PMO Lead

The PMO Lead directly leads the Project Manager team within the Business Solutions Department and is accountable for portfolio governance, delivery compliance, and PMO framework maturity across all concurrent projects. The PMO Lead sets the delivery standard, coaches the PM team to that standard, and governs how every project is initiated, run, escalated, and closed. As the line manager for the PM team, this role combines people leadership with structural PMO ownership, building the Center of Excellence, driving standardized controls, and producing executive-ready reporting that gives the Director and CCO full portfolio visibility. A core outcome is ensuring projects consistently meet or outperform pre-estimated budgets through baseline discipline, change control enforcement, and early financial intervention.

Key Responsibilities

• PM Team Leadership & Performance Management

  • Directly manage the BSD Project Manager team: set performance expectations, conduct regular 1:1s, deliver performance reviews, and support professional development.
  • Assign and balance project workload across the PM team based on complexity, capacity, and growth objectives, ensuring no PM is over-extended and every project has appropriate coverage.
  • Coach PMs on methodology, stakeholder management, scope control, and delivery discipline, raising the standard of craft, not just compliance.

• PMO Governance & Delivery Assurance

  • Own and enforce the end-to-end PMO governance model: stage gates, minimum project artifacts, Director approval workflows, and escalation paths.
  • Run delivery assurance reviews (health checks, compliance audits, and quality checkpoints) and drive corrective actions where projects deviate from standards.

• PMO Framework Ownership & Continuous Improvement

  • Maintain and continuously optimise the BSD PMO framework: project lifecycle, standards, templates, toolkits, and playbooks, serving as the single source of truth for how delivery is run.

• Portfolio Reporting & Executive Visibility

  • Own the portfolio reporting cadence and outputs: weekly portfolio health review, monthly performance packs, and steering committee materials for the Director and CCO.

• Budget Performance, Baselines & Financial Controls

  • Ensure every project has an approved, documented baseline covering scope, schedule, and budget before execution begins.
  • Monitor cost performance and forecast-to-complete across the portfolio; initiate recovery actions and escalate to the Director when variances exceed defined thresholds.

• RAID, Dependencies & Cross-Project Risk

  • Standardise RAID governance across the portfolio: every risk, assumption, issue, and dependency has an owner, a mitigation action, and a measurable closure criterion.

Requirements

• Education & Certifications

  • Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Engineering, Information Technology, or equivalent (required)
  • PMP, PRINCE2 Practitioner, MSP, or MoP certification, one or more strongly preferred
  • Agile certifications such as CSM, PSM, or SAFe are an advantage in hybrid delivery contexts

• Experience Requirements

  • 7+ years in PMO leadership, portfolio governance, delivery assurance, or project controls, with a minimum of 3 years in a role with direct line management of Project Managers or delivery professionals
  • Proven track record building or significantly improving a PMO framework from near-scratch
  • Demonstrated experience governing a portfolio of 8 or more concurrent complex implementations in technology, B2B, or professional services environments
  • Strong background in portfolio analytics and performance reporting, including KPIs, health frameworks, trend analysis, schedule and budget variance, and RAID analytics

Location
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia