Portfolio Manager

Portfolio Manager

Location: Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Role Overview

The Portfolio Manager is responsible for end to end ownership of a critical transformation portfolio that spans multiple programs and projects. This role sits at the intersection of delivery, governance, finance, and stakeholder management and requires a High-impact execution leader who can drive outcomes, challenge constructively, and maintain high standards of consistency and quality.

The ideal candidate combines strong program and portfolio management skills with solid understanding of complex enterprise technology landscapes (for example SAP and adjacent platforms), clear communication, and a strong ownership mindset.

Portfolio Governance

Program Delivery Oversight

Risk & Compliance

Executive Communication

Champion vs Challenger Mindset

SLA & Outcome Discipline

Key Responsibilities

• Own a portfolio of programs and projects from initiation to hypercare closure, with clear accountability for outcomes, timelines, and quality.
• Drive a structured champion and challenger model with all delivery teams and partners, challenging status quo constructively based on data.
• Set up and run portfolio governance: cadence, dashboards, risk and issue reviews, decision logs, and escalation routines.
• Ensure strict adherence to agreed SLAs, including response times, turnaround on actions, and closure of open items.
• Coordinate across project managers, architects, functional leads, and business stakeholders to remove roadblocks and align priorities.
• Standardize reporting formats, templates, and executive summaries so that updates are concise, precise, and decision ready.
• Ensure that risks, issues, and dependencies are logged correctly, updated regularly, and escalated in a timely and constructive way.
• Monitor portfolio level financials and effort utilization and highlight variances early with a clear recovery plan.
• Promote strong delivery discipline across discovery, build, testing, deployment, and hypercare phases.
• Coach project managers and leads on communication quality, stakeholder management, and consistency of execution.
• Champion use of standard tools for tracking scope, milestones, allocations, risks, and decisions and reduce unnecessary manual trackers.
• Act as the single throat to choke and single hand to shake for senior stakeholders for the entire portfolio.

Experience and Skills

Must Have

• 10 to 15 years of experience in program or portfolio management in large scale technology environments.
• Experience managing multi project portfolios involving ERP or large enterprise platforms (for example SAP, finance or risk related programs).
• Strong command of project management fundamentals: scope, schedule, risk, issue, dependency management, and change control.
• Proven track record of handling senior stakeholders and driving difficult conversations constructively.
• Demonstrated discipline in SLAs for responses and follow ups, using structured escalation paths when needed.
• Ability to quickly understand complex processes and compliance or risk implications and translate them into clear actions for the team.
• Excellent written and verbal communication: concise emails, sharp executive summaries, and clear meeting notes.
• Hands on experience with standard project tools such as JIRA, MS Project, or similar portfolio tools.

Good to Have

• Background in consulting, risk and compliance, or finance transformation programs.
• Experience managing or coaching project managers and leads in a matrix environment.
• Exposure to global delivery models with teams across US, India, and other regions.
• Professional certifications like PMP, PgMP, SAFe, or equivalent.

Behavioral Traits

• Ownership driven, does not wait for others to chase.
• Research oriented and fact based in recommendations.
• Comfortable acting as a challenger while maintaining strong relationships.
• High bar for professionalism, quality of communication, and consistency.
• Invested in long term growth of the team, not just short term delivery.

Working Style Expected

• Ask questions upfront rather than assume.
• Escalate with context, facts, and options, not blame.
• Treat email as a record, not the primary way to chase outcomes.
• Own tasks till results are achieved, not just till communication is sent.