Key Accountabilities
A) Governance & Operating Model
Establish and maintain the portfolio governance charter that defines decision rights across SMEs, plant leadership, and finance — what can be approved locally versus what requires steering committee sign-off. Own the RACI across the SME network, plants, and finance, and run the recurring steering committee cadence with the VP of Advanced Manufacturing and plant leadership so the portfolio gets discussed and decided, not just reported.
B) Portfolio & Prioritization
Own and continuously maintain the master technology and capital roadmap, consolidating the initiatives coming out of all nine SMEs into one sequenced view by factory and by year. Establish and apply a standard prioritization framework — SQDIP impact, investment tier, and speed-to-value — so initiatives across every SME and factory are compared on the same basis. Own the stage-gate process (Identify → Pilot → Business Case → Deploy → Scale → Sustain) that operationalizes the organization's experiment-deploy-scale philosophy and keeps initiatives from stalling indefinitely at any one gate.
C) Financial & Capital Management
Consolidate the capital plan across all factories and SMEs — committed versus available capital, by site and by year — and partner directly with finance to keep it current. Own the business case template and ROI standard used by every SME so capital requests are comparable and auditable. Track benefits realization after deployment, closing the loop on whether a funded initiative actually delivered the safety, quality, delivery, inventory, or productivity improvement it was funded to deliver.
D) Execution & Delivery Tracking
Maintain the portfolio through modern, purpose-built digital program and project management tools — live visual dashboards, digital action-plan and governance platforms, and AI-assisted meeting-minutes and action-item capture — covering status, spend, schedule, and risk across every active initiative, SME, and factory. Manual spreadsheets are not an acceptable substitute for this: decisions, action items, and status must be current, visible, and easy to update in real time, not buried in a static file that goes stale between updates. Own the RAID log and the escalation path for risks and issues, with particular attention to anything on the critical path of a capital-speed priority. Manage resource and capacity planning across the SME and plant engineering network so competing initiatives don't silently collide over the same scarce plant teams in the same quarter.
E) Standards, Knowledge & Change Management
Build and maintain the template and tools library — charter, business case, stage-gate checklist, status reporting, lessons-learned — used consistently across all nine SMEs, delivered through the same modern digital platforms rather than emailed spreadsheets. Stand up and run the center-of-excellence/lessons-learned repository so a solution piloted at one factory doesn't get silently re-invented at another. Track not just whether a global standard was published, but whether it was actually adopted at each factory.
F) Hands-On Gemba Leadership & Results Delivery
This is not a desk position. Spend the majority of working time directly at the factory sites and with the SMEs — not in a home office building reports — to see firsthand whether governance is translating into real execution. Be equally fluent and comfortable in two very different rooms: the finance conversation, where capital business cases, ROI, and budget trade-offs have to be made credibly and precisely; and the factory floor, where schedulers, engineers, operators, and plant leadership have to trust that this role understands their reality, not just their status reports. Personally lead the resolution of the highest-priority portfolio-level blockers (funding gaps, resource conflicts, stalled gates) with a visible sense of urgency, acting as a leader of leaders across a network of SMEs and plant leaders who do not report to this role, and hold self and others accountable for converting the roadmap into funded, executing, benefit-delivering initiatives, not a well-organized backlog.
Winning Behaviors
This role must model and embed Johnson Controls' Winning Behaviors as the “how”:
We Focus on What Matters — We align our teams around customer needs and opportunities identified at Gemba, set clear priorities that deliver the most value, and enable data-informed decisions closest to where the work happens.
We Win as One Team — We seek and bring together different perspectives, connect teams across the value stream to achieve shared goals, address challenges constructively, promote collaboration and enable ownership closest to the customer.
We Own the Outcome — We hold our teams accountable, take ownership for team results, drive clear and consistent execution, and build systems that enable sustained performance, always prioritizing safety and integrity.
