Lead Project Manager

We are conducting a confidential search for a Manager of Project Management to lead a team of Project Managers responsible for implementing enterprise software solutions within scientific laboratory environments. This individual will play a critical leadership role in developing project managers, improving delivery processes, and ensuring successful customer implementations.

This is a leadership position for someone who enjoys coaching people, driving operational excellence, and partnering with customers to deliver complex implementation projects. The successful candidate will bring strong leadership experience, executive presence, and a passion for continuous improvement.

• Lead, coach, mentor, and develop a team of approximately seven Project Managers.
• Establish accountability for successful project delivery, ensuring implementations are completed on schedule, within scope, and aligned with customer expectations.
• Serve as the primary leadership escalation point for project related customer concerns.
• Build trusted relationships with customer executives while representing the organization during executive meetings, steering committees, and key customer engagements.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives that shorten implementation timelines, improve project consistency, and enhance customer satisfaction.
• Evaluate existing project management processes and identify opportunities to improve efficiency, scalability, and execution.
• Partner with Sales during pre sales engagements to develop realistic implementation plans and ensure customer commitments are achievable.
• Monitor project portfolios including resource utilization, forecasting, risks, and overall delivery performance.
• Lead issue resolution across cross functional teams while maintaining project momentum.
• Develop project management best practices and promote consistency across the organization.
• Conduct regular coaching sessions, performance reviews, and career development planning for direct reports.
• Foster a collaborative, high performing team culture focused on accountability and customer success.
• Leverage AI enabled tools to improve project planning, communication, reporting, and overall delivery effectiveness.

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience.
• Ten or more years of progressive project or program management experience leading complex enterprise software implementations.
• Five or more years of direct people leadership with responsibility for hiring, coaching, mentoring, performance management, and employee development.
• Demonstrated success leading remote teams.
• Experience managing multiple concurrent implementation projects and customer engagements.
• Strong executive presence with the ability to confidently communicate with senior leadership and customer executives.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Strong analytical, organizational, and problem-solving abilities.
• Experience with Agile, Scrum, Waterfall, or similar project management methodologies.
• PMP, PRINCE2, PMI ACP, or similar project management certification preferred.

Candidates must possess project management experience supporting scientific laboratory environments, including one or more of the following:

• Public Health Laboratories
• Life Sciences
• Laboratory Informatics
• Scientific Software Implementations

Candidates from traditional hospital clinical IT environments without scientific laboratory implementation experience are unlikely to be successful in this role.

• Enterprise software implementation leadership.
• Professional services or consulting environment.
• Lean, Six Sigma, or other continuous improvement methodologies.
• Experience improving implementation efficiency and delivery performance.
• Strong understanding of the financial impact of project execution, including resource utilization and project profitability.
• Experience incorporating AI tools into project management workflows.

The ideal candidate is a proven people leader rather than simply an experienced project manager. Success in this position requires someone who has:

• Direct management experience with performance reviews, coaching, mentoring, and employee development.
• The confidence and executive presence to represent leadership with customers and executive teams.
• A collaborative leadership style that develops others while holding teams accountable.
• A continuous improvement mindset focused on simplifying processes and reducing implementation timelines.
• The ability to balance customer satisfaction with operational excellence.

Approximately 30% travel throughout the United States for customer visits, leadership meetings, and industry events.

Within the first year, the successful candidate will have:

• Strengthened and developed the Project Management team.
• Improved project delivery consistency and customer satisfaction.
• Reduced implementation timelines through process improvements.
• Enhanced project governance,…