Senior Portfolio Lead - Commercial & Finance

ID: 60028 9 - 12 Years 1 Opening Hyderabad

Role description

Senior Portfolio Lead / Portfolio LeadRole Overview

The Senior Portfolio Lead / Portfolio Lead is a senior contract-to-hire role accountable for the strategic, operational, financial, and governance health of an assigned divisional or functional portfolio. The role operates as the trusted deputy and continuity lead for portfolio operations to the assigned Divisional or Functional IT Leader.

Each Portfolio Lead is expected to help govern a portfolio typically worth USD 15M-25M, support IT CapEx and OpEx portfolio management, lead and/or matrix-manage a broad team of Project Managers and Program Managers, and participate in senior leadership reviews with clear facts, risks, decisions, and recommendations.

Position Details

Item

Description

Role title

Senior Portfolio Lead / Portfolio Lead - [Assigned Portfolio]

Employment model

Contract-to-hire

Seniority

Strong Band 8 equivalent

Primary location

India preferred, Hyderabad / India CoE aligned

Working model

Hybrid/remote depending business need; US/EU overlap required

Leadership scope

Leads and/or matrix-manages a team of Project Managers, Program Managers, analysts, vendors, and delivery contributors across the portfolio

Travel

Limited travel may be required for leadership reviews, site engagement, portfolio workshops, or major program recovery

Role Purpose

This role converts strategy and AOP commitments into an executable, financially governed, value-oriented portfolio. The Portfolio Lead protects senior IT leadership bandwidth by running the portfolio operating rhythm, preparing decision-ready materials, managing financial and delivery control points, and ensuring that leadership reviews are focused on decisions rather than status narration.

Key Responsibilities

Portfolio strategy and AOP alignment: Maintain a clear view of approved AOP scope, active delivery, carryovers, deferred work, walk-ins, unfunded demand, and portfolio priorities.

Trusted deputy and continuity leadership: Operate as the portfolio operations right-hand to the assigned IT leader. Keep governance, stakeholder communication, risk visibility, and decision preparation moving even when the leader is unavailable.

Senior leadership reviews: Prepare and participate in senior leadership reviews with concise narrative, portfolio health, financials, key risks, decisions required, and recommended actions.

Financial stewardship: Assist Divisional or Functional IT Leaders in managing IT CapEx and OpEx portfolios, including budget, forecast, actuals, variance, AR/CAR status, funding source, and rest-of-year outlook.

Portfolio governance: Run monthly/quarterly portfolio governance cadence, maintain decision/action logs, enforce portfolio hygiene, and ensure portfolio data is leadership-ready.

Delivery oversight: Track project/program health, schedule risk, scope change, dependency conflicts, resource constraints, vendor delivery, and recovery plans across the portfolio.

Team leadership: Lead and/or matrix-manage a large team of PMs and PgMs assigned to the portfolio. Set expectations, review delivery quality, unblock escalations, and coach PMs on executive-ready delivery discipline.

Business case and AR quality: Challenge incomplete business cases, weak benefit logic, unsupported financial assumptions, missing sponsors, unclear risk statements, and late AR submissions before they reach senior forums.

Prioritization and trade-offs: Make resource, funding, and sequencing trade-offs visible. Present options and consequences rather than accepting every walk-in demand.

Value realization: Ensure material initiatives define business value, benefit owners, success metrics, adoption needs, and post-implementation validation approach.

Stakeholder management: Build trusted relationships with divisional/function IT leaders, PMO leadership, business sponsors, Finance, Engineering, Procurement, Quality/Regulatory, site leaders, vendors, and PM teams.

Data discipline: Use IT Planview, Engineering Planview, AOP/Smartsheet, ServiceNow, Excel, Power BI, and other systems to build a credible source of truth for portfolio discussions.

Required Experience

10+ years of experience across portfolio management, program management, PMO leadership, technology delivery, or business transformation.

Demonstrated ability to govern USD 15M-25M technology or transformation portfolios, preferably across multiple programs and project teams.

Strong experience managing CapEx, OpEx, budget, actuals, forecast, variance, funding approvals, business cases, AR/CAR processes, and benefits tracking.

Experience leading or matrix-managing multiple PMs/PgMs across complex delivery portfolios.

Experience preparing executive-ready portfolio reports, senior leadership review materials, decision memos, and recovery plans.

Strong stakeholder management in global, matrixed organizations. Must be able to influence senior leaders without direct authority.

Experience with portfolio systems such as Planview, Clarity, Smartsheet, ServiceNow, Jira, Power BI, or equivalent tools.

Life sciences, pharma, manufacturing, supply chain, clinical, quality/regulatory, or similarly controlled industry experience preferred.

Required Skills

Executive communication and storytelling with data.

Advanced Excel, PowerPoint, and portfolio dashboarding capability.

Financial analysis and portfolio variance explanation.

AOP planning, portfolio prioritization, and demand trade-off analysis.

Project/program delivery governance across waterfall, agile, and hybrid methods.

Risk, dependency, issue, and escalation management.

PM coaching, vendor coordination, and cross-functional leadership.

Ability to work through imperfect data without creating false precision.

Skills

project management,capex,cross functional,portfolio management system,program management,power bi,servicenow,

About UST

UST is a global digital transformation solutions provider. For more than 20 years, UST has worked side by side with the world’s best companies to make a real impact through transformation. Powered by technology, inspired by people and led by purpose, UST partners with their clients from design to operation. With deep domain expertise and a future-proof philosophy, UST embeds innovation and agility into their clients’ organizations. With over 30,000 employees in 30 countries, UST builds for boundless impact—touching billions of lives in the process.