We Improve Everyday — We create an environment where problems are surfaced transparently, “red” is embraced as an opportunity to improve, root causes are sustainably addressed, and teams rapidly learn, experiment, adapt, innovate, and grow.
Key Leadership Attributes
A. Critical thinking. Ability to process and evaluate information, challenge assumptions, deal with complexity, and make logically sound judgments about prioritization and trade-offs, especially under ambiguity.
B. Strategic and systems thinking. Ability to see across the full portfolio — nine SMEs, multiple factories, finite capital and capacity — and anticipate how a decision in one area affects delivery in another. Ability to connect individual initiative decisions to the organization's longer-term capacity, cost, and capability strategy.
C. Learning agility & adaptability. Ability and willingness to learn quickly across nine unfamiliar technical domains without needing to become a subject-matter expert in any of them. Curiosity to understand enough of each SME's world to govern it credibly.
D. Drive & achievement orientation. High internal standard for portfolio discipline and an unmistakable sense of urgency; not satisfied with a well-organized backlog, but driven to convert roadmaps into funded, executing, benefit-delivering initiatives.
E. Resilience. Ability to remain calm, confident, and composed when competing priorities, capital constraints, or a stalled initiative create pressure from multiple directions at once. Ability to sustain credibility with nine SMEs and plant leadership over time.
F. Interpersonal awareness, influence without authority, and leadership of leaders. Ability to read SME, plant, and finance stakeholders and understand their constraints. Natural inclination to build trust, persuade, and hold accountable a network of technical experts and plant leaders who do not report to this role — acting as a leader of leaders rather than a traditional line manager.
G. Disciplined and conscientious. Natural tendency toward rigor, structure, and follow-through in governance, financial tracking, and reporting. Internal bar for accuracy and completeness in a portfolio that spans multiple currencies, sites, and technical domains.
H. Leadership courage. Confidence and conviction to say no to a poorly justified capital request, to escalate a stalled or at-risk initiative clearly, and to hold a well-liked SME or plant leader accountable to the governance model.
I. Humility. Ability to place the portfolio's success above personal authorship of any one framework or process; inclined to adapt the governance model based on what SMEs and plants actually need, and to recognize that the best process improvements often come from the people using it daily.
J. Bias for action & hands-on presence. Genuine preference for being with SMEs and at the plants over running the portfolio purely from dashboards and status decks. Comfort working directly alongside technical experts and plant leadership to unblock a stalled initiative. Ability to move fast — piloting a governance process quickly, learning from what breaks, and refining it rather than waiting for a perfect framework before rolling it out.
Knowledge & Experience
Required
Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Business, or a related field; PMP or equivalent program/project management certification
12+ years of progressive experience in program or portfolio management, ideally within manufacturing, industrial, or other capital-intensive operations
Demonstrated experience building and running a PMO or portfolio governance function from the ground up, not just operating within an existing one
Experience managing multi-million dollar capital portfolios across multiple sites or geographies
Experience designing and driving adoption of a stage-gate or prioritization framework across technical and engineering stakeholders who do not report to the role
Track record of hands-on engagement with technical teams and plant leadership, not just producing reports from a distance; this is explicitly not a desk-bound or office-based role, and success requires regular, direct presence at the factory sites
Demonstrated fluency operating comfortably in both finance conversations (capital business cases, ROI, budget trade-offs) and factory-floor conversations (with schedulers, engineers, operators, and plant leadership) — equally credible in both worlds
Experience running a PMO through modern, purpose-built digital program/project management platforms and live visual dashboards — not manual spreadsheet-based tracking — including digital action-plan and governance tools and AI-assisted meeting-minutes/action-item capture
Experience partnering directly with finance on capital planning, business cases, and benefits realization tracking
Willingness and ability to travel internationally (approximately 30–50%) across the US and Mexico plant network
Strongly Preferred
