"Portfolio Advisor"

Job Description:

Ratonga Matihiko | Digital Services

Located in Ōtautahi | Christchurch, Aotearoa | New Zealand

• Full-time (37.5 hours per week)
• Permanent position
• Generous annual leave provisions and professional development opportunities

Kia hiwa rā, kia hiwa rā! He hiahia, he pūkenga nōu ki te mahi a te Portfolio Advisor? Nāia te pōwhiri nā Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha kia tono mai i te tūranga nei.

Āu Mahi | What You Will Do

You're a specialist PMO advisor who brings sharp insights and can-do energy to project delivery - enabling smarter, faster, more effective outcomes across our digital portfolio. With experience in portfolio governance, project delivery, and agile ways of working, you thrive on supporting teams to deliver effectively. Your proactive approach, strong relationship skills, and attention to detail make you a go-to person for project and digital initiative delivery advice. In this role you will:

• Contribute directly to growing and evolving our digital portfolio, programme and project delivery environment as we target a P3M3 maturity score of 3
• Guide and support colleagues at all levels (delivery leads, product/platform managers, directors and senior leaders) on how to navigate the UC delivery process – including providing clear, constructive feedback as and when needed
• Clearly articulate what good digital initiative start-up process looks like – scope definition, benefits mapping, risk identification - as well as how to bring this together into a coherent business case
• For projects and initiatives in active delivery, support delivery leads to produce high quality artefacts and reports through reviewing and providing feedback/guidance as part of portfolio health check processes
• Be financially competent within projects and portfolios. You will review and challenge forecasts, identify variance and support formal contingency fund management
• Contribute to identifying portfolio risk based on planned and inflight initiatives – going above and beyond the sum of project/initiative risks
• Lead the quarterly planning cycle for the digital delivery portfolio, taking a continuous improvement lens to adjusting and evolving the process

If you enjoy enabling others to succeed, improving processes, and shaping how delivery happens across a large and dynamic digital environment, this is the role for you!

Mōu | Who You Are

You will be an experienced portfolio professional with at least 5 years’ working in a PMO running a structured project delivery framework, as well as have:

• Strong knowledge of project, programme, and portfolio management frameworks and governance.
• Excellent relationship management and influencing skills with stakeholders at all levels.
• A Bachelor's degree in Commerce or an IT-related field (NZQA Level 7)
• A professional certification in portfolio or project management is highly desirable
• An alignment with our organisation's values and culture, promoting a positive and inclusive work environment.

Mahi Ngātahi | Who You Will Work With

Building world-class digital capability is crucial to the University of Canterbury's ongoing success. Digital Services is a large team, striving to provide a modern dynamic foundation from which the University (UC) can explore new business models and ways of working. Digital will transform how we work, behave, and the expectations of the communities we service.

Ngā Painga o UC | Why UC

Ngā Uara | Our Values of manaakitanga, whanaungatanga and tiakitanga guide our decisions and behaviour and provide a roadmap for how we do things at UC, affirming our commitment to pastoral care and support for our ākonga and staff. They challenge and inspire us to be the best we can, and make UC a great place to work and study. For more info on Ngā Uara | Our Values visit us here.

We are committed to accessible higher education, service to the community and the encouragement of talent without barriers of distance, wealth, class, gender or ethnicity. The University explicitly aims to produce graduates and support staff who are engaged with their communities, empowered to act for good and determined to make a difference in the world.

We offer a range of fantastic benefits including flexible work practices, study opportunities and generous superannuation and leave provisions. For more information, please visit us: https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/about-uc/work-at-uc/benefits-working-uc. For more information about Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury, please visit https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/

The closing date for this position is: 25 January 2026 (midnight, NZ time)*Please note, applications will be reviewed as they are received, and interviews may take place before the close date.*

Pēhea te tono mai | How You Apply

Applications for this position must be submitted via our careers website and should include a cover letter and resume.

Please note, we do not accept applications by email, however we are happy to answer your queries in relation to the application process, please forward these to WorkatUC@canterbury.ac.nz

You must have Aotearoa New Zealand or Australian citizenship/permanent residency or hold a valid NZ work visa to be considered for this role