Governance Lead - Digital Grid Management

The driving force behind our success has always been the people of AspenTech. What drives us, is our aspiration, our desire and ambition to keep pushing the envelope, overcoming any hurdle, challenging the status quo to continually find a better way. You will experience these qualities of passion, pride and aspiration in many ways — from a rich set of career development programs to support of community service projects to social events that foster fun and relationship building across our global community.

The Role

AspenTech is a global software leader helping industries meet the increasing demand for resources from a rapidly growing population in a profitable and sustainable manner. Our Digital Grid Management software suite helps power and utilities companies achieve superior real-time control, optimization and management for exceptional performance of complex energy networks. As a world leader in the Operations Technology (OT) field, AspenTech develops and supplies state-of-the-art energy management, optimization, and control software solutions to energy utility companies worldwide.

The Governance Lead is responsible for driving governance, operational discipline, and delivery excellence across the Professional Services organization. This role partners closely with project managers, delivery leaders, finance, and executive stakeholders to establish governance standards, monitor portfolio performance, identify risks, and ensure projects are executed consistently and effectively.

The ideal candidate combines strong project and portfolio governance expertise with exceptional stakeholder management skills. They will serve as a key advisor to leadership, providing visibility into organizational performance, driving accountability, and enabling informed business decisions.

The role requires sound judgment in challenging project assumptions, evaluating competing priorities, and recommending timely executive intervention on high-complexity or strategically critical engagements.

Your Impact

Governance & Portfolio Management

• Establish, maintain, and continuously improve governance frameworks, standards, and processes across the project portfolio.
• Lead portfolio governance reviews to ensure projects are aligned with organizational priorities and strategic objectives.
• Monitor project health, resource utilization, financial performance, risks, and delivery metrics.
• Ensure consistency in project execution, documentation, reporting, and escalation processes.
• Facilitate governance forums, operating reviews, and executive steering committee meetings.
• Apply risk- and complexity-based governance, with differentiated oversight and escalation thresholds for large, technically complex, high-visibility, or contractually sensitive projects.
• Evaluate portfolio prioritization, capacity, dependencies, and trade-offs; recommend corrective actions and resource reallocation aligned with strategic value and delivery feasibility.

Risk, Compliance & Controls

• Identify, assess, and track project, operational, and business risks across the portfolio.
• Drive mitigation plans and partner with leaders to address issues before they impact delivery or customer outcomes.
• Ensure adherence to internal controls, policies, and established governance requirements.
• Support audit readiness, compliance initiatives, and continuous improvement efforts.
• Challenge the adequacy of project baselines and controls, including requirements and scope, schedule critical path, cost-to-complete, contingencies, technical performance, and contractual milestones.
• Oversee governance of material changes, claims, customer commitments, and regulatory or cybersecurity-related delivery obligations; ensure timely involvement of accountable legal, commercial, and technical experts.

Reporting & Business Insights

• Develop and maintain executive dashboards, KPIs, and performance metrics.
• Analyze portfolio trends and provide actionable recommendations to improve execution, profitability, and customer outcomes.
• Prepare governance reports and presentations for executive leadership.
• Provide data-driven insights to support strategic decision-making.
• Use leading and lagging indicators, forecast accuracy, milestone confidence, earned-value or equivalent performance measures, and scenario analysis to distinguish emerging risks from reported status.

Stakeholder Management

• Partner with delivery leaders, project managers, engineering leaders, and business stakeholders to drive accountability and execution.
• Support leadership in communicating governance expectations and organizational priorities.
• Facilitate alignment across cross-functional teams and help resolve conflicts or escalations when necessary.
• Act as a trusted advisor to the Sr. Director, Governance Practice.
• Engage credibly with senior customer sponsors and internal executives on delivery recovery, commercial exposure, strategic trade-offs, and decisions requiring cross-functional commitment.

Process Improvement

• Identify opportunities to enhance operational efficiency, project controls, and governance effectiveness.
• Drive adoption of best practices, tools, and standardized methodologies.
• Support organizational change initiatives related to project delivery and governance.
• Foster a culture of accountability, transparency, and continuous improvement.
• Coach delivery leaders and project managers on governance maturity, evidence-based decision-making, and disciplined management of complex programs.

What You'll Need

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Engineering, Project Management, Finance, or a related field.
• 7+ years of experience in project governance, PMO, portfolio management, program management, or related operational leadership roles.
• Experience supporting complex technical project portfolios and cross-functional teams.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret and communicate business performance.
• Demonstrated ability to influence stakeholders without direct authority.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, and presentation skills.
• Proficiency with project management, reporting, and portfolio management tools.
• Demonstrated responsibility for governance or leadership of high-complexity, multi-year, multi-stakeholder technical programs, including material financial, contractual, schedule, and delivery risk.
• Working mastery of integrated project controls: requirements and change control, critical-path scheduling, cost and margin forecasting, risk quantification, and contractual/commercial escalation.
• Evidence of executive-level decision support, constructive challenge, negotiation, conflict resolution, and successful intervention in distressed or strategically critical projects.
• Ability to assess portfolio strategic alignment, prioritization, interdependencies, benefits realization, and organizational capacity—not solely individual project compliance.

Preferred:

• Experience in the utility, energy, engineering, or technology services industry.
• PgMP, PfMP, PMI-PMOCP  certification or demonstrated equivalent portfolio-management capability, including portfolio strategic alignment, governance, performance, risk, and communications management.
• Experience with financial forecasting, project controls, and resource planning.
• Knowledge of governance frameworks, risk management, and operational excellence methodologies.
• Master's degree (MBA or related field).
• Strategic Thinking
• Portfolio & Program Governance
• Risk Management
• Process Improvement
• Change Management
• Customer Focus

Succes Measures:

• Improved portfolio visibility and governance maturity.
• Consistent execution of governance standards across projects globally.
• Timely identification and mitigation of business and delivery risks.
• Increased project predictability, profitability, and customer satisfaction.
• Effective executive reporting and decision support.
• Strong stakeholder engagement and organizational alignment.
• Measurable improvement in forecast reliability, early-warning lead time, and recovery effectiveness for high-risk projects.
• Documented executive decisions and interventions that improve strategic alignment, portfolio capacity utilization, and realization of intended business outcomes.

This role is a valuable part of our Digital Grid Management team at AspenTech. Learn more about the team here: Together We Build the Utility of the Future | Digital Grid Management | AspenTech

Work Location:

AspenTech has a global hybrid workplace for most of our roles. Employees are expected to work in the office 4 days per week and may work remotely 1 day per week, unless the employee has a reasonable accommodation or other approved exception to the hybrid workplace schedule. This role follows our 4-1 hybrid model and is based in Medina, Minnesota.

Work Authorization

AspenTech will only employ those who are legally authorized to work in the United States. This is not a position for which sponsorship will be provided. Individuals with temporary visas such as E, F-1(including those with OPT or CPT) , H-1, H-2, L-1, B, J or TN, or who need sponsorship for work authorization now or in the future, are not eligible for hire.

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The salary range for this role is $136,000.00 - $170,000.00. This range represents what we in good faith believe is the range possible for base compensation for this role at the time of this posting. We may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range based on several factors. This range may be modified in the future. This role is also eligible for bonus or variable incentive pay. Additionally, we offer a comprehensive benefits package including paid time off, charitable giveback day, medical/dental/vision insurance, and retirement benefits to eligible employees.