Executive Director of Portfolio & Execution

Job Description
Join Employee Platforms as an Executive Director, Portfolio & Execution within the central Engineering & Architecture (E&A) function. This role reports solid line to the Head of Engineering & Architecture (E&A) and serves as the primary leader for portfolio governance, execution transparency, and operating cadence across E&A.

You will partner with the Head of E&A and E&A senior leaders, including the Head of Engineering, the Head of Architecture, E&A domain leaders (core engineering, data architecture, AI architecture, architecture governance), and dotted-line Chief Architects across Employee Platforms towers. You will help these leaders organize strategy into coherent programs and then drive and monitor their books of work through disciplined planning, metrics, governance, and executive-ready reporting.

Job Responsibilities

Own the integrated E&A portfolio, translating strategy into roadmaps, annual priorities, quarterly OKRs, milestones, dependencies, benefits, and risks.
Run the E&A operating cadence, including portfolio and delivery health reviews, dependency and risk management, escalations, and decision governance.
Produce executive-ready reporting on progress, outcomes, risks, and decisions, maintaining a single source of truth across E&A.
Standardize how E&A strategies become executable programs with clear outcomes, success measures, delivery plans, and governance checkpoints.
Engineering excellence (DORA): Partner with Core Engineering and enablement teams to define outcomes, standardize metrics and instrumentation, govern performance reviews, and report progress and corrective actions without owning daily execution.
Engineering Communities of Practice: Partner with delivery teams to define success measures for adoption, engagement, reuse, productivity, and quality, and report outcomes through E&A governance.
Architecture direction and governance: Partner with the Head of Architecture and Chief Architects to organize direction, roadmaps, reference patterns, and governance that increase reuse, improve consistency, and reduce fragmentation, with transparent adoption and outcomes.
Reduce duplication and waste by identifying overlaps, sequencing rationalization decisions, tracking reuse and consolidation, and reporting realized benefits.
AI-enabled ways of working: Help leaders plan, sequence, and measure responsible AI adoption in engineering and architecture workflows, partnering with control and risk stakeholders as needed.
Manage firmwide initiatives affecting Employee Platforms Engineering and Architecture, such as post-quantum encryption readiness.

Required Qualifications, Capabilities, and Skills

10+ years of experience in portfolio/program leadership, strategy & execution/COO, transformation, operating model, or governance roles in a large, complex technology organization.
Demonstrated ability to design and run outcome-based governance and operating cadences (OKRs/KPIs), including dependency management, issue/risk management, decision tracking, and executive reporting.
Metrics-driven management capability, including the ability to define measurable outcomes, standardize metric definitions, ensure instrumentation, and drive actions based on results.
Working fluency in modern engineering delivery practices and enterprise architecture concepts, sufficient to partner credibly with senior engineering and architecture leaders.
DORA literacy, including the ability to operationalize DORA metrics within governance and reporting, and to drive action-oriented performance reviews.
Strong executive communication skills, including concise written materials and the ability to synthesize complex initiatives into clear plans and decision-ready options.
Influence and collaboration skills to drive alignment and outcomes across a matrixed organization without direct authority.
Basic AI skills (working fluency): AI evaluation literacy, effective collaboration with technical SMEs, practical prompting for drafting/synthesis/analysis, and responsible AI awareness to support safe adoption in partnership with control and risk stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications, Capabilities, and Skills

Experience operating in regulated enterprises with strong control, risk, and governance expectations.
Experience establishing and scaling governance cadences across engineering and architecture portfolios with measurable outcomes.
Experience driving portfolio rationalization, reuse, simplification, and benefits realization reporting across complex technology estates.
Familiarity with practical AI governance concepts (e.g., appropriate use, access controls, auditability, and transparency) as they relate to AI-enabled ways of working in engineering and architecture.