The Program Manager is a senior leadership role within the Project Management department primarily focused on driving client delivery excellence, optimal portfolio health and growth through financial responsibility, staffing, and operational consistency across a portfolio of businesses. The Program Manager acts as a key contributor in the project management departments evolution and optimization, fostering project management team growth and the implementation of the department’s innovation roadmap.
Position Duties and Responsibilities:
Financial Acumen & Responsibility
In collaboration with Client Strategy & Services, lead the financial health of a portfolio of business and maintain set agency margins to drive success at the top level, across all businesses within, monitoring overall forecasting and process adherence and flagging potential red flags
Project estimation of new business and organic client opportunities ensuring accurate data and a consistent approach
Manage and support project managers at all levels to ensure that forecasting is achieved and consistent month-over-month, providing course correction where necessary
Staffing for Growth, Quality & Delivery
Ensure all businesses within the portfolio are staffed appropriately to support client work and delivery excellence. Manage PM and support team capacity, including escalating and identifying new project management hiring needs
Continual staff oversight to identify gaps, incremental work and/or misaligned skillsets that hinder exceptional delivery
Facilitate capacity and forecasting needs based on work shifts, incremental scopes, and re-forecasting efforts to proactively identify needs
Support and sometimes lead the sourcing and management of contractor needs, including guiding project management talent through the approval and management processes
Operational Consistency & Evolution
Lead and support project managers delivering integrated projects that span multiple functional departments i.e., strategy, UX/UI, media, martech implementations, data & analytics, SEO, and technical delivery
Drive operational excellence and consistency across individual portfolios as well as the organization as a whole, by ensuring agency integrated delivery process compliance and evolution to meet both team and client expectations
Drive required documentation and retrospectives by client, ensuring processes are documented, evolving based on learnings, and shared out as necessary
Project Management Department Leadership & Innovation
Guide and foster project management team growth by identifying and managing existing and new skillsets, growth areas, and areas of interest to map and align PM talent to the appropriate work
Train and facilitate the PM onboarding process for all new PM hires, ensuring consistency in support and approach that expands beyond general new hire onboarding
Manage and address individual feedback and performance opportunities for PM’s aligned to the portfolio of business
Support the implementation and definition of the innovation roadmap, bringing insight and a POV through relevant project learnings, new technologies, and the piloting of new processes
