About the Role: The Senior Specialist, Portfolio Program & Applications Support serves as a senior individual contributor responsible for supporting the National Student Clearinghouse's enterprise portfolio management, strategic planning, governance processes, Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) practices, and portfolio management technologies. This role helps ensure organizational priorities, strategic initiatives, and technology investments are effectively planned, tracked, governed, and communicated across the enterprise.
The incumbent partners closely with Strategy, Technology, Product, and business leaders to support portfolio planning, program coordination, governance activities, reporting, analytics, and continuous improvement efforts. Through effective stakeholder engagement and operational support, this role helps maintain visibility into portfolio performance, delivery progress, resource utilization, risks, dependencies, and strategic objectives, enabling informed decision-making and successful execution of enterprise initiatives.
In addition, this role serves as the functional administrator and subject matter expert for portfolio management applications and reporting tools. Responsibilities include application administration, user support, process enablement, training, reporting development, data management, and ongoing system optimization to improve portfolio transparency, governance, and operational effectiveness.
Success in this role requires strong analytical, technical, and organizational skills, along with the ability to translate complex information into meaningful insights, build collaborative relationships across business and technology teams, and identify opportunities to improve portfolio management processes, reporting capabilities, and application effectiveness.
Currently, this is a remote-first position, and this position may be required to periodically work on-site at our office and the frequency would depend on the department/division's requirements. Therefore, candidates must either reside within a reasonable distance to commute to our office or be willing to travel to our office in Herndon, when required.
How You Contribute: - Demonstrate the Clearinghouse's core competencies: Customer Focus, Optimizes Work Processes, Collaborates, Communicates Effectively, and Be Open and Authentic.
- Support enterprise portfolio management processes, including intake, prioritization, planning, monitoring, dependency tracking, and reporting.
- Assist department leadership in translating strategic priorities into portfolio plans, portfolio metrics, reporting frameworks, and governance activities.
- Coordinate and support enterprise business and technology initiatives by tracking scope, timelines, milestones, risks, issues, dependencies, resources, and action items.
- Develop, maintain, and enhance portfolio management standards, templates, procedures, and supporting documentation.
- Assess portfolio workflows and operational processes, identify improvement opportunities, and recommend solutions that improve efficiency, transparency, and effectiveness.
- Partner with stakeholders to implement process improvements, standardization initiatives, and operational best practices.
- Manage, administer, configure, and optimize portfolio management applications such as Clarity, Power BI, or similar tools to support strategy execution, portfolio governance, Agile delivery, and program visibility.
- Serve as the functional subject matter expert for portfolio management applications, providing user support, troubleshooting assistance, training, and guidance.
- Support the collection and maintenance of portfolio data to ensure accuracy, consistency, and visibility across initiatives.
- Evaluate business requirements and stakeholder needs and recommend application enhancements, workflow improvements, and process solutions.
- Coordinate application upgrades, enhancements, testing activities, integrations, vendor support, and implementation of new functionality.
- Develop and maintain user guides, training materials, process maps, knowledge resources, standard operating procedures, and application documentation.
- Monitor application utilization and recommend opportunities to improve user adoption, efficiency, and reporting effectiveness.
- Develop, maintain, and publish portfolio dashboards, metrics, KPIs, scorecards, and reporting solutions that support operational and strategic decision-making.
- Gather, validate, analyze, and synthesize data from multiple business systems and enterprise applications to support strategic reporting.
- Translate portfolio, program, Agile delivery, and operational data into actionable insights and recommendations for leadership and stakeholders.
- Support enterprise reporting initiatives related to portfolio performance, resource utilization, delivery health, governance, and strategic objectives.
- Identify trends, risks, bottlenecks, and opportunities for improvement and communicate findings to leadership and key stakeholders.
- Promote a culture of continuous improvement, operational excellence, knowledge sharing, and disciplined portfolio management practices.
- Build collaborative relationships across business and technology functions to support organizational priorities and portfolio objectives.
- Communicate effectively with stakeholders at all levels of the organization, including senior leadership, technical teams, project teams, vendors, and business partners.
- Support special projects and perform other duties as assigned.
Position may be required to perform other duties as required. These essential functions are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the job. Reasonable accommodations will be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform these essential functions.
What You Bring to the Table: - Bachelors degree in in Business Administration, Information Technology, Project Management, Data Analytics, Organizational Leadership, or any related field. A combination of education and experience including military service will also be considered.
- 6 years of of progressively responsible, directly relevant experience supporting enterprise portfolio management, program and project management, portfolio management applications, reporting, analytics, and related business processes, including experience administering business applications, portfolio management platforms, project management systems, and reporting tools.
- 3 years of experience developing and maintaining reporting, analytics, dashboards, metrics, key performance indicators, and data-driven insights to support operational and strategic decision-making.
