PMO Manager in London

Join Starr, a global leader in commercial insurance with over a century of expertise. We empower our employees to innovate, make impactful decisions, and build lasting client relationships worldwide. At Starr, you’ll work in an entrepreneurial culture alongside accessible leaders, leveraging our financial strength and vast industry experience to deliver solutions for our clients, no matter how complex. Grow your career with a rapidly growing company that invests in its people and their ability to drive real progress.

Role Purpose

The role sits within the Change function at Starr, supporting delivery of the IQUW integration and the wider enterprise transformation portfolio through strong governance, prioritisation and disciplined execution. Starr is going through an intense period of change; this role exists to strengthen internal PMO capability, reduce reliance on external support, and ensure the change portfolio is governed, controlled and delivered effectively.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide deputy leadership to the Head of Change, supporting day-to-day operational management of the Change team and enabling effective decision-making across the portfolio;
• Establish and run a consistent PMO framework for the change portfolio, delivering:
• Portfolio governance, prioritisation and assurance to ensure initiatives are controlled, on track and aligned to strategic outcomes;
• Regular, high-quality reporting to senior management and stakeholders, providing clear visibility of progress, risks, dependencies, budget and resource demand/capacity;
• Active monitoring and management of delivery plans, milestones, RAID, interdependencies and benefits tracking across integration and transformation initiatives;
• Effective resource management across projects (forecasting, allocation, utilisation and constraints), supporting the Change leadership team to make trade-off decisions;
• Strong partnership with 2nd and 3rd line functions (Risk, Compliance and Internal Audit) to evidence that change is appropriately governed, controlled and effective.
• Transition of governance, tooling and knowledge from PwC into the internal Change team, reducing external dependency while retaining best practice.
• Build PMO capability, including coaching and developing junior team members and continuously improving templates, standards and ways of working.
• Align local portfolio governance, reporting and delivery controls with the global Starr enterprise PMO framework and processes, ensuring consistent standards, artefacts and reporting cadence in support of strategic prioritisation.

Qualifications, skills and experience

This role requires a senior PMO professional with the capability to lead portfolio governance in a complex, regulated environment and to support delivery of an enterprise change agenda, including M&A integration activity.

Essential

• Significant experience in a PMO / Portfolio Office leadership role, running governance, controls and reporting across multiple concurrent projects and workstreams.
• Proven track record supporting delivery of complex change in a regulated environment (e.g., financial services/insurance), with strong understanding of risk and control requirements.
• Demonstrable experience establishing and maintaining portfolio governance: steering forums, RAID management, dependency management, stage gates, and quality assurance of project artefacts.
• Strong portfolio reporting capability, producing clear executive-level packs and dashboards that enable prioritisation decisions and provide transparency on progress, risks, budget and benefits.
• Resource and demand management expertise (capacity planning, forecasting, allocation and utilisation) across a portfolio, with the confidence to surface constraints and recommend trade-offs.
• Experience partnering with 2nd and 3rd line functions (Risk/Compliance/Internal Audit) to evidence that change delivery is controlled, well-documented and operating effectively.
• Ability to align local PMO governance and reporting to a wider enterprise PMO framework and processes, including consistent standards, artefacts and cadence.
• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills, able to challenge constructively and drive actions through senior leadership and delivery teams.
• Advanced working knowledge of common PMO tools and Microsoft 365 (e.g., Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, Teams), with experience using project/portfolio tooling (e.g., MS Project, Planview, Clarity, Jira/Confluence, Smartsheet or equivalent).

Desirable

• M&A integration experience, including operating model/process integration, technology change, and governance across multiple workstreams.
• Experience transitioning PMO capability from external advisers/consultancies into an internal team, with a focus on knowledge retention and sustainable ways of working.
• People leadership and coaching experience, including building PMO capability and mentoring junior team members.
• Professional certification (or working towards) such as MSP, PRINCE2 Practitioner, PMP, APM PMQ/PPQ, AgilePM, SAFe, or equivalent.
• Exposure to portfolio data visualisation and automation (e.g., Power BI), and improving reporting efficiency and insight.

Starr is an equal opportunity employer, which means we’ll consider all suitably qualified applicants regardless of gender identity or expression, ethnic origin, nationality, religion or beliefs, age, sexual orientation, disability status or any other protected characteristic. We recruit and develop our people based on merit and we’re committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We offer first class training and development opportunities to all employees. Our aim is to grow our own talent and bring out the best in people.