VIAVI Solutions

Portfolio Operations Lead

Eningen, DEU Full time

Summary:

VIAVI (NASDAQ: VIAV) has a 100+ year history of technical innovations that have evolved to keep pace and address our customers’ most pressing business issues. We make equipment, software, and systems that help to plan, deploy, certify, monitor, and optimize all kinds of networks - like those for mobile phones, service providers, large businesses and data centers. VIAVI is also a leader in high performance thin film optical coatings and engineered diffusers, providing light management solutions to anti-counterfeiting, consumer electronics, automotive, defense and instrumentation markets.

We are the people behind the products that help keep the world connected – at home, school, work, at play, and everywhere in between. VIAVI employees are fierce about supporting customer success and we welcome people who bring their best every day to the company - to question, to collaborate and to push for solutions that will delight our customers.

Duties & Responsibilities:

Scope of Responsibility:

  • Drives operational discipline and best in class practices from the OT (Optical Transport) team and applies them to the HSE (High-Speed Ethernet) team.

  • Covers portfolio governance, sales interaction workflows, customer request intake, demand planning, prioritization, and execution tracking.

  • Operates horizontally across teams rather than owning a single product line.

  • Focused on process, rigor, and outcomes — not people management.

Core Responsibilities:

Revenue, Bookings & Funnel management for the businesses towards meeting AOP:

  • Own AOP planning; maintain weekly funnel analysis and insight generation; apply OT standards and principles to HSE.

  • Drive standardized format and cadence for OT & HSE SWAT calls; calls owned and driven by owners in OT and HSE.

  • Drive standardized format and pipeline tracking for OT & HSE on weekly revenue calls; calls owned and driven by owners in OT and HSE.

Sales & Customer Interaction Enablement:

  • Drive OT processes to HSE so there is a consistent interface model between Sales and Product across both teams.

  • Drive OT processes to HSE to ensure all sales and customer requests are captured in a standardized format, tagged with demand signals, and have clear ownership and disposition; product roadmaps and customer requests/delivery to owned by OT and HSE leaders.

  • Define clear expectations and SLAs for request intake, evaluation, prioritization, and response.

  • Eliminate ad-hoc, off-system requests and unmanaged commitments.

Demand Planning & Forecasting:

  • Apply OT processes to HSE to establish a formal demand planning framework integrating sales pipeline data, strategic account needs, customer escalations and renewals, and market/partner-driven demand signals.

  • Translate inbound demand into structured forecasts and capacity and prioritization inputs.

  • Partner with Sales, Product, and Engineering leadership to align demand forecasts with delivery capacity and commitments with execution reality.

Portfolio & Roadmap Governance:

  • Drive OT processes to HSE to establish a single source of truth for OT and HSE portfolio priorities, roadmaps, and in-flight initiatives; roadmap planning, execution and delivery owned by OT and HSE leaders.

  • Ensure roadmap decisions are informed by market and customer input/demand and business impact, balancing short-term revenue needs with long-term strategy.

  • Drive quarterly and monthly planning cadences that incorporate forward-looking demand signals.

Execution Visibility & Accountability:

  • Convert approved initiatives into clearly defined deliverables, owners, timelines, and success criteria.

  • Track delivery against set initiatives.

Cross-Team Alignment:

  • Ensure consistent demand planning discipline for the OT and HSE teams; Demand planning owned by OT and HSE leaders.

  • Align teams on prioritization using demand data as a common language.

  • Coach teams through the shift from reactive intake to planned, forecast-driven execution.

Success Metrics:

  • Drive the OT and HSE businesses to the Annual Operating Plan (AOP).

  • Consistent execution discipline across the merged organization.

  • Improved predictability of roadmap and delivery outcomes.

  • Better alignment between sales forecasts and product capacity.

Pre-Requisites / Skills / Experience Requirements:

Required Qualifications:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Engineering (or equivalent).

  • Minimum 10 years’ experience in product operations, portfolio management, or comparable process-driven roles.

  • Cross-functional project management experience.

Technical & Functional Expertise:

  • Strong expertise in product, portfolio, or program operations within a hardware, networking, or test & measurement environment.

  • Deep understanding of demand planning, sales forecasting, and funnel management processes—including CRM pipeline interpretation and reconciliation to capacity planning.

  • Experience driving operational governance frameworks, including intake, prioritization, and cross-functional decision forums.

  • Demonstrated ability to standardize and scale processes across multiple teams with varying maturity levels.

  • Experience working with Product, Engineering, Sales, and Operations organizations in a matrixed B2B environment.

Analytical & Tools Expertise:

  • High proficiency with data-driven decision-making using tools such as Excel, Power BI, Tableau, or equivalent.

  • Ability to translate qualitative demand signals (accounts, strategic initiatives, escalations) into quantitative forecasts.

  • Familiarity with CRM (Salesforce), PLM, or portfolio management systems strongly preferred.

Leadership & Influence Skills:

  • Proven ability to influence without direct authority, driving alignment among senior cross-functional leaders.

  • Strong executive‑ready communication skills—clear, concise, and able to simplify complex operational topics for decision-making.

  • Track record of driving cross-organizational accountability through process rigor and visible metrics.

  • Ability to coach teams transitioning from reactive to forecast-driven operating models.

  • Exceptional organizational discipline and operational rigor.

  • Ability to maintain a “single source of truth” mindset and enforce adherence across teams.

  • Strong problem‑solving skills with a bias toward structured frameworks.

  • Comfort working in fast‑paced, ambiguous environments while still enforcing process discipline.

Preferred Experience:

  • Prior experience integrating or operationalizing processes across merged or reorganizing teams.

  • Familiarity with AOP planning, revenue operations, or financial modelling.

  • Certification or formal training in portfolio management, operations management, or process improvement (e.g., PMP, Lean, Six Sigma).

  • Experience supporting global product teams and international sales organizations.

If you have what it takes to push boundaries and seize opportunities, apply to join our team today.

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