Project Manager - Global Security Strategic Initiatives (Waukegan)

Job Title: Project Manager – Global Security Strategic Initiatives

Location: North Chicago, IL 60085

Duration: 6 Months

Job Type: Temporary Assignment

Work Type: Hybrid

Pay Rate: $60.00 - $60.00/Hr

Overview:

TekWissen is a global workforce management provider headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan that offers strategic talent solutions to our clients world-wide. This Client is mission is to discover and deliver innovative medicines and solutions that address complex health issues and enhance people’s lives.

Job Description:

The Project Manager will play a key role in leading and coordinating enterprise-level initiatives including Global Security transformation efforts, strategic technology projects, and other cross-functional initiatives approved through the Project Management Office (PMO) governance. This role requires a PM who can manage complexity, enable executive decision-making, and drive disciplined execution across multiple high‑visibility initiatives—often operating with incomplete information, evolving scope, and senior stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities:

• Serve as project manager for multiple concurrent initiatives across the Global Security strategic portfolio, including transformation, technology enablement, and operational improvement efforts.
• Translate leadership direction into clear project plans, milestones, dependencies, risks, and execution timelines.
• Maintain project visibility and accountability, drafting and updating core project documentation (e.g., 4‑ups, business cases, project plans, RAIDs etc), facilitating stakeholder meetings, and following up with owners to ensure progress and closure.
• Manage and track progress across multiple initiatives, overseeing project intake, scheduling, timelines, milestones, and meeting cadence in alignment with Global Security PMO processes, while proactively surfacing risks, tradeoffs, and capacity considerations to support timely decision‑making.
• Arrange and facilitate regular stakeholder meetings.
• Measure project outcomes and success against organizational goals.
• Prepare materials for Steering Committee and leadership meetings, including status updates, decision briefs, risk summaries, and options analysis.
• Partner with cross‑functional stakeholders including Business Technology Services (BTS), HR, Legal, Compliance, Privacy, EHS, Facilities, and regional Security teams to coordinate execution.
• Ensure technical, policy, training, and compliance requirements are identified and incorporated into project plans, partnering with stakeholders to support change communications, enable user adoption, and minimize resistance.
• Ensure project governance, process documentation, and training resources are developed, stored, and shared as appropriate.

Qualifications and Essential Skills, Experience, and Competencies

• Degree in a relevant subject area or equivalent experience gained through enterprise project or transformation work.
• 6+ years of experience managing complex, cross‑functional projects or programs, with a demonstrated ability to move work forward in environments where priorities evolve.
• Proven ability to manage multiple initiatives at the same time, balancing scope, timelines, and capacity while keeping leadership informed of risks and tradeoffs.
• Strong business and operational acumen, with the ability to anticipate organizational needs, connect work to strategic intent, and help leaders make informed decisions.
• Experience leading or supporting enterprise‑level initiatives in transformation, technology enablement, regulated environments, or security‑adjacent functions.
• Comfortable working with senior leaders, governance bodies, and steering committees, including preparing leadership‑ready materials and supporting decision‑making forums.
• Strong cross‑functional collaboration skills, with experience partnering across teams such as Technology, HR, Legal, Compliance, Privacy, EHS, Facilities, and regional operations to coordinate execution.
• Experience supporting or leading change management and communications efforts, including policy rollouts, training coordination, and adoption planning.
• Familiarity with security, compliance‑driven, or regulated environments is strongly preferred, including comfort navigating risk, controls, audits, and policy requirements (deep technical expertise is not required).
• Strong understanding of project governance, portfolio management, and change management principles, with a bias toward disciplined execution and transparency.
• Clear, concise communicator with strong organizational skills and attention to detail, able to distill complexity into actionable next steps.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office (PowerPoint, Word, Excel); experience with Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, or similar tools is a plus.
• Familiarity with security or enterprise systems (e.g., access management platforms, incident or mass‑notification systems) is a plus, but not required.

What Success Looks Like

• Leadership has clear visibility into priorities, risks, and capacity, and can make informed decisions without surprise.
• Strategic initiatives move from approval to delivery with disciplined governance and minimal rework.
• Pilots result in clear scale / stop decisions and repeatable rollout plans.
• Cross‑functional stakeholders view the PMO as a decision‑enablement partner, not a reporting function.

Top 3 – 5 Skills Needed for each role

1. Enterprise Project & Portfolio Management

• Proven ability to manage multiple concurrent projects with competing priorities using a structured intake, sequencing, and delivery model.
• Comfortable operating at both project-level execution and portfolio-level tradeoff discussions (capacity, priority, timing).
• Experience supporting PMO governance, not just running isolated projects.

2. Executive & Steering Committee Enablement

• Demonstrated experience preparing leadership-ready materials: decision briefs, status summaries, risks/tradeoffs, and options—not raw project updates.
• Skilled at framing work so leaders can clearly answer: approve, defer, change scope, or stop.
• Comfortable facilitating governance forums (SteerCo, leadership reviews) and following through on decisions.

3. Cross-Functional Influence & Change Management

• Strong ability to work across Security, BTS, HR, Legal, Compliance, EHS, Facilities, and Regions—without formal authority.
• Experience supporting change management, communications, and training rollouts, especially where policy or behavior change is involved.
• Understands that adoption risk is just as critical as technical delivery.

4. Comfort in Regulated / Security-Adjacent Environments

• Familiarity with security, compliance-driven, or regulated environments (physical security, IT/security systems, pharma, manufacturing, privacy, safety).
• Understands concepts like risk, controls, audits, access management, and policy enforcement—even if they are not the technical expert.

5. Structured Thinking + Comfort with Ambiguity

• Ability to bring structure to unclear work, especially early-stage initiatives coming out of Phoenix, AI exploration, or strategy discussions.
• Strong judgment on when to add rigor vs. keep things light, depending on risk and scale.
• Proactive, self-directed, and comfortable iterating as strategy evolves.

TekWissen® Group is an equal opportunity employer supporting workforce diversity.