Portfolio Manager

At Specsavers, we’re dedicated to making eye and hearing care accessible to all. As pioneers and a global leader in innovative technologies, we help people optimise their vision and hearing. We foster your expertise, welcome you into a supportive family, and propel your growth. Grounded in our collaboration, curiosity, courage, and compassion values, we strive to challenge the status quo and invite you to team up with us.

Your new team

Specsavers is here to change lives through better sight and hearing by delivering outstanding value, being loved by every customer, and creating the place where all colleagues are proud to belong as we grow our business. The NE Technology team is responsible for delivering global and regional business portfolios that balances global strategies with regional priorities and ambitions.

The primary purpose of the Portfolio Manager role is therefore to:

• Oversee the project portfolio in NE Technology in close collaboration with the Business PMO team and Global Technology PMO team by ensuring that investments in initiatives lead to measurable outcomes and strategic benefits for the Region and Specsavers as a whole.
• Design and drive ongoing demand management process across the NE region in collaboration with colleagues across the NE technology organisation.
• Facilitate ongoing technology strategy planning in collaboration with colleagues.

Your role

As our new Portfolio Manager, you’ll play a vital role in the Technology team. The Portfolio Manager is responsible for overseeing a diverse portfolio of projects across multiple product teams and countries. This role entails ensuring that all portfolio initiatives align with the organization’s overall strategic objectives while effectively managing resources, prioritizing demands, and mitigating risks. The Portfolio Manager will coordinate with cross-functional teams, driving collaboration and fostering a unified approach to project execution. The Portfolio Manager will at times be responsible for leading select parts of bigger projects in relation to scoping, vendor selection, and vendor contracting.

Your primary tasks and responsibilities include, but not be limited to:

• Own Project management methodology in collaboration with business PMO team.
• Own project reporting for NE Technology portfolio in collaboration with business PMO team.
• Prepare material for executive steercos in relation to bigger programs and portfolio management in general in collaboration with NE Technology Leadership team.
• Collaborate with Finance team financial controlling and oversight of bigger projects and investments.

In more details, your key accountabilities in this role will entail:

• Demand Management: Oversee the demand management process to ensure timely identification and prioritization of project requests across the portfolio in collaboration with product delivery teams and relationship management team.
• Resource Allocation: Oversee the allocation of resources across product teams, ensuring efficient use of human, financial, and technological assets in collaboration with key leaders.
• Portfolio Management: Develop and manage the strategic roadmap for the portfolio across product teams, ensuring alignment with Specsavers goals and market trends. Monitor and reporting on the performance and progress of the portfolio initiatives, ensuring objectives are met within established timeframes and budgets. And importantly, act as point of contact for portfolio performance, updates, and strategic initiatives.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Build and maintain relationships with key stakeholders, including senior management, product teams, group functions, and external partners, fostering collaboration and communication.
• Team Leadership: Facilitate cross-functional collaboration to ensure cohesive project execution and knowledge sharing among teams.
• Risk Management: Develop and implement risk management strategies to mitigate potential challenges across the portfolio. Conduct regular assessments of portfolio health, identifying risks and opportunities for improvement and identify and escalate resource constraints and conflicts that may impact project delivery.
• Collaboration & Training: Collaborate with product teams to analyse and forecast demand, ensuring alignment with organizational capacity and strategic objectives. Facilitate training and support for product teams on the use of the project model, ensuring adherence to standards and promoting consistency in project execution.
• Creation and Maintenance of a Region-Wide Project Model: Develop and implement a region-wide technology project management model that standardizes processes, tools, and methodologies across the portfolio. Implement processes to streamline project intake and assess feasibility, prioritizing initiatives based on potential ROI and strategic fit. Ensure the project model is maintained and updated to reflect best practices, lessons learned, and evolving organizational strategies.

In the Portfolio Manager role, you’ll report directly to the Northern European Head of Technology Strategy & Security.

Occasional travel/2-3-a month is to be expected in the role.

What you’ll get

Our team operates both on-site at the Copenhagen Support Office and embraces hybrid work, offering flexibility.

