General Manager - Project Management Office

Role overview and responsibilities

Dhruva Space is seeking an experienced and high-performing General Manager – Project Management Office (PMO) to establish and lead the PMO function at Dhruva Space during a pivotal phase of organizational growth. In this senior managerial role, you will define the execution culture of our full-stack space engineering initiatives including satellite platforms, ground stations, and launch services ensuring mission delivery with rigor, transparency, and speed.

You will develop and implement the governance frameworks, methodologies, reporting structures, and resource management systems required to support complex, multi-disciplinary engineering programs. This role is central to aligning execution with Dhruva Space’s strategic roadmap, enabling continuous improvement, and building a center of excellence for project and portfolio management.

Key responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Define and implement a robust portfolio management framework across satellite, ground-station, and launch-service programs.
• Develop the PMO charter, business case, and implementation roadmap.
• Lead change management efforts and secure executive-level adoption.
• Define the PMO’s service catalogue and authority level in collaboration with engineering leadership.
• Provide portfolio insights aligned with strategic objectives, technology plans, and customer commitments.
• Monitor firm-level OKRs and report portfolio health to executive leadership.
• Establish and enforce standardized project management methodologies, processes, templates, and best practices tailored to integrated hardware–software–operations environments typical of space missions.
• Lead the portfolio-level financial forecasting process and standardize project financial structures.
• Define cost categories and cost application rules across all projects.
• Develop and manage time-phased budgets and cost baselines.
• Build and maintain the firm’s consolidated rolling cash flow forecast.
• Perform variance analysis to explain deviations from planned cash flows.
• Establish and manage a single source of truth through enterprise PPM tools, producing standardized dashboards for schedule, cost, and risk.
• Create and manage a central resource pool and skills database for engineering and project staff.
• Conduct capacity planning and resource demand forecasting to pre-empt bottlenecks.
• Allocate PMO resources to meet schedule, budget, and quality objectives.
• Track and report engineering resource utilization in coordination with department heads.
• Define and implement firm-wide risk identification, assessment, and mitigation processes.
• Maintain a portfolio-level risk register to highlight systemic or cross-project risks.
• Serve as the escalation point for major project issues requiring executive attention.
• Enable lessons-learned capture at key milestones and ensure organization-wide access to learning assets.
• Foster a culture of discipline, transparency, continuous improvement, and execution excellence.
• Mentor and coach project managers, program leads, and PMO staff to enhance organizational capability.
• Provide training on project management best practices, tools, and soft skills.
• Use performance data from completed projects to refine methodologies and engineering processes.
• Maintain a central repository of documentation, processes, and lessons learned as the authoritative reference for project governance.

Candidate Requirements

• 8+ years of progressive project/program management experience in engineering-intensive domains.
• Minimum 3 years in senior management or in establishing/leading a PMO or equivalent transformation initiative.
• Bachelor’s degree in engineering (Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, or related) or Construction Management.
• PMP certification is mandatory.
• Expertise with enterprise PPM platforms (e.g., Primavera P6, Microsoft Project Online, Procore, E-Builder).
• Strong background in cost control, complex budgeting, and cash flow forecasting.
• Outstanding leadership, communication, and stakeholder management abilities, with the ability to build consensus among executives and technical teams.
• Knowledge of systems engineering, satellite mission lifecycles, ground station deployment, or launch operations.
• MBA or an advanced business/management degree.
• PgMP or PfMP certification.
• Experience integrating PPM tools with BIM/CAD systems and corporate ERP/finance platforms.
• Formal training or experience in organizational change management.