Portfolio Project Lead

The Hudson Group c700 employees is a rapidly growing international sport and fashion retailer and distributor with a focus on Southern Europe and Africa. Hudson projects to have a total retail network of 60 stores by the end of 2021. It’s Head office is in Malta with subsidiary offices in Morocco, Algeria, Italy, Nigeria and Cyprus. A main contributor to Hudson’s success is the solid-working relationships it developed over the years with several leading international brands, who through Hudson, have tapped into new markets and built success in various parts of the Mediterranean and Africa. Hudson recently acquired Trilogy group to bring Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein under Hudson distribution leadership. Brands currently represented; Nike, Converse, Columbia, Timberland, Vans, Intersport, Crocs, Eastpak, North Face, Ted Baker, Armani, Missguided, New Look,

At Hudson we are proud to have built a culture that serves our customers wow’ing the with brands, we are proud to have a culture of speed and simplicity, our employees feel a sense of pride and belonging. We strive to work towards well-defined goals to best serve our customers. Our people are keen to take responsibility for their work and share both their successes and challenges.

The Project Management office (PMO) is accountable to lead all projects for the organisation including territories in terms of approval, priority, timeline and budget. The PMO is also responsible to ensure communication of project creation, updates, progress and risks are raised and seeks approval from the ExCo.

The project portfolio leader holds responsibility for managing the portfolio and team that are leading the projects. This role supports, enables, communicates and structures all projects that are aligned to the business strategy using a decision-making model that the organisation can follow (RAPID). Reporting to the FD and dotted line to CEO, this role leads communication of project evolution and brings projects to ExCo for approval.

Key responsibilities:

• Works with Leadership to create, approve and manage project portfolio for the group.
• Create and own project plans for cross-functional projects that connect multiple teams, systems or tools (ERP, Order Management Systems, Point of Sale, PIM, Websites)
• Manage cross-functional teams to meet planned deadlines with planned resources and budget
• Evaluates projects from the business and coordinates/streamlines projects to ExCo for approval, and decision making.
• Produce regular project progress reports and keep Exco and SLT informed of overarching project portfolio and overarching timeline of all projects
• Directs all projects across the business according to business strategy and guidance of ExCo
• Works with finance and business for budget approvals
• Works with business, CEO and ExCo for priority of each project and continuously evaluation if slow down or accelerate
• Looks ahead and manages handover of project to business (BAU)
• Update project documentation and contribute in the creation and evolution of existing project templates
• Centralising resources, templates that is used as unified project tools (i.e a project toolkit)
• Uses and applies decision making tools for all project kick off
• Manages risk register and communicates/flags ongoing

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Proven experience managing projects in in a fast-moving organization
• Experience developing project plans, process diagrams and use cases
• Agile Project Management methodology preferred (experience over technical systems)
• Proven Leadership skills
• Strong attention to detail and being able to understand and articulate business requirement
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills and ability to interact with technical and non-technical audiences including vendors, executives, managers and subject matter experts.
• Natural meditator and solution focused
• Great listener

Requisite Education and Experience / Minimum Qualifications:

• Educated to degree level
• Natural leader of process and project
• Great people leader, influencer
• Solution focused, mediates where conflict arises
• Manages and creates process that aligns projects to business strategy
• Analyse and manage project risks and be able to escalate before risks transform into issues