Alison Bakken

Alison Bakken passionately works to improve organizational effectiveness, leads with a growth mindset and drives sound, metrics-based project, program and portfolio management (PPPM) practices to deliver strong business outcomes. Ms. Bakken is an executive at Thomson Reuters and has over 25 years of industry experience in project management offices (PMOs), portfolio management, agile transformation, organizational change management and large-scale program management.

She is currently the head of strategic resourcing at Thomson Reuters and leads a global, dynamic team of business and human resource (HR) professionals focused on delivering strategic projects. In her role, Ms. Bakken owns the “people function” project portfolio and is responsible for programs that improve the employee experience. In addition, she and her team support a variety of enterprise business initiatives with organizational change management, business agility coaching, project management, mergers and acquisitions expertise and HR consulting.

Prior to her current role, she spent most of her career in technology and was most recently the global head of the Technology Program Office at Thomson Reuters, responsible for the technology portfolio with a focus on leading large-scale programs and agile transformations. She also led the Technology Separation Management Office for a multibillion-dollar divestiture.

Ms. Bakken has a bachelor’s degree in political science from St. Olaf College and an MBA from the University of St. Thomas. She is a Project Management Professional (PMP)® certification holder and has been serving on the PMI Global Executive Council for the past nine years. She also serves on the board of directors for Pacer Center, a nonprofit organization that supports children with disabilities and their families and is on the advisory board for the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. She is also a guest lecturer for the Information and Knowledge Strategy program at Columbia University. Most importantly, she is the mother of three children who keep her on her toes.