- Knowledge of portfolio management, program management, project management, governance processes, Lean Portfolio Management (LPM), Agile methodologies, and business operations.
- Knowledge of portfolio management applications, project management systems, reporting platforms, and business process workflows.
- Ability to support complex enterprise initiatives involving multiple stakeholders, competing priorities, dependencies, and evolving business needs.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to identify trends, interpret data, evaluate options, and develop actionable recommendations.
- Ability to gather, validate, organize, analyze, and synthesize information from multiple business systems, applications, and data sources.
- Advanced ability to develop, maintain, and enhance dashboards, scorecards, metrics, key performance indicators, data visualizations, and reporting solutions that support operational and strategic decision-making.
- Ability to translate portfolio, program, delivery, and operational data into meaningful insights, recommendations, and executive-level reporting.
- Proficiency with administration and support of portfolio management, Agile, project management, reporting, and business intelligence tools.
- Ability to evaluate business requirements and recommend application enhancements, workflow improvements, reporting solutions, and process optimizations.
- Demonstrated ability to create and maintain reports, dashboards, user guides, training materials, process documentation, standard operating procedures, and business communications.
- Strong written, verbal, presentation, facilitation, and interpersonal communication skills.
- Ability to communicate effectively with technical and non-technical audiences, including leadership, business stakeholders, and technology teams.
- Demonstrated ability to influence, collaborate, and build productive working relationships across teams without direct authority.
- Strong organizational, planning, and project coordination skills with exceptional attention to detail and follow-through.
- Ability to manage multiple priorities, adapt to changing business needs, and work effectively in a dynamic environment.
- Ability to quickly learn, evaluate, and effectively utilize new technologies, systems, tools, and business processes.
- Demonstrated commitment to continuous improvement, customer service, operational excellence, knowledge sharing, and collaborative problem-solving.
- Demonstrates the Clearinghouse's core competencies: customer focus, optimizes work processes, communicates effectively, collaborates, and is open and authentic.
- Must live within a commutable distance to Herndon, VA or in one of the Clearinghouse's approved States for hiring purposes. Refer to our HR Policies Page, located on our Careers site at https://www.studentclearinghouse.org/careers/human-resource-policies/ , for more details.
- Must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. We do not intend to sponsor external applicants for work visas, and may consider sponsorship only if no qualified candidates can be found who are authorized to work without sponsorship.
- Must be at least 18 years old.
Additional Desired Qualifications - PMP, PgMP, PMI-ACP, Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), SAFe Lean Portfolio Management (LPM), or equivalent professional certification.
- Experience supporting enterprise portfolio management, portfolio operations, corporate strategy, strategic planning, technology delivery, or governance functions.
- Experience designing and maintaining Power BI dashboards, metrics, semantic models, data visualizations, and reporting solutions.
- Experience supporting application roadmaps, software implementations, system integrations, vendor relationships, software licensing, and enhancement delivery.
- Experience applying Agile, Waterfall, Lean Portfolio Management, PMBOK, or other project and portfolio management methodologies.
- Experience with enterprise portfolio management platform administration such as Clarity, Planview, Jira Align, Rally, or comparable solutions.
Physical Demands: - Use of a computer for 8 or more hours a day.
- Use of a telephone and/or copy machine.
- Frequently required to sit for 7 or more hours per day.
- Occasionally required to use hands and fingers to operate, handle, and reach.
- Vision abilities include close vision and the ability to adjust focus.
- Travel by car, train, or airplane may be required when needed.
Benefits and Related Information The National Student Clearinghouse provides a robust benefit program designed to help meet the needs of each employee and their family, both now and in the future. We offer comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance, as well as life and disability insurance benefits, for employees and their qualified dependents. Health care, dependent care, and limited purpose flexible spending accounts, as well as a health savings account with annual employer contributions of $300 for employees and $600 for employees who are enrolled with their spouse and/or dependents, voluntary supplemental health plans for Accident and Hospital Indemnity coverage, and infertility coverage are options available for employees to set aside pre-taxed dollars for certain qualifying expenses. We offer a very generous 401k matching contribution program with the opportunity to defer pre-tax and Roth contributions, as well as catch-up contributions for those who are eligible! We are proud to offer a competitive paid leave program consisting of vacation, sick, and personal time, as well as paid holidays, up to 3 weeks of paid parental leave during a 12-month period , and up to 5 days of paid military leave per calendar year . Vacation time will accrue based on length of service, and new full-time hires can accrue up to 13 days of vacation and up to 10 days of sick time per year. On an annual basis, new employees may use up to 32 hours of accrued sick time as personal time. Additionally, the Clearinghouse observes at least 15 paid holidays per year, including company year-end close between Christmas and New Years Holidays.
Another perk is that employees have the option to get reimbursed for basic wholesale company and roadside assistance memberships (e.g., Costco and AAA) and to request a buy back on portions of unused accrued vacation based on tenure
