Programme and portfolio
Programme and portfolio leadership
Definitely Mabe AB (org. nr 556836-0688), Sweden. Contact: mathias@d-ma.be
Two problems that look different and are the same problem: a change too cross-cutting for any one function to own, and a portfolio of initiatives nobody can compare against each other.
The problem
The change that isn't moving
Large changes stall for organisational reasons far more often than technical ones. The work spans three departments and is owned by none. The decision needs someone who understands the customer impact, the technical constraint, and the regulatory position at the same time — and that person does not exist on the org chart.
An interim mandate solves a specific version of that: someone senior enough to make the call, outside the internal politics, accountable for the outcome, and leaving when it is done.
The other problem
The portfolio nobody can choose between
Twenty or thirty initiatives, each with a sponsor, none directly comparable. No shared basis for saying which matters more, and no mechanism for stopping any of them. Budget gets allocated by seniority of the person asking rather than by expected value.
Fixing this is not a spreadsheet exercise. It needs a way of describing initiatives that makes them comparable, a process the organisation will actually use, and enough authority to make the first few hard calls stick.
Track record
What this has looked like
Mastercard · 2022–2023consulting
Portfolio Lead, Sustainability Innovation Lab. Established the project portfolio, processes and ways of working for environmental sustainability innovation globally — building the structure from nothing, and engaging customers, partners and academia around it.
SEB · 2014–2018
CIO Strategy Team Manager. Led a team of analysts covering IT portfolio planning, business cases, feasibility studies and scenario planning. Worked with strategic suppliers and supported the adoption of agile methods. Concurrently Acting CTO, Markets (2016–2017), with IT management and business planning for the Markets business area. The results were a clearer shared view of the division's entire IT portfolio, faster organisational learning about working with customers in innovation processes, and risk reduced through analysis done before commitment rather than after.
SEB · 2011–2014
Product Owner, FX Trading. Responsible for a portfolio of systems and projects supporting global sales, trading and risk — planning, budgeting, and running legacy systems alongside new ones. Drove digitalisation including algorithmic trading and sales automation, established data centre co-location, and oversaw a major platform change.
Heimore Group · 2009–2011
VP Managed Services. Established a new business unit around a productised service in IT security software and services.
Marked consulting where the engagement was consulting work. The rest were held as an employee, inside the organisations concerned.
Each of those was a mandate to build something that did not exist, or to get an organisation through a change it could not make on its own — rather than a steady-state post.
How it starts
How it starts
Usually with a pre-study. Committing to a programme before the crux is named is how organisations end up driving hard in the wrong direction, and a bounded diagnosis is a cheaper way to find out.