Project Manager Senior

Job Summary

Passionate to make a step change in end-user satisfaction AND end-of-period financials?  Interested in engaging Product Management, Distribution, Operations, Finance, and Sourcing in early collaboration?  Join Acuity Brands to lead strategic transformation and impact the future of an exciting enterprise.

Our finance and accounting project management office (PMO) is responsible for fostering a dynamic project environment aligned with our company’s strategy.

The mission of the Project Management Office (PMO) is to provide best-in-class program and project management services to the organization through strong partnerships, robust communication, organization & discipline, and extensive risk management.

As we prepare for some exciting new initiatives, the Acuity Brands Finance and Accounting PMO team has an immediate opening for a Senior Project Manager. The Senior Project Manager role will be responsible for the overall direction, execution, and completion of projects ensuring consistency with company strategy, commitments, and goals. This role offers an exciting opportunity to drive innovation and contribute to the success of our organization.

How you will contribute:

• Collaborate with internal stakeholders to execute on a multi-year transformation roadmap, including end-to-end non-technology-based process improvements.
• Manage projects, provide coaching, and adapt PMO processes to support a rapid change environment in a high growth organization.
• Confidently manage operating rhythms of the department.
• Be a steward and advocate of the PMO by demonstrating a firm understanding of the project delivery process, adhering to the project manager responsibilities through all project stages (including governance and control), and participating in improvements to the process.
• Continue to build, improve, and support PMO tools, resources, and processes.
• Promote the company's business system with particular focus on cross-functional and transactional process improvement.

Key Tasks & Responsibilities (Essential Functions)

• Project Management: Lead and manage high-visibility projects, collaborating with cross-functional teams including Finance, Accounting, Tax/Treasury, IT, and Operations. Lead the specific project planning and coordination from (1) work breakdown, (2) scheduling, (3) risk management, (4) budgeting (resources & expenses), and (5) communications.  Champion needed change management activities.  Responsibilities include (1) defining and gaining alignment on objectives, scope, and structure & (2) execution to acquire results on-time and on-budget.
• Collaboration & Communication: Build lasting relationships based on mutual respect, to engage project team members, and to positively influence others to work collaboratively and achieve goals. Foster strong cross-functional collaboration with our technology-focused counterparts and business leaders to ensure seamless integration of principles and to drive a unified approach. Facilitate discussions, brainstorms, alignment, and conflict management. Adapt communication styles for all levels of the team including executive leadership.
• End-to-End Process Optimization: Streamline and enhance processes by defining goals & objectives, identifying the work, identifying and solving for bottlenecks & inefficiencies, aligning the work with roles and responsibilities, documenting each process step, building in monitoring mechanisms to enable quality assurance, testing and refining, and leveraging technology to further increase productivity.
• Leadership & Business Knowledge: Act as a project leader by demonstrating business acumen, operating autonomously, and demonstrating managerial courage when engaging with senior leaders. Take initiative to drive projects to their objectives.
• Facilitation/ Conflict Management: Facilitate broad meetings or support facilitated workshops to ensure progress and achieve project objectives. When conflict arises, act as a mediator to diffuse tensions among stakeholder groups and identify a resolution. 

• Problem Solving: Ability to identify and structure problems, prioritize issues, develop solutions, plan and conduct work, process information, and place information into a relevant context or framework.
• Change management: Understand, facilitate, and lead change management efforts.
• Standardization:  Lead and/or collaborate on developing and implementing standard work in project management and/or disciplines of the projects.  
• Performance Tracking:  Develop metrics and KPIs to monitor the success and impact of the projects across processes impacted. Regularly assess the service improvements, efficiency gains, and cost savings achieved.    
• Risk Management:  Anticipate and mitigate potential challenges related to service requirements, traceability, data integrity and timely execution. Identify constraints and potential failure points to develop proactive solutions that minimize disruptions.

Skills and Minimum Experience Required

• Bachelor's degree (finance or accounting background preferred).
• 7+ years of project management experience.
• Problem solving and process improvement experience.
• Communication (verbal, written) Experience.   
• Cross-functional Collaboration Experience.
• High degree of proficiency with Microsoft Office tools (e.g., PowerPoint, Excel, Power BI, Power Automate, & Word) and Smartsheet (preferred).

Preferred Skills and Experience

• Finance or accounting degree and/or background preferred.
• Project Management Professional (PMP) certification preferred.
• Continuous Improvement or Lean Six Sigma Belt Certified preferred.

Physical Requirements

Travel Requirements