Senior Specialist, Project Management

About the Role

As a Senior Specialist Project Manager at Celanese, you will lead complex, cross-functional initiatives while ensuring full alignment with Celanese PMO governance, project delivery standards, and best practices. You will manage medium to large scale projects independently, partner with senior leaders to influence decision making, and contribute to the continuous improvement of project methodologies within the PMO.

A key part of this role involves mentoring and developing junior Project Managers, ensuring they gain the knowledge, skills, and confidence to deliver high quality work. You will act as a point of expertise for PMO processes, tools, risk management techniques, and advanced project delivery methods.

Success in this position requires strong ownership, excellent stakeholder communication, strategic thinking, coaching capability, and the ability to drive results in a dynamic, global environment.

Scope

• Lead and deliver projects as Project Manager and/or Scrum Master, depending on methodology.
• Provide expert PMO governance across multiple concurrent initiatives.
• Manage project scope, resources, budget, risks, procurement, and overall performance.
• Support and drive process improvement initiatives across the PMO.
• Provide training, coaching, and onboarding support to junior PMs and coordinators.
• Partner with Project Managers on portfolio planning and financial oversight.
• Ensure accuracy of project actuals, forecasting, and budget consumption.
• Support continuous improvement of PMO templates, processes, and governance standards.

Responsibilities

Project Delivery & Governance

• Lead cross-functional project teams, ensuring alignment to scope, schedule, budget, and quality standards.
• Manage project management activities, resources, equipment, schedules, tools, and information.
• Ensure best-in-class compliance with Celanese PMO methodologies through structured governance routines.
• Prepare project charters, business cases, RAID logs, communication plans, and other PMO-standard documentation.
• Identify, document, and mitigate project risks, issues, and opportunities.
• Oversee/support execution of project procurement activities, including SOW creation and vendor management.
• Ensure timely escalation of issues following the defined escalation pathway.
• Drive project steering committee meetings, preparing decision-ready materials for senior leadership.

Stakeholder, Financial & Communication Management

• Liaise with stakeholders to define requirements, clarify expectations, and maintain alignment throughout delivery.
• Act as the primary point of contact, ensuring clear, accurate communication across all participants.
• Collaborate with PMO/BMO/Stakeholders to ensure accurate financial tracking, forecasting, and project reporting.
• Manage project budgets, monitor expenditure, and handle financial queries.
• Prepare and deliver project status updates, dashboards, and executive summaries
• Use SAP to track cost/manage costs and forecasts.

PMO Excellence & Continuous Improvement

• Champion project management best practices and adoption of PMO standards.
• Contribute to optimization of processes, templates, and tools within the PMO.
• Support audits, governance checks, and internal quality reviews.

Mentoring & Training

• Provide hands-on guidance and coaching to junior Project Managers, Project Coordinators, and new PMO team members.
• Facilitate informal and formal training sessions on PMO processes, tools (e.g., ServiceNow, PMO dashboards), risk management, and project documentation.
• Support onboarding of new PM team members by sharing best practices and ensuring readiness to manage projects independently.
• Review junior team members’ project deliverables, offering corrective feedback and performance guidance.
• Act as a role model for professional conduct, collaboration, communication, and project delivery excellence.

Qualifications

• Proven experience as a Project Manager or Senior Project Coordinator managing multiple projects from initiation through closure. 5 years +
• Demonstrated experience leading complex, cross-functional projects.
• Strong understanding of project management methodologies (Agile, Waterfall, hybrid).
• Ability to prepare and interpret charters, flowcharts, schedules, Gantt charts, and action plans.
• Experience mentoring, coaching, or supervising junior staff (formal or informal).
• Strong analytical skills with experience in risk management and quality assurance.
• Proficiency in Office 365 productivity tools; experience with ServiceNow is strongly preferred.
• Smartsheet’s and SAP knowledge
• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Engineering, IT, or a related field.
• PMP / PRINCE2 certification preferred.
• Scrum Master certification (CSM/PSM) is a plus.

Skillset

• Advanced communication skills (written, verbal, stakeholder management)
•  Strong analytical problem-solving capabilities
•  Excellent time and priority management
•  Self-motivated, proactive, and results-oriented
•  High attention to detail and organizational precision
•  Ability to manage/drive IT-focused and business-focused projects
•  Strong facilitation and workshop leadership abilities
•  Coaching and mentoring skills, with ability to support professional growth of junior staff
•  Ability to produce complex reports, manage data, and structure documents to executive standards
•  Solid understanding of PMO processes, governance, and quality controls

Supervision

• Works independently with minimal supervision
• Provides guidance, coaching, and training to junior and entry-level team members
• May oversee or coordinate work of junior PMs or Project Coordinators

Required Years of Experience

• Minimum +5 years project management experience, preferably in a multinational or corporate environment.
• Demonstrated ability to manage medium-complexity projects and support portfolio‑level governance.

Required Education

•   Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Engineering, Communications, IT, or a related discipline.
•  Professional PM certifications strongly preferred; relevant continuing education valued.