Sr. Portfolio Manager - Functional PMO Governance

Work Schedule

Standard (Mon-Fri)

Environmental Conditions

Office

As part of the Thermo Fisher Scientific team, you’ll discover meaningful work that makes a positive impact on a global scale. Join our colleagues in bringing our Mission to life every single day to enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. We provide our global teams with the resources needed to achieve individual career goals while helping to take science a step beyond by developing solutions for some of the world’s toughest challenges, like protecting the environment, making sure our food is safe or helping find cures for cancer.

DESCRIPTION:

As a Sr. Portfolio Manager - Functional PMO Governance at Thermo Fisher Scientific, you will lead strategic programs and projects that directly contribute to our mission of enabling customers to make the world healthier, cleaner, and safer.

The Sr. Portfolio Lead – Functional PMO Governance serves as the enterprise authority for governance, portfolio discipline, and value realization across PSG IT. This role defines and enforces the processes for initiating, evaluating, approving, governing, controlling, and measuring investments to ensure strategic alignment, financial integrity, regulatory compliance, and measurable business outcomes.

At the enterprise level, this leader establishes the PMO governance framework, sets standards for execution discipline, and drives accountability across all portfolios. The role provides functional leadership to Portfolio Leads (Commercial & Finance, Supply Chain & Quality, Data & AI, and India CoE), ensuring consistent application of governance, financial rigor, and savings delivery.

The role is directly accountable for considerable bottom-line savings in governance-driven PMO, achieved through disciplined intake management, funding controls, scope governance, benefits realization enforcement, and financial oversight.

This position partners closely with:

• Sr. Portfolio Lead – Portfolio Operations (operational execution and reporting)
• Change & Communications Lead (adoption and behavioral execution)
  
  

While execution may be delegated, this role retains mandate, enforcement authority, and enterprise accountability for governance outcomes.

REQUIREMENTS:

Enterprise Governance Leadership

• Define and own the PSG IT PMO governance operating model.
• Establish enterprise decision rights, approval authorities, escalation frameworks, and enforcement mechanisms.
• Serve as the final functional authority for governance interpretation and application.
• Ensure consistent governance adherence across all portfolios and geographies.
• Resolve escalated governance conflicts and drive corrective action.
• Partner with the PMO Director and executive leadership on governance decisions requiring enterprise endorsement.
• Safeguard portfolio integrity, ensuring investment decisions align with strategy, funding constraints, and compliance requirements.
  
  

Standards, Processes & Procedures (SP&P) Ownership

• Own and continuously evolve the PMO Standards, Processes & Procedures (SP&P) framework.
• Standardize and enforce enterprise templates for:
• Business cases
• Authorization Requests (ARs)
• Project charters
• Status reporting
• Financial tracking
• Benefits and savings realization
• Embed financial controls, governance checkpoints, and measurable value realization into all documentation standards.
• Define and enforce PMF stage-gates, entry/exit criteria, and approval thresholds.
• Establish and mandate Planview data governance standards and reporting integrity.
• Ensure alignment with Corporate IT PMO standards, financial controls, and regulatory requirements.
  
  

Portfolio Management Framework Design

• Define PSG IT portfolio, program, and project taxonomy.
• Establish initiative classification and assignment rules.
• Design governance cadence (monthly, quarterly, annual) and executive review forums.
• Define enterprise portfolio KPIs across:
• Delivery health
• Risk exposure
• Financial performance
• Benefits realization
• Governance-driven savings
• Establish governance metrics including:
• Walk-in rate reduction
• AR compliance
• Budget variance
• Benefits realization rate
• Define and standardize multi-year portfolio roadmapping practices.
  
  

Functional Leadership of Portfolio Leads

• Provide enterprise functional leadership to Portfolio Leads across all domains.
• Set governance expectations, performance standards, and financial accountability requirements.
• Conduct structured monthly governance and financial reviews.
• Hold Portfolio Leads accountable for adherence to governance, AR compliance, and savings contributions.
• Escalate systemic non-compliance or performance risks to the PMO Director.
• Build and lead a Portfolio Lead Community of Practice to institutionalize governance rigor and value discipline.
• Coach and develop senior leaders to elevate governance maturity and enterprise thinking.
  
  

Governance-Driven Savings Accountability

• Accountable for the delivery of PMO savings enabled through governance mechanisms.
• Design and sponsor savings levers, including:
• Intake discipline and walk-in reduction
• AR compliance and funding controls
• Scope gating and structured change control
• Budget guardrails and variance management
• Benefits realization enforcement
• Establish recurring savings governance cadence with Finance.
• Validate savings logic, assumptions, and attribution methodologies.
• Conduct monthly savings performance reviews and quarterly portfolio health checks.
• Ensure transparency, traceability, and sustainability of savings.
  
  

Risk, Compliance & Audit Governance

• Embed risk management within governance frameworks at portfolio, program, and project levels.
• Define risk thresholds, escalation pathways, and decision authorities.
• Ensure governance incorporates regulatory requirements (e.g., GMP, data privacy, audit readiness).
• Maintain audit-ready documentation of decisions, approvals, and financial controls.
• Partner with Quality and Compliance functions on regulated initiatives.
• Lead remediation of governance-related audit findings and institutionalize corrective controls.
  
  

Enterprise Change Sponsorship

• Act as executive sponsor and mandate owner for governance transformation.
• Define mandatory governance changes and implementation timelines.
• Partner with Change & Communications Lead to ensure effective adoption.
• Reinforce governance behaviors through leadership forums and executive engagement.
• Address resistance and ensure alignment where governance rigor impacts delivery timelines or funding.
  
  

Governance Maturity & Continuous Improvement

• Benchmark governance practices against industry standards (PMI, Gartner, enterprise IT PMOs).
• Lead annual PMO maturity assessments.
• Identify structural governance gaps and define improvement roadmaps.
• Introduce tooling enhancements and governance innovations.
• Institutionalize lessons learned and best practices across portfolios.
  
  

Knowledge Management & Documentation

• Own enterprise PMO governance knowledge assets.
• Maintain centralized, controlled, and searchable governance repositories.
• Develop governance playbooks, job aids, and training materials.
• Ensure documentation currency, version control, and audit traceability.
• Drive knowledge continuity and succession resilience within the PMO.
  
  

Key Competencies

Technical & Functional Expertise

• Deep expertise in enterprise PMO governance and portfolio management
• Strong financial acumen (AR processes, capital governance, benefits realization)
• Experience in regulated environments (life sciences preferred)
• Advanced proficiency in portfolio tooling (Planview and financial systems)
• Enterprise process architecture and documentation discipline
  
  

Leadership & Strategic Capability

• Executive-level judgment and governance authority
• Ability to enforce standards while maintaining executive credibility
• Strong influencing and stakeholder alignment capability
• Coaching and mentoring of senior leaders
• Systems thinking and root-cause problem-solving orientation
  
  

Business & Industry Experience

• 10+ years in PMO, governance, or enterprise portfolio leadership
• Experience in large, matrixed global organizations
• Familiarity with enterprise investment governance models
• Understanding of capital allocation, portfolio optimization, and value realization