Project Controls & Governance Lead

Location:

Onsite for candidates who are in Washington DC (Preferred).

Remote for candidates who are in Eastern Zone.

Project Overview

Client is seeking a Project Controls & Governance Lead to support a fast-paced Program Management Office driving a major organizational transformation initiative.

Supporting by an external consulting team, the PMO is integrating a wide variety of workstreams spanning multiple disciplines to produce a comprehensive Implementation Plan. The Project Controls & Governance Lead will play a critical role in the PMO, bringing strong analytical rigor, sound judgment, and the ability to distill complex program dynamics into clear, executive-ready insights.

Skills/Experience:

Role Overview:

This role owns the mechanics of the PMO schedule, risks, decisions, scope, and consultant accountability. This role is not accountable for producing restructuring content; rather, they ensure that all of the pieces are moving on time, that conflicts between workstreams get surfaced before they cause damage, and that when Executive Leadership asks, "are we on track?" there is a defensible, data-backed answer.

What This Person Owns

1. Master Program Schedule

• Build and maintain an integrated program schedule that connects all workstreams. While not necessarily a formal Gantt chart, this product should answer three questions every week: what needs to happen now, what's blocking progress, and what's the chain of dependencies that connects today's work to the July deadline.
• Identify dependencies and perform impact analysis when delays or scope adjustments occur.
• Present weekly schedule updates and critical path insights to program leadership.

2. Risk Register

• Maintain a comprehensive risk register, including likelihood, impact, owner, and mitigation plans. These risks include: staffing risk, capability gaps, regulatory risk, and legal risks.
• Provide concise risk summaries for executive forums.
• Escalate emerging risks or issues promptly.

3. Decision Log

• Every significant decision gets documented: what was decided, who decided it, when, what the rationale was, and what it means for the schedule and scope.
• Ensure all decisions are communicated to relevant stakeholders and reflected in the master program schedule.

4. Change Control

For any scope change, documents what changed, who approved it, and what downstream impacts are expected on timeline and budget.

Maintain transparent approval and documentation processes.

5. Consultant Performance and Accountability Tracking

• Track consultant deliverables, commitments, and timelines against the original scope of work and staffing plan.
• Identify gaps or risks in resource allocation or quality of outputs. Ensure that committed consultant resources are actually being delivered.

6. Program Reporting

• Prepare weekly program health summaries for senior leadership.
• Contribute to materials for executive steering committees and governance bodies.

What This Person Does Not Do

This role does not design the operating model, write the Implementation Plan, or produce workstream content.

This role does not replace the consultants internal project management.

This role does not serve an administrative support function, nor handle meeting or scheduling logistics.

This role does not make program decisions they surface the information that enables PMO leadership to make informed determinations.

Weekly Deliverables:

A one-page program health summary covering which deliverables are on track, which are slipping and why, what decisions are pending and who owns them, and which risks have changed status. This should be the single document PMO leadership reads each week to know where the program stands.

A weekly half-page risk summary and a dashboard showing milestone status, decision backlog, and any items requiring action by Executive Leadership.

Required Skills:

Qualifications

• 10 years leading project controls or program governance on large-scale organizational transformations
• Experience running multi-workstream initiatives with parallel dependencies and compressed timelines
• Comfortable telling a Senior Director “This timeline isn't realistic and here's why" this person must be willing to deliver bad news early
• Experience in regulated, public-sector, or complex stakeholder environments strongly preferred
• Prior experience working alongside (or inside) embedded management consulting engagements is a major plus insight into how consultants operate and where accountability gaps typically form is highly valued
• Strong written and verbal communication skills outputs frequently go to Executive Leadership
• PMP or equivalent certification preferred but not required

Desired Skills:

PMP