Currently, we’re deeply involved in an exciting Marketing Technology project where your role as capacity management/resource allocation is crucial. Beyond work, the team shares a strong passion for what we sink our teeth into, which often gravitates around cats, wine, home automation and future tech. Although spread across the region, we maintain our monthly Face2Face that drives much more comradery than work-related challenges. Join us in this stimulating environment where work and play go hand in hand. As our new Portfolio Manager, you’ll work at our Copenhagen based support office in Nordhavn. Our office features many collaborative spaces and a stunning rooftop terrace with breath-taking city and harbour views.

On top of that, with Specsavers, you also:

• Join our global team of friendly, talented, and passionate colleagues. Enjoy a competitive salary package with perks such as pensions, (health insurance), free eye care vouchers, and more.
• Grow in your role with free access to online learning, personalised development plans, and increased responsibility.
• We offer a fun work environment with great coffee, laughter, table tennis tournaments, birthday surprises, holiday celebrations, virtual Friday quizzes, and more.

Your qualifications

We’re looking for one to have strong stakeholder management abilities accompanied by solid analytical and problem-solving skills. But these can not stand alone and in this role adaptability, excellent communication and collaboration skills are also vital to succeed.

More in details, to fulfil this role at Specsavers, you should align with the following core competencies:

• Strong Strategic Vision: Ability to understand market dynamics and formulate long-term strategies that align with organizational goals.
• Analytical Skills: Proficient in analysing data sets to inform decision-making and identify trends and opportunities in structured and simplified visuals.
• Communication: Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to convey complex information in a clear and concise manner to diverse audiences. Great at PowerPoint and excel.
• Cross functional collaboration: Proven ability to inspire and collaborate in cross-functional teams, driving engagement and fostering a culture of collaboration.
• Problem-Solving Orientation: Strong critical thinking skills with a track record of addressing challenges proactively and decisively.
• Cultural Awareness: Understanding of regional market dynamics in the five countries involved, with an ability to navigate diverse cultural contexts.
• Strategic and Management Abilities: Strategic Planning: Ability to develop and implement technology strategies that align with business goals and drive competitive advantage.
• Budget Management: Skills in managing large budgets, making cost-effective decisions, and ensuring financial accountability in technology investments.
• Stakeholder Management: Ability to work collaboratively with various stakeholders, including executives, business leaders, and external partners, to achieve common goals.

Soft Skills and Personal Attributes:

• Problem-Solving: Strong analytical and problem-solving skills to address complex technology challenges.
• Details: Next level attention to details and prudency which should also be reflected in your presentational style and aesthetics.
• Adaptability: Flexibility to adapt to rapidly changing technology landscapes and business needs.
• Innovation: A forward-thinking mindset to drive continuous improvement and foster a culture of innovation within the technology team.

Your development

Your development matters and within the first 12 months of being the role, you will:

• Be onboarded and have your arms wrapped around the Northern Europe Portfolio, including full overview of our delivery capacity.
• Gain understanding of how Specsavers Northern Europe operates from a commercial point of view, and how these fits in the global model.
• Support/work on unfolding the 5-year roadmap of transformation.
• Run the growing Portfolio Function with transparent confidence.
• Understand our product-orientated technology function and start having draft ideas of a target delivery model.
• Can be the go-to-person for portfolio health-check.
• Deliver a single view of all delivery along with Regional Commercial PMO.

Further development:

• We have a strong focus on your personal development plan to make sure that your competencies and skills continue to be best in class
• You can choose a career path within Specsavers you perceive as your personal journey.
• You can grow professionally in an organisation that recognises your skills and personality.

Is this your next step? Apply today

To apply, please send us your CV using the button below. We want to respect your time, so including an application letter is optional. Feel free to apply as soon as possible.

Please avoid including any photos or references to your age in your CV. It contributes to a fairer and more unbiased assessment.

We review CV’s and call in for interviews continuously and in standard, our recruitment process consists of a screening, 2-rounds of interviews including personality assessment feedback.

If you’re interested in learning more about the incredible team you’ll be joining and our shared goals as a family business, visit our pages: This is who we are, and This is what we do.

Diversity & Inclusion at Specsavers

Specsavers will consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, colour, religion, sex, age, national origin, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other legally protected factor.

In line with our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, we integrate these principles into all aspects of our work, from product development to team building.