Senior Project Manager

Company: Avalo

Location: Onsite in RTP (Durham, NC)

Compensation: Commensurate with experience plus benefits

About Avalo:

At Avalo, we’re reinventing crop development to build a climate-resilient, equitable, and sustainable future for agriculture. Our mission is to accelerate crop evolution using AI and evolutionary biology—cutting development time from decades to just a few years while dramatically reducing environmental impact. From low-input cotton to sugarcane, we work with nature’s complexity, not against it, to deliver high-performance crops without harmful externalities. Join us in transforming agriculture from the seed up.

About This Opportunity:

Are you a highly experienced and strategic project management professional ready to roll up your sleeves and lead the charge in a groundbreaking ag-technology company? Avalo is revolutionizing sustainable crop development through our proprietary directed evolution platform, accelerating gene discovery and breeding to create a new kind of agricultural future.

We are seeking a hands-on Senior Project Manager to independently oversee our programs and projects. In this critical individual contributor role, you will be directly responsible for ensuring our initiatives are strategically aligned, well-executed, and delivered on time, within budget, and to the highest quality standards. If you thrive in a dynamic, fast-paced environment and possess a strong track record of personally driving successful outcomes across complex cross-functional teams, we want to hear from you!

As our Senior Project Manager, you will be instrumental in personally guiding and enhancing project management efforts across our R&D, commercialization, and product development teams. You will serve as a pivotal operational leader, partnering closely with Project Leads and Executive Leadership to directly plan, track, and coordinate the execution of our most impactful initiatives. Your ability to individually provide the structure, visibility, and forward momentum necessary to achieve Avalo's ambitious goals is critical.

What We’re Looking For:

Strategic Planning & Program Management:

• Develop and Champion: You will continuously refine a robust project portfolio management framework, ensuring all programs and projects are strategically aligned with Avalo's overarching business objectives
• Collaborate & Define: You will directly partner with project leaders and executive sponsors to define project scope, goals, and deliverables
• Resource Optimization: You will proactively work with project leads and sponsors on resource allocation, identifying potential risks and escalating them to the executive team with proposed mitigation strategies
• Integrated Planning: You will guide the development and ongoing maintenance of comprehensive project plans across the entire program portfolio, ensuring seamless alignment of timelines, budgets, and resource allocation
  
  

Execution Excellence & Oversight:

• Facilitate & Coordinate: You will oversee and facilitate all critical project meetings, ensuring clear agendas, concise minutes, and actionable outcomes
• Monitor & Report: You will prepare and provide consolidated, high-level status updates across the program portfolio, identifying key issues, managing change impacts, and ensuring consistent alignment with overall program goals
• Quality Assurance: You will ensure all projects are executed in strict accordance with company policies, procedures, and the highest quality standards
• Guidance & Resolution: You will provide expert guidance and hands-on support to project leads and project team members, empowering them to complete tasks on time and to the required quality. You will actively identify and escalate issues requiring executive attention
• Strategic Partnership: You will act as a key strategic partner to project leads, enabling organizational excellence, thorough tracking, and proactive follow-through to drive progress and success without direct reports
  
  

Cross-Functional Leadership & Communication:

• Foster Collaboration: You will personally champion and drive seamless collaboration across diverse cross-functional teams, including R&D, commercialization, and product development, to ensure timely and effective delivery of program objectives
• Stakeholder Management: You will proactively manage stakeholder expectations, ensuring consistent, transparent communication of progress, issues, and risks to all relevant parties
• Documentation & Reporting: You will develop, oversee, and maintain comprehensive program and project documentation, including program charters, integrated schedules (e.g., Gantt charts), detailed meeting summaries, and executive-level reports, ensuring alignment, visibility, and informed decision-making
• Compliance & Improvement: You will ensure strict adherence to relevant regulatory requirements and industry standards. You will lead and support the continuous improvement of our project management processes and tools
  
  

What You'll Bring:

• Experience: 10 years of progressive experience in project and/or program management, with a proven focus on leading and performing complex cross-functional initiatives as an individual contributor, ideally within biotechnology, agriculture, or a related scientific field
• Certification: Project Management Professional (PMP) certification is required
• Collaboration Champion: Proven ability to personally champion and drive seamless collaboration across diverse cross-functional teams, including R&D, commercialization, and product development, to ensure timely and effective delivery of program objectives
• Purpose Driven: Ideal candidates are motivated by a purpose to serve both people and planet, using science to drive sustainability
• Track Record: A demonstrable history of personally delivering complex projects on time, within budget, and to exceptionally high-quality standards
• Leadership & Influence: Exceptional leadership, communication, organizational, and interpersonal skills, with the ability to influence and drive outcomes without direct authority
• Adaptability & Continuous Learning: Proven ability to thrive in a fast-paced, dynamic environment, adept at managing multiple priorities and critical deadlines. A highly inquisitive mindset and a demonstrated capacity to quickly learn and apply new subjects are essential
• Problem-Solving Acumen: Strong analytical and strategic problem-solving abilities, capable of navigating complex challenges and personally driving effective solutions. This includes a humble and level-headed approach to resolving disagreements, especially within technical teams, by asking insightful questions and quickly assimilating new information across technical and commercial domains
• Methodology Expertise: Deep experience with hybrid project management methodologies, confidently combining elements of Waterfall and Agile approaches
• Tool Proficiency: Advanced proficiency in modern project management software and tools
• Education: Bachelor's degree in a related field such as Life Sciences, Engineering, or Business Administration
  
  

Powered by JazzHR

guJFq4yBaF