Head of PMO

Description

Position Overview: The Head of PMO will be a strategic enabler in driving the success of key initiatives across LegalZoom. This role requires a seasoned leader with extensive experience managing complex programs, collaborating with stakeholders, and navigating a dynamic, fast-paced environment. The ideal candidate will have a proven track record of building, growing, and developing a PMO that enables the organization to execute its strategic and operational initiatives with discipline, transparency, and efficiency. This role ensures technical governance of the enterprise portfolio, drives standardization of project management practices, and leverages data-driven insights for executive decision-making. The Head of PMO will provide the guardrails, insights, and cultural leadership that allow teams to deliver continuously, reliably, and at scale, ensuring projects predictably deliver measurable business value.

Key Responsibilities:

• Portfolio & Governance
• Define and implement enterprise portfolio management frameworks to align projects, programs, and initiatives with continuous delivery of LegalZoom’s strategic business and customer objectives.
• Enable and support teams by leading steering committees, providing guardrails and clarity, and data-driven insights.
• Establish portfolio prioritization models to optimize investments against capacity and business outcomes.
• Define enterprise-level project classification (strategic, regulatory, operational, digital, etc.) and ensure appropriate delivery approaches.

• Methodology & Standards
• Work with leaders to bring governance and accountability without creating unnecessary hurdles and processes, and find the balance between standardized and speed to delivery. Maintain the PMO Playbook, ensuring consistent processes for planning, execution, risk, dependency, and benefits management.
• Foster implementation of continuous improvement processes, incorporating lessons learned and industry best practices.
• Maintain a detailed program roadmap that aligns with LegalZoom’s overall business objectives.

• Tools & Technology
• Own the enterprise project management toolset (e.g., Jira, Clickup, Google Sheets).
• Define data models, dashboards, and reporting standards to provide real-time portfolio visibility.

• Cultural and Change Leadership
• Champion a culture of collaboration, learning, and continuous improvement across business, operations and engineering teams.
• Foster collaboration, blameless retrospectives, and psychological safety with cross-functional teams.

• Performance Management
• Define and manage portfolio KPIs around finances and resource utilization (e.g., delivery predictability, earned value, resource utilization, benefits realization), as well as ones related to technical outcomes and team health (DORA / SPACE metrics).
• Develop and maintain executive-level dashboards, ensuring data integrity and actionable insights.
• Support teams in understanding and meeting goals for budget, forecast, and resource capacity management.
• Develop capability frameworks and maturity assessments to benchmark PMO effectiveness.
• Coach project managers and program leads on advanced delivery techniques, financial management, and stakeholder engagement.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Program Management, or a related field; MBA or advanced degree preferred. PMP, Scrum, or Agile certification is highly desirable.
• 12+ years in project/program/portfolio management, with at least 5 years in a senior PMO leadership role in a complex enterprise environment.
• Demonstrated success in implementing enterprise PMO maturity improvements (CMMI, P3M3, OPM3 preferred).
• Strong technical knowledge of PPM tools and data visualization/reporting platforms.
• Possess a strong technical foundation, including hands-on experience in software development or engineering.
• Possess deep technical fluency, with demonstrated ability to understand code, system architectures, and DevOps practices — sufficient to engage with engineers and guide informed trade-off decisions.
• Proven ability to manage complex, cross-functional programs with multiple stakeholders at the VP and C-Suite level.
• Expertise in program management tools and methodologies (e.g., Asana, Trello, Jira).
• Familiarity with modern DevOps tooling (e.g., DataDog, Github Actions, CI/CD practices) and Cloud Infrastructure (AWS, Kubernetes, API Gateways, etc.)
• Exceptional communication, leadership, and organizational skills.
• High EQ, with the ability to guide teams iteratively from where they are (often with good reason) towards best practices.
• Expertise in portfolio management frameworks, project governance, and assurance methodologies.