of insurance business operations, technology delivery, and the organizational dynamics of large-scale change.
• Demonstrated expertise developing and managing integrated project plans across complex initiatives involving business, technology, suppliers and operational teams.
• Proven ability to build, mature, or transform Project Management practices, standards, methodologies, competency models, governance approaches, or professional development programs.
• Demonstrated ability to coach experienced Project Managers through complex delivery situations while strengthening their judgment, autonomy, and leadership capability.
• Advanced understanding of delivery orchestration, integrated planning, dependency management, risk management, decision facilitation, implementation readiness, and delivery governance.
• Strong systems-thinking capability with the ability to identify patterns across individual initiatives and translate them into improvements to enterprise delivery practices and organizational effectiveness.
• Demonstrated ability to establish risk-based governance that balances execution discipline, regulatory requirements, transparency, and speed.
• Proven ability to influence senior business and technology leaders, resolve ambiguity, facilitate complex tradeoffs, and create alignment without formal authority.
• Strong business, financial, operational, and technology acumen with the ability to understand delivery decisions in the context of business value, organizational priorities, capacity, enterprise risk, and technology constraints.
• Demonstrated ability to lead organizational change and evolve professional practices as delivery models, workforce expectations, and technology capabilities change.
• Executive presence with exceptional coaching, communication, facilitation, negotiation, stakeholder management, and conflict-resolution skills.
• PMP certification or equivalent advanced Project Management experience required.

Preferred

• Experience designing career architectures, competency frameworks, talent assessment approaches, and professional development programs.
• Experience implementing modern delivery approaches, AI-enabled Project Management capabilities, automation, or continuous planning practices.

Definition of Success

• Project Managers at every career level clearly understand what is expected of them, how their role creates value, and what capabilities they must demonstrate to progress.
• Integrated project planning, risk and dependency management, decision enablement, stakeholder leadership, implementation readiness, and governance are consistently strong across the Project Management practice.
• Project Managers operate with increasing autonomy and judgment, escalating decisions rather than simply escalating problems and providing leaders with clear options, impacts, tradeoffs, and recommendations.
• Business and technology leaders experience Project Managers as delivery leaders who improve execution and business outcomes rather than administrators of project process.
• Delivery problems are identified earlier, decisions occur faster, dependencies are managed more effectively, and avoidable surprises and escalation friction decline.
• Governance provides appropriate transparency, risk management, and control while administrative activities that do not materially improve outcomes are reduced.
• Recurring delivery problems are recognized as systemic patterns and translated into improvements in enterprise practices, decision rights, governance, organizational capability, or ways of working.
• Modern delivery methods, automation, continuous planning, and AI-enabled practices measurably reduce administrative effort and increase the time Project Managers devote to orchestration, judgment, stakeholder leadership, and business outcomes.
• The organization maintains a strong pipeline of Project Management talent with clear career paths, differentiated capability expectations, and demonstrated readiness for increasingly complex assignments.
• The Project Management profession continuously improves the organization's ability to translate investment decisions into predictable execution and measurable business outcomes.

AI Proficiency Expectations

At National Life Group, we view AI as an enabler of human potential. We use AI to help us work smarter, serve more clients, and keep our promises, while remaining a relationship-driven business where our people are our greatest strength.

All applicants are expected to:

• Leverage approved AI tools, where appropriate, to improve the efficiency, quality, and impact of their work.
• Stay curious and open to new AI-enabled ways of working.
• Exercise sound judgment by reviewing and validating AI-generated content.
• Maintain accountability for the accuracy, quality, fairness, and integrity of work products by adhering to National Life’s AI guiding principles.
• Use AI responsibly and in accordance with company policies related to confidentiality, data privacy, security, compliance, retention and intellectual property.

Benefits

• Your benefits start day one and are flexible and customizable to your and your family’s specific needs. Check out the BENEFITS of a Career at National Life !

Base Pay Range .  The base pay range for this position is the range National Life reasonably and in good faith expects to pay for the position taking into account the wide variety of factors, including: prior experience and job-related knowledge; education, training and certificates; current business needs; and market factors.  The final salary or hourly wages offered may be outside of this range based on other reasons and individual circumstances.

Additional Compensation and Benefits . The total compensation package for this position may also include a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits (including 401(k) eligibility and various paid time off benefits, such as vacation, sick time, and parental leave), dependent on the position offered. The successful candidate may also be eligible to participate in National Life’s discretionary annual incentive programs, subject to the rules governing such programs. If hired, the employee will be in an "at-will position" and National Life reserves the right to modify base salary (as well as any other discretionary payment or compensation or benefit program) at any time, including for reasons related to individual performance, company or individual department/team performance, and market factors.

National Life is accepting applications for this role on an ongoing basis and the role remains open until filled.

Salary Pay Range

$150,000—$220,000 USD

National Life Group® is a trade name of National Life Insurance Company, Montpelier, VT – founded in 1848, Life Insurance Company of the Southwest, Addison, TX – chartered in 1955, and their affiliates. Each company of National Life Group is solely responsible for its own financial condition and contractual obligations. Life Insurance Company of the Southwest is not an authorized insurer in New York and does not conduct insurance business in New York. Equity Services, Inc., Member FINRA/SIPC, is a Broker/Dealer and Registered Investment Adviser affiliate of National Life Insurance Company. All other entities are independent of the companies of National Life Group.

Fortune 1000 status is based on the consolidated financial results of all National Life Group companies.

National Life Group

1 National Life Dr

Montpelier, VT 05604