Team Leader - Lean Portfolio Management

Why Wellmark: We are a mutual insurance company owned by our policy holders across Iowa and South Dakota, and we’ve built our reputation on over 80 years’ worth of trust. We are not motivated by profits. We are motivated by the well-being of our friends, family, and neighbors–our members. If you’re passionate about joining an organization working hard to put its members first, to provide best-in-class service, and one that is committed to sustainability and innovation, consider applying today!   

Why Wellmark Technology? Wellmark is building innovative, modern solutions using cutting edge technology. We are driving organizational transformation and business strategy by empowering our technology team to innovate new and elegant solutions to enhance the customer experience. Together, we are leaning into the future, owning the outcome, and driving organizational change to transform how we work. 

We are seeking a forward-thinking, results-driven leader to lead enterprise portfolio planning and management through Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) and SAFe-aligned agile practices. This role is critical in driving strategic alignment, optimizing investment decisions, and maximizing business value across the portfolio. The ideal candidate will develop and lead a high-performing team, foster a culture of continuous improvement, and champion agile ways of working at scale. 

Key responsibilities include prioritizing business capabilities, facilitating dynamic portfolio planning, and ensuring ongoing alignment between work execution and enterprise strategy. The successful candidate will establish and evolve metrics to assess portfolio performance and business value realization—leveraging structured frameworks such as Net Present Value (NPV) and other investment evaluation techniques. 

This role requires a strong ability to influence across the enterprise, partner with senior leaders, and guide decision-making using data-driven insights. Experience in agile portfolio operations, investment economics, and Lean-Agile transformation is highly desirable. 

Preferred:  

• Certification in Lean Portfolio Management (Wellmark will cover the cost to obtain within 120 days if needed).  

Required: 

• Bachelor’s degree in related field or direct and applicable work experience. 
• Minimum 4 years of experience in Agile product management or similar role with specific exposure in areas such as planning, building, and executing a change portfolio plan; managing the execution of the portfolio and ensuring the health of the portfolio is stable by mitigating risks. 
• Minimum 1 year of demonstrated experience in developing and managing metrics, investment planning, and managing resources as it relates to the portfolio plan. 
• Strong understanding of agile methodologies, which may include Lean, Scrum, Kanban, and SAFe. 
• Leadership experience typically gained through a combination of project and informal leadership that demonstrates competencies. 
• Prior experience with capacity management. 
• Prior experience developing a strategy including identifying needs and defining the capabilities required to support it. 
• Proven communication skills, both verbal and written, with the ability to concisely and effectively communicate the health of the portfolio at any time to all levels of the organization. 
• Highly motivated with the ability to think strategically and effectively influence, solicit cooperation and action from others in order to educate, gain understanding and get buy-in. 
• Proven ability to be highly adaptable to unexpected changes or situations that occur.  Adjusts effectively to work within work structures, business processes, work requirements and culture. 
• Strong problem-solving, analytical skills, and decision-making abilities.  
• Demonstrated critical thinking skills, with the ability to influence decisions to get optimal results. 
• Advanced Microsoft office skills. Strong technical acumen with the ability to learn new systems quickly. 
• Travel up to 5% may be required based on business needs. 

a. Lead and develop talent - Provide leadership and day-to-day management of financial and human resources, primarily focusing on employee coaching, development, performance improvement, coordination and budgeting for staff and department(s) specific functions/services. 

b. Support enterprise business objectives by facilitating lean portfolio management routines that produce effective, accurate and timely results to meet business and stakeholder needs. 

c. Drive the execution and management of the enterprise portfolio strategy and plan using scaled agile methodologies. Responsible for facilitating enterprise portfolio prioritization and planning, the portfolio kanban, enterprise capacity management and portfolio tools. Ensure resources and tools support the overall enterprise portfolio plan using agile practices and enable connection of strategy to execution. 

d. Work directly with key executives, divisional leadership, product and agile teams to drive successful planning, execution and governance of the enterprise portfolio  using agile methodologies. 

e. Maintain collaborative working relationships with key stakeholders and agile teams, to enable the implementation of strategic solutions in support of intended business outcomes using agile practices. 

f. Measure and report on the status and health of the enterprise portfolio, including status, capacity, demand, and cost using agile methodologies to continuously improve portfolio performance and maximize human and financial capital to achieve strategic objectives. 

g. Manage and maintain a portfolio management system to enable data driven decisions for the enterprise portfolio. Track, report, and predict product and agile team capacity issues and facilitate effective capacity planning decisions to maximize budgets and the flow of work using agile practices. 

h. Provide support and guidance to stakeholders to coordinate and deliver training to leaders and agile teams on the management and maintenance of the systems and processes using agile methodologies. 

i. Lead the enterprise capacity management function by rolling out the tools, processes and reports required to perform and improve capacity management. 

j. Define and implement metrics to measure enterprise portfolio performance. Publish metrics timely to ensure measurement and improvement of portfolio performance using agile metrics. 

k. Establish and lead the implementation of a Lean Portfolio Governance framework and supporting routines to ensure alignment between enterprise priorities and team-level backlogs, enabling product and agile teams to make informed decisions and deliver maximum business value. Develop, manage and monitor portfolio standards. Report on escalations as needed, to ensure successful delivery using agile practices. 

l. Ensure product managers, product owners, business owners, product and agile teams align outcomes with business strategies in support of expected business value realization. Collaborate with stakeholders and strategic partners to conduct post-delivery reviews through the evaluation of metrics associated with the business case. 

m. Other duties as assigned 

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

An Equal Opportunity Employer

The policy of Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield is to recruit, hire, train and promote individuals in all job classifications without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, veteran status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other characteristic protected by law.

Applicants requiring a reasonable accommodation due to a disability at any stage of the employment application process should contact us at [email protected]

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