Project Manager - Product and Portfolio Innovation - 6-18 Month Contract

Reports to: Global Head of Product & Portfolio / N.America Head of Marketing (dotted)

Location: Hybrid - 2-3 days a week onsite in Hackensack, NJ with huttle available from NYC

Duration: 6-18 months contract 

About the Role

This role exists to build and embed a fit-for-purpose PMO capability for the North America (NA) business, enabling disciplined execution of innovation and portfolio priorities at pace and with quality. 

As Flora Food Group continues to scale consumer-led innovation across regions, the NA business requires stronger orchestration across Marketing, R&D, Supply Chain, Finance and Operations. The Senior PMO Manager acts as a foundational builder of this capability: setting up robust ways of working, driving executional discipline, and ensuring projects land on time, in full, and with clear accountability. 

This role is critical to reducing execution risk, improving speed-to-market, and freeing up functional leaders to focus on content and decision-making rather than coordination. 

What You'll Do

Operating at the intersection of strategy and execution, you will: 

• Establish a N. America PMO operating model aligned to global P&P / PMO standards, while tailored to local business realities. 
• Bring consistency, transparency and rigor to how innovation and portfolio initiatives are planned, governed and delivered, and act as the single point of truth for execution status, risks and delivery confidence across the NA innovation and portfolio agenda. 
• Act as the executional backbone for priority initiatives, ensuring cross-functional teams deliver against clear timelines, milestones and decision gates. 
• Improve delivery confidence, resource visibility and decision quality across the NA portfolio.  

PMO set-up & governance 

• Design and implement a North America PMO framework, as a first step to establishing global Product & Portfolio Management Office standards. 
• Embed common ways of working across innovation and portfolio initiatives, including timelines, milestones, gatekeeping and execution tracking. 
• Optimise governance cadences (weekly drumbeats, monthly gate reviews, escalation forums) with clear roles, inputs and outputs. 
• Ensure high-quality data, discipline and follow-through in portfolio & project management systems. 

End-to-end project & activity management 

• Own the planning and orchestration of priority innovation and portfolio initiatives from early-stage (G0) through to post-launch (G5).  In time this will also include Value Creation / Savings initiatives. 
• Build integrated project timelines based on briefs, commercial trade windows and lead times. 
• Define critical paths, dependencies and resource requirements across functions and projects. 
• Proactively surface risks, delays, and trade-offs; drive mitigation and escalation at the right level. 
• Lead structured weekly project drumbeats, ensuring clear actions, owners, and accountability. 

Cross-functional leadership & execution excellence 

• Act as the central coordination point across Marketing, R&D, Supply Chain (including P&I and T&I teams), Quality, Finance, Procurement and Operations. 
• Hold teams accountable for inputs and deliverables (e.g., technical briefs, business cases, system data, readiness milestones). 
• Support preparation of governance forums and senior leadership updates with clear, decision-ready materials. 
• Drive continuous improvement of execution practices, lead times, and delivery performance. 

Capability building 

• Help build the NA PMO / Activity Management capability over time, including a team, templates, playbooks, and best practices, as the NA hub scales. 
• Act as a role model for execution discipline, pragmatic problem-solving, and collaborative leadership. 

What this role is (and is not) 

• You are accountable for execution and orchestration, not for project content ownership. 
• Project leadership and strategic direction remain with Marketing / Business leads; this role ensures the work lands. 
• You simplify and enable — not add bureaucracy. 

About You 

You combine strong project management fundamentals with the confidence to operate in complex, cross-functional FMCG environments. You are comfortable building structure where it does not yet exist, and you bring calm, clarity, and momentum to ambiguous situations. 

• 8–12+ years experience in project, program, or PMO roles within FMCG / CPG or similarly complex environments REQUIRED
• Experience acting as owner of PMO data quality, reporting cadence, and execution dashboards in enterprise environments. 
• Proven experience setting up or scaling PMO / project management structures. 
• Hands-on experience managing end-to-end innovation, transformation, or portfolio initiatives. 
• Strong understanding of stage-gate models, innovation lifecycles, and launch readiness. 
• Experience in influencing senior stakeholders without direct authority. 
• Preferred, but not required: PMP, PRINCE2, Agile / SAFe certification  

Critical Capabilities 

• Strong systems thinker with the ability to design simple, scalable ways of working. 
• Excellent planning, prioritization, and execution discipline. 
• Confident facilitator and communicator across senior and cross-functional stakeholders. 
• High accountability mindset; comfortable holding others to commitments. 
• Pragmatic, solution-oriented, and resilient under pressure. 

Ways of Working 

• Biased toward action, clarity, and simplification. 
• Comfortable moving between helicopter view and operational detail. 
• Energised by building capability and enabling others to succeed. 
• Values transparency, follow-through, and continuous improvement. 

What’s next 

If this position sounds interesting, please hit the apply button now!

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