Sr Director, Office of Program Management

The Senior Director, Office of Program Management establishes and leads Fortem’s Office of Program Management (OPM), providing ownership of the company’s program and project management function. This leader is directly responsible for the health, performance, and ongoing maturation of management practices across all of Fortem’s strategic programs and projects—from the most complex, high-value government and defense programs down through discrete customer and internal projects.

Reporting to the COO, the principal serves as the primary interface between the OPM and company leadership, customers, and government counterparts.

Key Responsibilities

• Stand up and lead the Office of Program Management; define structure, governance, roles, tiering, and operating rhythm across the full PM organization, including clear accountability distinctions between Project Manager, Program Manager, and Senior Program Manager tiers.
• Maintain executive-level visibility across all programs and projects; own portfolio-level cost, schedule, performance, and risk, and ensure consistent intake, prioritization, and resource allocation.
• Establish and continuously improve PM methodologies, intake processes, governance structures, templates, metrics, review cadences, and lessons-learned practices; ensure the PM operating model scales with Fortem’s growth and the increasing complexity of its domestic and international programs.
• Retain direct ownership of the most complex or highest-priority programs as needed; serve as the senior customer and executive interface for those efforts, and lead major program reviews, recovery discussions, and priority and commitment decisions.
• Hire, mentor, and develop a high-performing PM organization; build bench strength across all PM tiers and improve planning quality, accountability, risk discipline, customer communication, and executive reporting across the team.
• Partner with Engineering, Product, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Finance, Contracts, Business Development, Professional Services, and Customer Success to drive integrated execution; translate customer requirements and strategic objectives into executable program structures, integrated schedules, resource plans, decision frameworks, and measurable outcomes.
• Provide senior customer interface and executive communication; support and strengthen executive and customer decision-making with clear, actionable program visibility.
• Shape executable SOWs, proposals, ROMs, staffing plans, schedules, delivery assumptions, and bid/no-bid or commitment decisions; inform capture strategy from a program execution standpoint and ensure proposed commitments are achievable.
• Own portfolio-level budget and forecast visibility, margin awareness, variance analysis, resource demand planning, and recovery actions.
• Ability to travel domestically and internationally to meet programmatic needs and requirements.