PgMP or PfMP (program or portfolio management) certification in addition to PMP
Experience specifically in advanced manufacturing, automotive, HVAC, or other complex engineer-to-order/high-mix manufacturing environments
Direct experience with modern PPM and digital governance tools (e.g., Planview, Smartsheet, Monday.com, Asana, Jira/Confluence) and BI/visual dashboard tools (e.g., Power BI, Tableau), and with AI-assisted meeting-capture/action-tracking tools (e.g., Microsoft Copilot, Otter.ai, Fireflies.ai) as a replacement for manual, spreadsheet-based governance
Lean or Six Sigma certification, or equivalent operational excellence experience
Prior experience standing up a PMO in a global, multi-country organization
Bilingual English/Spanish, given the US-Mexico plant footprint
Core Knowledge Expectations
Portfolio and program management methodologies (stage-gate, hybrid-Agile, PMI standards)
Capital planning and business case/ROI methodology (payback, IRR/NPV fundamentals)
Financial acumen sufficient to partner credibly with finance on capital versus operating expense decisions
Change management and adoption frameworks for rolling out standards across a diverse, technical stakeholder base
Risk management methodology (RAID logs, escalation frameworks)
Modern digital PMO tooling: purpose-built program/project management platforms, live visual dashboards, digital action-plan and governance systems, and AI-assisted meeting-minutes and action-tracking tools — used in place of manual spreadsheets
Data and dashboard tools for portfolio-level reporting
Ability to operate as a credible peer to technical SMEs without needing to master their individual technical domains
Success Measures
12-Month Expectations for Success (Role Scorecard — Year 1)
Portfolio governance charter, RACI, and steering committee cadence established and operating with the VP of Advanced Manufacturing and plant leadership
Master technology and capital roadmap consolidated across all nine SMEs and published
Standard prioritization framework and stage-gate process defined and piloted on 2–3 initiatives
Business case template and ROI standard adopted by all nine SMEs
Portfolio dashboard live with real project, spend, and status data across the network, running on a modern digital PMO platform rather than manually maintained spreadsheets
Trusted working relationships established with all nine SMEs, plant leadership, and finance
Majority of working time demonstrably spent directly at the factory sites and with SMEs, not solely in steering committee meetings or building reports — with visible, regular time also spent directly with finance
24-Month Expectations for Success (Role Scorecard — Year 2)
Full portfolio governance operating rhythm sustained and adopted enterprise-wide across all factories, running entirely on modern digital PMO tools with no reliance on manually maintained spreadsheets
Consolidated capital plan actively driving budget decisions, not just tracking them after the fact
Stage-gate process fully embedded, with measurable improvement in on-time and on-budget delivery of technology initiatives
Benefits realization tracking shows actual delivered ROI against projected ROI for completed initiatives
Center-of-excellence/lessons-learned repository actively used, with at least one documented case of avoiding a duplicate pilot across factories
Recognized as the trusted, go-to function for portfolio visibility and capital prioritization decisions at the VP level
HIRING SALARY RANGE: $112,100.00 - $187,100.00 USD Annual (Salary to be determined by the education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities of the applicant, internal equity, and alignment with market data.) This position includes a competitive benefits package. The posted salary range reflects the target compensation for this role. However, we recognize that exceptional candidates may bring unique skills and experiences that exceed the typical profile. If you believe your background warrants consideration beyond the stated range, we encourage you to apply. To support an efficient and fair hiring process, we may use technology assisted tools, including artificial intelligence (AI), to help identify and evaluate candidates. All hiring decisions are ultimately made by human reviewers. For details, please visit the About Us tab on the Johnson Controls Careers site at https://jobs.johnsoncontrols.com/about-us
Johnson Controls International plc. is an equal employment opportunity and affirmative action employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, protected veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a qualified individual with a disability or any other characteristic protected by law. To view more information about your equal opportunity and non-discrimination rights as a candidate, visit EEO is the Law. If you are an individual with a disability and you require an accommodation during the application process, please visit here.
