Director,Portfolio Operations & Demand Management Job Berkeley Heights area,New Jersey USA,IT/Tech

Director, Portfolio Operations & Demand Management

About your role:
You will be a key member of the Portfolio Management leadership team, partnering closely with the Technology Portfolio Management Lead. You will own the end‑to‑end demand management and portfolio operations engine—ensuring high‑quality intake, standards‑based artifacts, dependable reporting, and portfolio hygiene across a complex technology landscape. You will drive process improvements, metrics and analysis, and project auditing, including the use of AI‑enabled techniques to improve artifact quality, consistency, and decision‑readiness.

What you’ll do:

Own the demand management process for Merchant Solutions Technology, including intake, triage, routing, and readiness criteria—ensuring submissions are complete, comparable, and decision‑ready.
Define and maintain portfolio standards, templates, and artifact quality expectations.
Operate portfolio reporting and performance routines (weekly/monthly/quarterly), producing executive‑ready dashboards and narratives on throughput, health, risks/issues, dependencies, and investment performance.
Drive portfolio data quality and hygiene across tooling (e.g., Clarity PPM and Jira), including taxonomy, workflow states, required fields, and governance controls.
Lead project/program audits and health assessments to validate delivery artifacts, status accuracy, controls, and adherence to governance expectations; track findings and drive closure with delivery owners.
Develop and maintain a portfolio metrics and analysis capability (capacity, demand, cycle time, predictability, value delivery, benefits realization support, and aging work) to inform prioritization and trade‑off decisions.
Identify and implement process improvements across the portfolio lifecycle (intake‑to‑close), balancing standardization with flexibility across Agile, hybrid, and Waterfall teams.
Evaluate and apply AI‑enabled approaches to accelerate artifact creation, quality assessment, and insights generation (e.g., automated checks for completeness/consistency, summarization, and risk signal detection).
Partner with Product/Business teams adopting Aha! (or similar) for upstream planning and prioritization, ensuring seamless integration from strategy through technology intake and execution tracking.
Responsibilities listed are not intended to be all‑inclusive and may be modified as necessary.

Experience you’ll need to have:

8+ years of experience in portfolio operations, PMO/program management, technology governance, demand management, or delivery management within large, complex organizations.
Demonstrated experience owning intake/demand processes and governance routines that enable transparent prioritization, sequencing, and delivery oversight.
Strong analytical capability (metrics definition, trend analysis, and insight generation) with the ability to translate data into clear recommendations and executive‑ready reporting.
Experience establishing standards and improving artifact quality across portfolios (templates, readiness criteria, data quality controls, and consistent reporting).
Experience conducting project/program audits or health assessments, documenting findings, and driving corrective actions to closure with delivery owners.
Hands‑on experience with common portfolio and delivery toolsets (e.g., Clarity PPM and Jira) and proficiency with Microsoft 365 (Excel, PowerPoint, Teams).
Must have experience operating across mixed delivery methodologies (Agile, hybrid, and Waterfall) and adapting metrics, reporting, and governance expectations to differing team maturity.
Strong stakeholder management skills and comfort partnering across technology, finance, product, operations, and risk/compliance.
Bachelor’s degree in information technology, business, finance, analytics, or a related field, or equivalent combination of education, related experience and/or military experience.

Experience that would be great to have:

Experience with product portfolio/road mapping tools (e.g., Aha!) and integrating upstream prioritization into technology intake and execution tracking.
Experience designing AI‑enabled or automated workflows for portfolio…