Senior Project Manager & PMO Lead

 

ABOUT ALU

At the African Leadership University (ALU), we're more than just an institution—we're a catalyst for transformation. Our mission is to develop a new generation of ethical and entrepreneurial leaders who will shape Africa's future. Through our innovative curriculum, focus on experiential learning, and vibrant pan-African community, we empower students to become changemakers, problem-solvers, and innovators. At ALU, we're not just teaching; we're nurturing the leaders who will drive Africa's progress and prosperity in the 21st century

We are dedicated to fostering an open yet secure environment, balancing the safety of students, staff, and visitors with respect for individual rights, and safeguarding responsibilities.

HOW WE WORK

The ALU Team works in starkly different ways to traditional academic bureaucracies. We approach education from first principles, empower individuals to design, test, and implement creative new ideas, and work closely together to craft transformative learning experiences. We are deeply passionate about our students and excited by the challenge of building something entirely new.

The African Leadership University is committed to ensuring the safety and Well-being of all students under our care. As part of this commitment , we have a comprehensive safeguarding policy in place , which outlines our Zero-tolerance approach to any violation of safeguarding.

ABOUT ROLE

The Senior Project Manager & PMO Lead is responsible for shaping and driving ALU’s execution culture by building a strong Project Management Office (PMO) and delivering high-impact strategic and digital initiatives. This role is deeply hands-on: the PM will lead major institution-wide projects while simultaneously establishing the systems, standards and operating rhythms that ensure project discipline across the university.

The ideal candidate combines strategic oversight with operational precision, thrives in execution-heavy environments and has a proven ability to manage complex cross-functional teams. They will collaborate closely with the Enterprise Transformation team, ExCo, and departments across the Business Office (Risk & Performance, Finance, People, Legal) as well as academic leaders including Deans and their Heads of Department to strengthen project ownership, promote accountability and embed ALU’s unified project delivery framework across the institution.

ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Build and strengthen the Project Management Office (PMO)

• Establish strong foundations for a high-performance PMO, including standardizing governance models, communication rhythms and escalation pathways.
• Benchmark, refine and implement a unified Project Management Framework tailored to ALU’s needs.
• Digitize and streamline PMO processes, documentation and communication flows to ensure transparency, consistency and institutional memory.
• Develop OKRs and performance metrics for the PMO collaboratively within the first 90 days.

2. Drive hands-on project delivery

• Lead complex, strategic, operational and digital projects from discovery to close-out.
• Develop high-quality project artefacts including project charters, detailed plans, RAID logs, governance structures and cost tracking mechanisms.
• Facilitate structured working sessions and enforce disciplined execution, scope management and rigorous change control.
• Maintain precision in delivery, ensuring projects remain on track against scope, timelines and approved budgets.
• Expected outcome: consistently updated, accurate project dashboards; disciplined reporting cycles; strong hygiene across all PMO-led and departmental projects. 

3. Portfolio leadership and institutional visibility

• Lead strategic conversations with senior leadership to translate institutional priorities into a clear and actionable project portfolio.
• Partner with business units to identify needs, shape project proposals and develop period-based roadmaps that reflect strategic intent, capacity and resourcing realities.
• Drive disciplined portfolio management by constructively challenging RAG statuses, uncovering root-cause blockers and ensuring teams move beyond reporting to actively improving project health and delivery outcomes.
• Deploy and oversee an integrated Project Portfolio Management (PPM) dashboard offering clear visibility into project health, dependencies, risks and impact across all strategic and enabling initiatives.
• Ensure all active projects—both PMO-led and those led by departmental PMs—are updated monthly with complete and accurate data to enable confident ExCo