Senior Project Manager - Innovation
About the role
The Senior Project Manager - Innovation will join the Technology, Data & Innovation Project Management Office within the Chief Technology and Digital Officer Project Management Department. This department is responsible for leading complex, strategic, and innovation-focused technology initiatives that support enterprise priorities, enable emerging capabilities, and ensure disciplined project delivery across technology and business partners. The Senior Project Manager plays a critical role in advancing institutional innovation by independently managing large, complex programs and projects that align technology, data, and innovation efforts with organizational strategy.
Responsibilities
Lead large, complex, and strategic programs and projects as the agent for the project sponsor.
Motivate, inspire, and guide cross-functional teams toward shared goals and outcomes.
Demonstrate strong facilitation, negotiation, problem-solving, critical thinking, and conflict resolution skills.
Coach and mentor Technology, Data & Innovation Project Managers and contract project resources.
Align project execution with business strategy and organizational priorities.
Engage leaders and stakeholders to demonstrate value and manage expectations.
Establish and manage expectations for sponsors, steering teams, customers, users, and project teams.
Collaborate with sponsors, owners, and key stakeholders to ensure requirements are fully documented.
Participate in customer meetings to maintain awareness of institutional operations and needs.
Apply project management frameworks and best practices supporting portfolio, resource, governance, and quality management.
Initiate, plan, execute, control, and close projects following PMO methodology.
Develop, maintain, and present comprehensive project documentation including scope, schedules, timelines, budgets, risk logs, status reports, test plans, training plans, and transition to operations.
Ensure timely, accurate updates within PMO platforms and obtain customer approvals at all key milestones.
Oversee allocation of human and financial resources to support project success.
Manage budgets, forecasts, cost analysis, and invoices to maintain financial control.
Proactively identify, assess, and mitigate project risks and issues.
Translate business goals into actionable strategies and tactical plans.
Partner with technical teams to document requirements, specifications, and system designs.
Drive quality of deliverables against defined metrics and outcomes.
Coordinate end-user training, production support models, and go-live readiness activities.
Requirements
Education: Bachelor's Degree preferred, Master's Degree preferred.
Experience: 6 years of experience to include five years in project management and five years in application and/or infrastructure services. Or 4 years of experience is required to include three years in project management and three years in application and/or infrastructure services with preferred degree.
Technical & Domain Skills: Strong understanding of modern IT architectures: cloud services, APIs, microservices, data pipelines, security fundamentals. Ability to evaluate and translate emerging technologies into practical use cases. Comfortable partnering with engineering teams to define technical feasibility, constraints, and solution approaches. Ability to interpret data analytics, user research, and technical metrics to guide decisions.
Strategic & Business Capabilities: Ability to define innovation roadmaps, opportunity assessments, and business cases. Skilled at identifying high-value problems and validating assumptions through experimentation. Experience managing portfolio-level prioritization and balancing short-term wins with long-term bets. Strong financial acumen: ROI modeling, cost/benefit analysis, and value realization tracking. Comfortable running pilot programs, proof-of-concepts, and phased rollouts.
Work Location: Hybrid work schedule with onsite presence twice per month and preference for candidates located in or near Houston, Texas.
Licenses and Certifications: Certified Project Management Professional (PMP)-PMI preferred.