Reimagining Project Management for a New Era
SERIES ARTICLE
By Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez
Madrid, Spain
For decades, strategy lived in documents.
Carefully crafted plans, often developed during annual off-sites, would define an organization’s ambition for the next three to five years. These documents were structured, analytical, and intellectually robust. They outlined markets to enter, capabilities to build, and financial targets to achieve.
And then, almost inevitably, they were handed over for execution.
That handover is where things started to break.
Because in today’s environment, strategy rarely fails in its design. Most executive teams are capable of defining compelling strategic directions. The real failure occurs in the translation—from intention to action.
And that translation happens in one place: the project portfolio.
The Most Important Metric Nobody Is Tracking
Let me start with a simple question I often ask executive teams:
What percentage of your current revenue comes from running the business—and what percentage comes from changing it?
Very few organizations can answer it.
And yet, this is arguably the most important metric for any portfolio manager—and increasingly, for any leadership team.
Because it reveals how much of the organization’s value is driven by:
-
- Operations (running today’s business)
- Projects (building tomorrow’s business)
In most established companies, 90-100% of revenue still comes from operations. That is expected. Operations provide scale, efficiency, and stability.
But that is not the strategic question.
The real question is:
How is that balance evolving over time?
Because the organization’s future is not hidden in its current operations. It is embedded in its project portfolio.
From Revenue Mix to Strategic Reality
Every new product, platform, capability, or business model starts as a project.
Consider Amazon.
More…
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Editor’s note: This series of articles is by Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, the author of Powered by Projects: Leading Your Organization in the Transformation Age (HBR Press, Jan 2026) and The HBR Project Management Handbook (HBR 2021). One of the world’s most popular authors and speakers on the topic of the Project Economy and the Future of Project Management, he is Founder of Projects & Co. , a PMI Fellow & Former Chairman and Thinkers50 Award Winner. Learn more in his author profile at the end of this article.
How to cite this work: Nieto-Rodriguez, A. (2026). Why Portfolio Management Has Become the Real Strategy Function; Reimagining Project Management for a New Era, series article 5, PM World Journal, Vol. XV, Issue V, May. Available online at https://pmworldjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/pmwj164-May2026-Nieto-Rodriguez-portfolio-management-as-strategy-function.pdf
About the Author
Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez
Madrid, Spain
Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, PMI Fellow, is one of the world’s leading experts in Project Management and Strategy Implementation. He is the author of the “Harvard Business Review Project Management Handbook ” (HBR 2021) and is the most published author on project management matters in Harvard Business Review. His upcoming book, Powered by Projects: Leading Your Organization in the Transformation Age, will be published by Harvard Business Review Press in early 2026.
Antonio has brought Project Management to the center of executive leadership, positioning it as a critical capability for transformation in the next decade. He is the creator of influential concepts such as the Project Economy®, the Hierarchy of Purpose®, and the Project‑Driven Organization™, which argue that projects have become the operating system of modern organizations—and the language of future careers.
His global impact on management and leadership has been recognized by Thinkers50, where he is the only project management thinker included twice in a row in the ranking of the world’s most influential management thinkers. He is also the recipient of the prestigious Thinkers50 Ideas Into Practice Award and a member of the Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches community.
He was the global Chairman of the Project Management Institute in 2016 and has been recognized as a Fellow of PMI for his contribution to the project management profession. He led the creation of the Brightline Initiative, founded Projects & Co, and co-founded the Strategy Implementation Institute.
His work focuses on advising senior leaders on how to prioritize and implement strategic initiatives and lead transformational change.
Antonio is also the author of “Lead Successful Projects” (Penguin, 2019), “The Project Revolution” (LID, 2019). and “The Focused Organization” (Taylor & Francis, 2014), and has contributed to seven other books. A pioneer and leading authority in teaching and coaching senior executives the art and science of strategy execution and project management. Currently visiting professor at Duke CE, Instituto de Empresa, Solvay, Vlerick, Ecole des Ponts, and Skolkovo.
He is a much-in-demand speaker at events worldwide. Antonio has presented at more than 800 conferences around the world, regularly evaluated as the best speaker. European Business Summit, Strategy Leaders Forum, Gartner Summit, TEDx, and EU Cohesion Policy Conference; are some of the events he has delivered inspirational keynotes.
He is former Sustainability Program Director and Head of Global Program Management Office at GlaxoSmithKline Vaccines. Previously he also served as Head of Project Portfolio Management at BNP Paribas Fortis and Head of Post-Merger Integration at Fortis Bank, leading the acquisition of ABN AMBRO, the largest in financial service history. He also worked for ten years at PricewaterhouseCoopers, becoming the global lead practitioner for project and change management.
Born in Madrid, Spain, and educated in Germany, Mexico, Italy, and the United States, Antonio is fluent in five languages. He is an Economist, has an MBA from London Business School and Insead’s IDP. You can follow Antonio through his LinkedIn Newsletter – Lead Projects Successfully. For more information, visit his website at www.antonionietorodriguez.com. He can be reached via email: antonio.nieto.rodriguez@gmail.com
To view other works published in the PMWJ, visit Antonio’s author showcase in the PM World Library at https://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/antonio-nieto-rodriguez/
