Senior Project Manager

Role description

Our client, based in Limerick, is seeking an experienced Senior Project Manager to lead the next stage of its project management maturity and capability development. This is a unique opportunity to shape and embed a consistent project management operating model across a growing organisation while playing a hands-on role in the successful delivery of strategic projects and programmes. Working closely with senior leadership, the successful candidate will drive organisational change, strengthen project governance, improve portfolio visibility and resource planning, and help build a culture of accountability, consistency and project delivery excellence.

The role combines strategic leadership with practical execution and will suit an individual who enjoys building structures, influencing change, developing capability across teams and delivering tangible business outcomes.

Key responsibilities

Project management operating model, structure and leadership

• Engage with senior stakeholders to understand current project management practices, gaps and requirements.
• Design, implement and embed a consistent project management operating model, methodology and governance approach, including standardised templates, processes, information management standards and reporting structures.
• Lead the organisational change required to implement and embed the operating model, including stakeholder engagement, communications, training, coaching and reinforcement of new ways of working.
• Build project management capability, consistency and accountability through mentoring and coaching of project teams.
• Champion improved project governance and provide senior leadership with clear updates on progress in embedding the operating model.

Hands-on project delivery

• Own the end-to-end delivery of assigned projects and programmes, ensuring delivery on time, within scope and budget.
• Develop and maintain project plans, schedules and controls, providing clear reporting on milestones, deliverables, financial performance, risks, issues and actions.
• Monitor financial and commercial performance, including budgets, forecasts, costs, revenue, profitability and resource effort, identifying variances and agreeing corrective actions.
• Proactively challenge project teams on progress and performance, identify the root causes of slippage or underperformance, and agree practical corrective actions.
• Communicate project performance, delays and emerging risks clearly and promptly, facilitating timely decisions and maintaining stakeholder alignment.
• Maintain accurate, accessible and well-organised project information using agreed SharePoint workspaces, documentation standards, dashboards and version-control practices.
• Coordinate project governance, meetings, actions and communications, ensuring effective oversight and follow-through.

Portfolio planning, prioritisation and resource management

• Support senior leadership in planning, prioritising and overseeing the organisation's project portfolio in line with strategic and commercial objectives.
• Maintain visibility of project demand, resource capacity and utilisation, identifying potential constraints, conflicts and resourcing gaps.
• Provide clear portfolio-level insight into project status, priorities, dependencies, risks, financial performance and resource utilisation to support informed decisions.
• Work with project sponsors, functional managers and project leads to support effective resource allocation, workload balancing and cross-project prioritisation.

Qualifications and experience

• An Honours Bachelor's or Master's degree in a relevant Business, Engineering or Scientific discipline.
• A minimum of 7 years' project management experience across a range of industries, supporting projects with multiple stakeholders, competing priorities and defined timelines and budgets.
• Experience designing, implementing or improving project management operating models, methodologies, templates or governance structures.
• Experience of portfolio planning, resource and capacity management, project prioritisation and portfolio-level reporting.
• Strong project financial management experience, including budgeting, forecasting, cost control, revenue or profitability tracking and management reporting.
• Experience implementing organisational process improvements and driving adoption of new standards, processes or ways of working.
• Experience managing research, innovation or publicly funded programmes would be an advantage.
• Experience in Marketing would be an advantage, given the marketing element present in some projects.

Required skills and competencies

• A proactive and experienced project management professional who can establish structure, drive accountability, challenge constructively and ensure projects progress to plan.
• Strong senior stakeholder management, communication and influencing skills.
• Strong portfolio, financial and commercial management capability.
• Ability to identify risks and root causes and work with teams to implement practical mitigations.
• Experience using project management information systems, dashboards and SharePoint-based project environments.
• Ability to coach project teams and build capability across the organisation.
• Excellent organisation, planning and attention to detail, with the ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Confident working independently while collaborating effectively across teams and functions, with a strong sense of ownership and accountability.
• High proficiency in Microsoft 365 applications, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint and Teams.

Employment type and travel

• One-year contract, reflecting the scope of establishing and embedding the project management operating model.
• The successful candidate must be open to occasional travel.

Location: Limerick, Ireland - On Site