Project Director, PMO

- NAPA Safety Solutions provides industry-leading digital solutions for enhancing the safety and efficiency of ship operations, with a strong focus on the passenger ship segment. Our products are trusted by over 10,000 users onboard the global fleet of international cruise ships.

The solutions streamline onboard processes, simplify compliance and connect shipboard data with shoreside operations in real time. They include NAPA Stability, NAPA Logbook, NAPA Permit to Work and NAPA Checklist. We are now looking for a Project Director, PMO, to build one common way of running projects across our teams.

The role and the team

As Project Director, PMO, you are the single accountable owner of the project management practice in NAPA Safety Solutions. Your purpose is to strengthen the systematic approach to project management by defining, introducing and embedding a common way of running projects, and by making sure it is genuinely used and recognized as valuable by the people who run them.

The role starts as a supportive and enabling PMO, focused on standards, coaching and transparency, and moves toward agreed governance as maturity grows. You may also take direct project or program leadership of selected complex deliveries.

Location and work mode

The position is based in Germany and it’s 100% remote . This is a full-time, permanent position .

Your team and cooperation

You will be part of the global NAPA Safety Solutions Services team. You will work across all NAPA Safety Solutions teams involved in project delivery, and with the account teams at the front end.

You support and coach the project managers and build a community of practice. The project managers keep the accountability for their own projects. You provide portfolio-level visibility and resource load transparency to NAPA Safety Solutions leadership.

Your responsibility areas

The end-to-end project management process for NAPA Safety Solutions, including stage gates, decision rights, roles, responsibilities and expectations
- Information flow across the full delivery chain: sales and account teams, project execution, service and support
- The client communication and expectation management model across project stages
- The project delivery toolset, templates and standards, plus portfolio-level visibility and resource load transparency for Safety Solutions leadership
- Change management and adoption: coaching, community of practice, lessons learned and continuous improvement
- Development of the project management capability and career path in Safety Solutions, building on the IPMA training program decided in June 2025

Your first 6-12 months

Your indicative priorities for the first 6-12 months are to:

- Create one documented project management process, with clear steps, stage gates, responsibilities and expectations. Minimum viable first, then iterate.
- Define and implement functioning handovers (account team to delivery, delivery to service and support) with agreed content and acceptance.
- Agree a client communication and expectation management model for each project stage.
- Build a small, usable set of templates (charter, plan, status, handover, closure) and basic portfolio and resource load visibility.
- Run an adoption program: pilot projects, coaching, a project manager community and a working lessons learned loop, aligned with the IPMA training already under way.

What we expect from you

You have:

- A Master's degree in engineering, technology, business or an equivalent field, or equivalent experience
- At least 10 years of experience leading large, complex, multi-stakeholder projects or programs, with clear personal accountability for the outcome
- Experience of designing and documenting a project management process (stage gates, decision rights, responsibility models) in a real organization and seeing it through to use
- Ownership of the full project lifecycle, from pre-sales and scoping through delivery to handover into service and support
- A track record with programs of many repeated deliveries to the same customer across multiple sites, units or vessels
- Experience of leading projects delivered through several internal teams and subcontractors without line authority
- Fluency in scope, schedule, cost, risk, quality, resource and dependency management, and the ability to explain them in plain language
- Experience in change management and adoption: embedding new ways of working, coaching project managers, building a community of practice and measuring adoption
- The ability to lead without direct authority, credibility with senior technical experts, and experience with distributed, multicultural teams
- Customer-facing and stakeholder skills at project and steering group level

Depth of project management and PMO experience is the decisive criterion. Your industry background is open: marine, maritime and class experience are useful but not required, and software, technology, engineering, industrial or regulated-industry delivery are all relevant.

It is an advantage if you have:

- A recognized senior-level project management certification, for example IPMA Level B or A, or PMP.
- Experience of a company transitioning from small and hands-on to larger and more structured (a strong advantage)
- Commercial and contractual competence: scope change and variation handling, acceptance criteria, penalties
- Project recovery experience: taking over a troubled project and bringing it back to a defensible position
- Working knowledge of IPMA, PMI and ITIL, and familiarity with maturity models such as P3M3 or IPMA Delta
- Experience with project and portfolio planning, resource planning and reporting tools such as Power BI or equivalent
- Comfort working in a Microsoft 365 environment
- A change management certification, for example Prosci, or process improvement credentials such as Lean or Six Sigma

It is also a plus if you have:

- Hybrid delivery experience: stage-gated customer projects combined with agile product development
- Skills in Jira and Confluence at workflow-design level

You do not need to tick every box on these lists. If this role feels like a good fit for you and you have most of what we are looking for, we hope you will apply.

We work in English across all our offices, so you need to be comfortable using it in your daily work, both in writing and in conversation. You need to be located and eligible to work in Germany .

Why you will enjoy working in this role

- You are the single accountable owner of the project management practice in NAPA Safety Solutions, responsible for both its design and its adoption.
- The projects are, in practice, programs: NAPA Stability, NAPA Logbook, NAPA Permit to Work and NAPA Checklist rollouts across whole fleets, with high customer visibility.
- You build on existing strengths: the people of Safety Solutions, a documented delivery and commissioning process that is in use, and IPMA training already under way.
- You can stay close to delivery by leading selected complex deliveries yourself, both to earn credibility and to test the process in practice.

Ready to get on board and join the NAPA crew?

We kindly ask you to send your application and CV to us as soon as possible (by clicking the "Apply for this job" button on the job ad page), but no later than 1 November 2026 . The position will be filled as soon as a suitable candidate has been found.

For more information about the position, you can call Jan Wasastjerna (Director, Services, NAPA Safety Solutions, tel. +358 40 9220602) on Wednesday 14 October at 11.00 - 14.00 or on Thursday 22 October at 13.00 - 15.00. (CEST).

NAPA as a company and employer

With over 35 years of operation, NAPA is a leading software and data services provider for ship design and operations to enable safe, sustainable, and future-proof maritime industry. Headquartered in Finland, NAPA employs 240 experts, combining expertise in naval architecture, fleet operations and digital services. NAPA operates globally, with a presence in Japan, Korea, China, Singapore, the USA, Germany, Greece, Romania and India.

With over 90% of new vessels built by NAPA customers, NAPA’s ship design software is the global de facto standard in shipbuilding. Furthermore, NAPA is a market leader in ship stability management and safety data services for passenger ships, and its cloud-based solutions for ship performance monitoring and voyage optimization support shipping’s decarbonization journey. For more information, visit www.napa.fi .

Meaningful work

We are proud to play our part in creating a sustainable world, and a career at NAPA means working with a purpose. We focus on building the best possible products for our customers, with whom we have close and long-lasting relationships. We protect the environment and human life at sea by powering safer and greener vessels with our technology.

NAPA way of working

At NAPA, we lead and manage the company together. We help and learn from each other, while making impactful decisions for a cleaner, safer maritime industry.

At its heart, our co-leadership philosophy is founded on trust. We trust that our people are smart enough that if they make a decision, having consulted the right people, it will be good for our company. And if it's not the right decision on that occasion, that's fine too. We trust that we'll make it right, learn from the decision, and grow as a company as a result.

Enjoy working together

...is one of our core values. Learning from and respecting each other provides a healthy and pleasant working environment. We, as NAPArians, share our knowledge and help each other when needed. NAPA has offices and customers around the world, and you will be able to meet people from many different cultures. We are a diverse team with a shared goal.

Read more about our values and culture: https://www.napa.fi/careers/