Director of Portfolio & Program Management

Department: Customer Success

Location: Kansas City Metro, Sarasota, FL HQ, Scottsdale, AZ

Employment Type: FullTime

Company Overview:

TENEX is an AI-native, automation-first, built-for-scale Managed Detection and Response (MDR) provider. We are a force multiplier for defenders, helping organizations enhance their cybersecurity posture through advanced threat detection, rapid response, and continuous protection. Our team is composed of industry experts with deep experience in cybersecurity, automation and AI-driven solutions. Backed by leading investors, we are rapidly growing and seeking top talent to join our mission of revolutionizing the AI-Native MDR landscape.

We’re a fast growing startup backed by industry experts and top tier investors led by Crosspoint Capital Partners and also backed by Shield Capital, DTCP (formerly Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners), Deepwork Capital, and the Florida Opportunity Fund. Seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). As an early employee, you’ll play a meaningful role in defining and building our culture. Get in on the ground floor. We’re a small but well-funded team that just raised a substantial round – joining now comes with limited risk and unlimited upside.

Culture is one of the most important things at TENEX.AI—explore our culture deck at culture.tenex.ai to witness how we embody it, prioritizing the irreplaceable collaboration and community of in-person work.

About the Role

Tenex is looking for a Director of Portfolio & Program Management to build and lead the function responsible for operational rigor and delivery excellence across the business. This is a builder's role: you will stand up the team, define the operating standards, and own how work gets planned, sequenced, and delivered — from net-new customer onboarding, to one-time professional services engagements, to the strategic initiatives driving Tenex forward internally.

You will be the connective tissue between commitments made and outcomes delivered, establishing the portfolio, program, and project management discipline that lets Tenex scale predictably. Success in this role means our customers realize value faster, our services engagements land on time and on scope, and our internal strategic bets are executed with clarity and accountability.

What You'll Own - This role spans three core functions:

Customer Onboarding Project Management (Rapid Deployment Team / RDT)

Lead the project management of onboarding for net-new Tenex customers. You'll ensure new customers are stood up smoothly and quickly against our milestone-gated delivery framework — coordinating across engineering, detection, SOC, and CS to compress time-to-value and create a consistent, repeatable onboarding experience.

Professional Services Project Management (PSF)

Own the project management of one-time professional services engagements — the consulting and deployment projects where Tenex is brought in to build and stand up systems for customers. You'll ensure these engagements are scoped, staffed, sequenced, and delivered on time, on budget, and to the agreed outcome, with clean handoffs into ongoing operations.

Program & Portfolio Management (Internal Strategic Initiatives)

Drive the programmatic and portfolio-level rigor for Tenex's own strategic initiatives. You'll bring structure to cross-functional programs and key projects run inside the walls of Tenex — establishing prioritization, dependency management, executive reporting, and the delivery cadence that keeps our most important bets on track.

Key Responsibilities

• Build, hire, and lead a team of project and program managers across the three functions above.

• Define and operationalize best practices, standards, tooling, and templates for project, program, and portfolio management across the business.

• Establish clear intake, prioritization, staffing, and delivery processes so work is sequenced against capacity and strategic priority.

• Own delivery health across the portfolio — status, risk, dependencies, and escalations — and provide clear, executive-ready reporting and forecasting.

• Partner closely with CS, engineering, detection, SOC, sales, and executive leadership to align commitments with delivery capacity and surface tradeoffs early.

• Drive continuous improvement: instrument the function with KPIs, hold the team accountable to them, and iterate on the operating model as Tenex scales.

• Serve as a trusted operational leader who brings order, predictability, and momentum to how Tenex delivers.

What Success Looks Like (KPIs)

• On-time, on-scope, on-budget delivery rates across onboarding and PS engagements

• Time-to-value / onboarding cycle time for net-new customers

• Portfolio delivery health and predictability (initiatives delivered on plan)

• Resource utilization and capacity accuracy against demand

• Stakeholder and customer satisfaction with delivery

• Team health, ramp, and retention

Qualifications

• 5+ years direct experience

• Experience leading and managing teams, with a track record of building teams from the ground up.

• Deep, hands-on experience in project, program, and portfolio management — you've operated at all three altitudes.

• Demonstrated ability to define and scale operational best practices and delivery frameworks in a growing organization.

• Strong track record of delivering complex, cross-functional initiatives on time and to outcome.

• Excellent stakeholder management and executive communication skills.

• Highly execution-oriented: a self-starter and self-motivated go-getter who also takes direction well and operates effectively within a leadership team.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in a services, SaaS, or managed-services delivery environment.

• Familiarity with cybersecurity, MDR, or SOC operations (or the ability to ramp quickly in a technical delivery context).

• Relevant certifications (e.g., PMP, PgMP, PfMP, SAFe, or equivalent).

• Experience implementing PPM tooling and delivery instrumentation.

Who You Are

• A builder who's energized by ambiguity and creating structure where none exists.

• An operator who sweats the details of execution while keeping sight of the portfolio-level picture.

• A leader who develops people and holds a bar for delivery.

• A clear communicator who earns trust across functions and levels.