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Director, Program and Portfolio Management

Redwood City, CA, United States

Fanatics Commerce is the global leader in licensed sports merchandise, operating a vertically integrated platform that designs, manufactures, and delivers officially licensed apparel, jerseys, headwear, and collectibles for major leagues, teams, and events worldwide. With more than 900 e-commerce sites and a global omnichannel presence across digital, in-venue, and retail, Fanatics Commerce reaches fans in over 180 countries and powers official fan experiences for many of the world's most iconic sports properties.

At Fanatics, we bring our BOLD Leadership Principles to life every day - building championship teams, obsessing over fans, acting with entrepreneurial speed, and delivering with a determined and relentless mindset.

Director, Program & Portfolio Management

Fanatics Commerce is the global leader in licensed sports merchandise, operating a vertically integrated platform that designs, manufactures, and delivers officially licensed apparel, jerseys, headwear, and collectibles for major leagues, teams, and events worldwide. With more than 900 e-commerce sites and a global omnichannel presence across digital, in-venue, and retail, Fanatics Commerce reaches fans in over 180 countries and powers official fan experiences for many of the world's most iconic sports properties.

At Fanatics, we bring our BOLD Leadership Principles to life every day—building championship teams, obsessing over fans, acting with limitless entrepreneurial spirit, and delivering with a determined and relentless mindset.

As we continue to scale our global platform, the Director, Program & Portfolio Management will play a critical role in establishing governed, AI-powered portfolio delivery discipline across Fanatics Technology.

ROLE OVERVIEW

The Director, Program & Portfolio Management owns the operating rhythm, tooling, and delivery standards for the Fanatics Technology portfolio — a function actively being built to bring one standard of governance and discipline to enterprise programs including ERP, PLM, Fulfillment, Distribution, and Manufacturing & Logistics networks powering a $5B eCommerce and $2B wholesale business. This is an active-build role: the Director will define the Project, Program & Portfolio Playbook, stand up the tooling and taxonomy infrastructure, and embed AI as the default way the team operates — not a future-state aspiration. The Director, Program & Portfolio Management delivers business and fan impact through BOLD leadership and execution excellence, leveraging data, automation, and AI-enabled insights.

HOW WILL YOU DRIVE IMPACT

Success is measured by the ability to deliver results through BOLD capabilities and measurable outcomes.

Team & Leadership Impact (Build Championship Teams)

Cross-Functional Leadership:

  • Partner closely with Product Management leadership, Engineering, and business sponsors to keep portfolio delivery status aligned to product roadmaps and priorities, and to surface and resolve scope, resourcing, and prioritization conflicts before they escalate.
  • Drive Change Management across Fanatics Technology to ensure the Project, Program & Portfolio Playbook is adopted and held to consistently organization-wide — not just within this team.
  • Support and help continuously improve the SteerCo, Monthly Leader Review, and Tech Bi-weekly cadences, ensuring prep and follow-through on actions and decisions are consistent with portfolio objectives.

People Leadership:

  • Manage a team of Project and Program Managers; set expectations and hold the team accountable to consistent delivery standards, status reporting quality, and data integrity.
  • Coach the team on AI-assisted ways of working as a baseline skill, building the next generation of program and project management practice within Fanatics Technology.
  • Develop team members into stronger operators by modeling the standard of practice the broader organization is pulled up to.

Fan & Customer Impact (Obsessed with Fans)

  • Go direct to business, Product, and engineering stakeholders to understand where the current operating rhythm and reporting genuinely fail them — rather than relying on secondhand input — and fix root causes rather than patching symptoms.
  • Translate complex, multi-workstream program detail into decision-ready executive narratives that give senior leadership a clear, accurate picture of delivery health, risk, and resourcing.
  • Ensure value realization and value-based decisioning are built into every forum, report, and piece of content — not just delivery status — so leadership attention is directed to what actually matters.
  • Provide portfolio-level visibility to senior leadership in a way that enables faster, better-informed decisions that ultimately protect delivery outcomes for the fans and business units Fanatics Technology serves.

Innovation & Problem Solving (Limitless Entrepreneurial Spirit)

  • Make AI the default way the team operates — leveraging tools like Claude for status reporting, work-item creation, schedule and risk analysis, and deck generation — and own the longer-term vision for next-gen program and portfolio management as the Portfolio Layer matures.
  • Simplify fragmented, ad hoc portfolio reporting into one governed standard, replacing manual status decks and spreadsheets with a single Golden Record as the organization's source of truth.
  • Pilot AI-enabled ways of working even while tooling and standards are still being defined, treating the build phase as an opportunity to shape the practice rather than wait for a finished system to inherit.
  • Drive the portfolio toward a genuinely predictive — not just retrospective — view of delivery health and resourcing, leveraging AI-assisted forum content and the maturing Portfolio Layer.

