Senior PMO Specialist

Job Description

APM Terminals

At APM Terminals, a global leader in port and terminal operations, we enable global trade and drive sustainable growth. As part of the A.P. Moller-Maersk Group, we connect economies and communities worldwide. Our success is driven by a strong commitment to LEAN methodologies, embedding continuous improvement into every aspect of our operations. Join us and be part of a team that values excellence, collaboration, and innovation.

We foster a dynamic learning and training culture that empowers our employees to excel. Our commitment to continuous improvement is driven by LEAN principles, ensuring that every team member has the opportunity to develop their skills and advance their careers. Join us to be part of an innovative environment where your growth is our priority, and experience the numerous advantages of being a valued member of our team.

For APM Terminals to succeed in the new global reality, we need to think, act and do things differently than we have before. We need to transform how we work; continue to develop our skillsets, processes and behaviours; and ensure every heart and brain is in the game and with us on this journey. We’ve come a long way on our transformation journey, and now is the time to lift our game to the next level – executing projects with precision, supporting our teammates through change, and unlocking the immense potential within APM Terminals to serve all our stakeholders. Every heart and brain is in the game of winning. The APM Terminals Transformation Office has been established to enable strategy execution across the company – help make sure that the company do the right change projects right. The Senior PMO Specialist helps ensure our most important initiatives are set up to succeed - and that we learn when they’re not.

The Senior PMO Specialist plays a critical role in strengthening the APM Terminals ability to deliver projects and change successfully. The role acts as a cornerstone of the change project execution competence center, ensuring consistent delivery standards, proactive portfolio-level insight, and high-quality governance that protects value during execution. The role acts as a trusted execution advisor, providing independent delivery assurance, coaching, and insight across strategic initiatives - without owning delivery.

The role goes beyond traditional a traditional PMO role. It focuses on enabling confident decision-making, early risk detection, continuous improvement of change project execution capability across the organization. The role sits within the Transformation Office and works closely with Strategy Portfolio Management, the Transformation Leads, the Change Business Owners, the Subject Matter Experts, and the Change Receiving Organizations in general.

This role exists to enable better delivery decisions and outcomes — not to run projects on behalf of the organization.

Key Responsibilities :

> Delivery governance and quality assurance

• Establish, maintain, and continuously improve project and change delivery standards, frameworks, and templates
• Perform independent quality reviews (health checks, gate reviews, deep dives) on projects - definition of done, business cases, scope clarity, timelines, resourcing, financial logic, risks, and change readiness
• Escalate delivery risks and patterns to the Transformation Office leadership and relevant forums
• Support recovery actions - without taking over delivery
• Challenge delivery plans, assumptions, risks, and dependencies to protect value
• Ensure compliance with agreed governance without creating unnecessary bureaucracy

> Management Insights

• Provide integrated portfolio-level insights across cost, progress, risk, capacity, and benefits
• Identify systemic delivery issues, cross-project dependencies, and change saturation risks
• Support portfolio and steering forums with decision-oriented material (not status reporting)
• Track and escalate early warning signals before issues become failures

> Execution capability and coaching

• Act as a trusted sparring partner for senior project and change managers
• Coach project managers/ change leads and business owners in execution, practical delivery disciplines and change leadership
• Support teams in applying fit-for-purpose delivery and change practices
• Facilitate decision-quality improvements (definition of done, clear scope, ownership, trade-offs)
• Support recovery of challenged or high-risk initiatives
• Act as a role model for pragmatic, outcome-focused execution
• Contribute to building a strong, repeatable execution culture

> Standards, methods and continuous improvement

• Maintain and evolve project and change management standards
• Own and evolve the project and change management toolbox (methods, tools, templates)
• Ensure standards are lightweight, usable, and value-adding
• Drive pragmatic adoption of ways of working across business and change projects
• Balance standardization with flexibility based on initiative complexity and risk
• Capture lessons learned from reviews and transformations
• Translate patterns into improvements in frameworks, tools, and training
• Lean-minded: we are looking for someone who brings a strong mindset of continuous improvement – someone who is naturally curious, committed to solving problems at the root, and driven to make things better every day.

> Cross-functional collaboration

• Strategy Office on portfolio management on delivery feasibility and capacity insight
• Value Realization Office on benefit tracking and corrective actions
• Transformation Leads on execution risks and change readiness
• Support leaders in fulfilling their sponsorship and accountability roles
• Business Owners & Change Receiving Organization on adoption and operational readiness
• Finance on cost, forecasting, and benefit logic
• IT / OT on delivery realism, dependencies, and operational stability
• BPM on process integrity and sustainability
• Act as an integrator between governance, execution, and business reality
• Provide transparent, fact-based challenges while maintaining strong relationships.

> Decision rights and authority

• Require project quality checks for in-scope initiatives
• Recommend corrective actions and escalation
• Challenge definition of done. scope, timelines, resourcing, and financial assumptions
• Escalate delivery risks and systemic issues through Transformation Office leadership.

Critical Qualifications:

• We are looking for: 8–12+ years in project / portfolio management/ program/ project management, change management, and transformation delivery
• Proven hands-on experience delivering complex, cross-functional projects in multinational matrix organised companies
• Strong understanding of: Portfolio, project and change management, Portfolio governance, Financial and resource planning, Change adoption and operational readiness
• Delivery frameworks (transformation programs/ projects (agile/ waterfall/ hybrid))
• Risk and dependency management
• Financial awareness (business cases, forecasts)
• Change and adoption principles
• Quality review and assurance techniques.
• Experience in regulated or complex environments is an advantage

Additional Qualifications:

• Executive-level communication and challenge
• Systems thinking and pattern recognition
• Pragmatic judgement over rigid methodology
• Strong facilitation and coaching skills
• Credibility with senior stakeholders
• Bachelor’s degree in business administration, Engineering, Information Systems, Economics, or a related field
• Master’s degree (e.g. MSc, MBA, MPA) is an advantage, particularly with a focus on strategy, transformation, or organizational change

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Maersk is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace, and we embrace different styles of thinking. Maersk is an equal opportunities employer and welcomes applicants without regard to race, colour, gender, sex, age, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, marital status, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy or parental leave, veteran status, gender identity, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with all legal requirements.

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