[Remote] Senior Project Manager & PMO Lead

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. The African Leadership University (ALU) is a catalyst for transformation dedicated to developing ethical and entrepreneurial leaders in Africa. The Senior Project Manager & PMO Lead will shape ALU’s execution culture by building a strong Project Management Office and delivering high-impact strategic and digital initiatives, while collaborating with various departments to ensure project discipline and accountability.

Responsibilities

• Build and strengthen the Project Management Office (PMO)
• Establish strong foundations for a high-performance PMO, including standardizing governance models, communication rhythms and escalation pathways
• Benchmark, refine and implement a unified Project Management Framework tailored to ALU’s needs
• Digitize and streamline PMO processes, documentation and communication flows to ensure transparency, consistency and institutional memory
• Develop OKRs and performance metrics for the PMO collaboratively within the first 90 days
• Lead complex, strategic, operational and digital projects from discovery to close-out
• Develop high-quality project artefacts including project charters, detailed plans, RAID logs, governance structures and cost tracking mechanisms
• Facilitate structured working sessions and enforce disciplined execution, scope management and rigorous change control
• Maintain precision in delivery, ensuring projects remain on track against scope, timelines and approved budgets
• Expected outcome: consistently updated, accurate project dashboards; disciplined reporting cycles; strong hygiene across all PMO-led and departmental projects
• Lead strategic conversations with senior leadership to translate institutional priorities into a clear and actionable project portfolio
• Partner with business units to identify needs, shape project proposals and develop period-based roadmaps that reflect strategic intent, capacity and resourcing realities
• Drive disciplined portfolio management by constructively challenging RAG statuses, uncovering root-cause blockers and ensuring teams move beyond reporting to actively improving project health and delivery outcomes
• Deploy and oversee an integrated Project Portfolio Management (PPM) dashboard offering clear visibility into project health, dependencies, risks and impact across all strategic and enabling initiatives
• Ensure all active projects—both PMO-led and those led by departmental PMs—are updated monthly with complete and accurate data to enable confident ExCo decision-making
• Support planning and prioritization cycles by providing reliable information on resource allocation, risk exposure and delivery feasibility
• Expected outcome: a single source of truth for institutional execution, with transparent updates on scope, timelines, budgets and risks
• Serve as a partner to the ExCo, Transformation Office, Risk & Performance, Finance, Legal and People teams to ensure alignment between strategic objectives and project execution
• Support Deans and their teams in building project ownership, planning clarity and structured follow-through
• Facilitate alignment between academic and operational initiatives to ensure institutional coherence
• Build trust and influence across diverse stakeholder groups, acting as a bridge between strategy and delivery
• Expected outcome: a culture of accountability and structured communication adopted across departments
• Train project leads across all functions on the unified delivery framework and PMO tools
• Establish a strong community of practice for project managers and coordinators institution-wide
• Promote a culture of discipline, precision, transparency and ownership in every stage of project execution
• Introduce monthly compliance check-ins to reinforce standards and build repeatable delivery habits across teams
• Expected outcome: 100% adoption of the project management framework across all initiatives and strengthened internal execution muscle
• Ensure the safety and well-being of all young persons and vulnerable adults with whom we deal, by adhering to ALCHE’s comprehensive safeguarding policy, maintaining a zero-tolerance approach to any violations of safeguarding standards

Skills

• At least a Bachelor's degree in Project Management, Business, Management Information Systems or a related field
• PMP certification is required (additional Agile or Prince2 certifications are an advantage)
• Expertise in project management tools e.g. Asana and JIRA is required
• Minimum 8 years' experience successfully managing large-scale, multi-stakeholder strategic projects across digital and non-digital domains
• Demonstrated experience leading or establishing a PMO, including frameworks, governance and reporting structures
• Strong analytical and communication skills, with the ability to translate complex project information into clear insights for executive audiences
• Proven ability to deliver high-quality outcomes in environments with evolving processes, ambiguity and high accountability
• Experience working in higher education, transformation or systems implementation environments
• Experience managing remote or cross-border teams
• Strong facilitation and coaching ability
• Knowledge of change management and communication principles

Company Overview

• ALU is an international company that offers turnkey solutions across the globe. It was founded in 1987, and is headquartered in Romano d'Ezzelino, IT, with a workforce of 51-200 employees. Its website is http://www.alu.com.

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