Ownership & Execution (Determined & Relentless Mindset)

  • Own the portfolio, program, and project taxonomy, hierarchy structure, and data standards across the Fanatics Technology portfolio — including transformation programs anchored by an enterprise ERP — ensuring consistent classification and reporting.
  • Hold the line on playbook standards once set, even against pushback from teams or stakeholders accustomed to prior ad hoc approaches.
  • Flex across whatever the portfolio requires week to week — stepping into a workstream short a Project Manager, picking up an executive deliverable with no obvious owner, or building the next piece of standard process before anyone asks for it.
  • Treat early missteps in the AI-enabled build as learning, not a reason to retreat to manual processes, maintaining momentum and standard even through ambiguity.

AI & DIGITAL CAPABILITY

We are building a future-ready organization. This role is expected to:

  • Apply AI and technology to improve efficiency, quality, and outcomes
  • Use data and digital tools to inform decisions and enhance performance
  • Demonstrate curiosity and adaptability in adopting new technologies and ways of working
  • Contribute to a culture of innovation and continuous improvement

CAPABILITIES & EXPERIENCE YOU BRING

Required Qualifications:

  • 8+ years of experience in program or portfolio management, ideally within technology or supply chain/operations environments, with a demonstrated ability to operate across a complex, multi-workstream portfolio.
  • Proven track record standing up or scaling PPM tools, governance models, or portfolio operating rhythms from the ground up — not simply inheriting and running an established system.
  • People management experience with a demonstrated ability to develop a team of Project and Program Managers and hold them accountable to a consistent delivery standard.
  • Strong business and transformation acumen — able to separate what's important from what's noise across a complex portfolio and comfortable managing up to senior leadership on where focus and attention should sit.
  • Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to distill complex, multi-workstream detail into clear, executive-ready materials and decision-ready narratives.
  • Preferred: Hands-on experience using AI tools (e.g., Claude, ChatGPT) to run delivery workflows — status reporting, schedule/risk analysis, work-item creation, deck generation — with a genuine point of view on where AI should change program and portfolio management, not just automate the current process.
  • Preferred: Prior experience running or co-facilitating executive-level reporting cadences (SteerCo or equivalent) and/or leading large enterprise-wide transformation programs such as ERP or WMS implementations in a wholesale or retail environment.

WORK LOCATION

Remote: As a fully remote role, the primary place of performance will be your residence or other approved remote location.

At Fanatics, we operate with a BOLD mindset—We Build Championship Teams, we're Obsessed with Fans, we embrace a Limitless Entrepreneurial Spirit, and we approach every challenge with a Determined & Relentless Mindset. If you're ready to contribute to a dynamic, fast-paced environment that thrives on collaboration and growth, we want you to be part of our team.

At Fanatics, we operate with a BOLD mindset - We Build Championship Teams, we’re Obsessed with Fans, we embrace a Limitless Entrepreneurial Spirit, and we approach every challenge with a Determined and Relentless Mindset. If you’re ready to contribute to a dynamic, fast-paced environment that thrives on collaboration and growth, we want you to be part of our team.

ABOUT US
Fanatics is building a leading global digital sports platform. We ignite the passions of global sports fans and maximize the presence and reach for our hundreds of sports partners globally by offering products and services across Fanatics Commerce, Fanatics Collectibles, and Fanatics Betting & Gaming, allowing sports fans to Buy, Collect, and Bet. Through the Fanatics platform, sports fans can buy licensed fan gear, jerseys, lifestyle and streetwear products, headwear, and hardgoods; collect physical and digital trading cards, sports memorabilia, and other digital assets; and bet as the company builds its Sportsbook and iGaming platform. Fanatics has an established database of over 100 million global sports fans; a global partner network with approximately 900 sports properties, including major national and international professional sports leagues, players associations, teams, colleges, college conferences and retail partners, 2,500 athletes and celebrities, and 200 exclusive athletes; and over 2,000 retail locations, including its Lids retail stores. Our more than 22,000 employees are committed to relentlessly enhancing the fan experience and delighting sports fans globally.

ABOUT THE TEAM
Fanatics Commerce is a leading designer, manufacturer, and seller of licensed fan gear, jerseys, lifestyle and streetwear products, headwear, and hardgoods. It operates a vertically-integrated platform of digital and physical capabilities for leading sports leagues, teams, colleges, and associations globally – as well as its flagship site, www.fanatics.com.

Fanatics Commerce has a broad range of online, sports venue, and vertical apparel partnerships worldwide, including comprehensive partnerships with leading leagues, teams, colleges, and sports organizations across the world—including the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS, Formula 1, and Australian Football League (AFL); the Dallas Cowboys, Golden State Warriors, Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea FC, and Tokyo Giants; the University of Notre Dame, University of Alabama, and University of Texas; the International Olympic Committee (IOC), England Rugby, and the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA).

At Fanatics Commerce, we infuse our BOLD Leadership Principles in everything we do:
· Build Championship Teams
· Obsessed with Fans
· Limitless Entrepreneurial Spirit
· Determined and Relentless Mindset

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