Senior Program Manager (Remote)

Cella is an in-house agency at a major pharma company, known for its excellence in producing various digital and print assets. The Senior Program Manager will lead project management efforts, manage a team of Project Managers, and ensure the successful execution of integrated marketing campaigns.

Responsibilities:

• Responsible for managing a group of Project Managers (various levels) and owning assigned businesses and project assignments, as well as recognizing commonalities in projects/clients to ensure consistent, strategic assignments
• Participates in interviewing process, assessing the fit of candidate for the business needs and organization
• Responsible for onboarding PMs to client ways of working and brand compliance
• Provide post-onboarding support and upskill staff to a broader range of project types and complexities
• Provide real-time coaching, support and mentorship to Project Managers, setting the standard for best practices
• Ensure SPM/PM fulfillment of responsibilities through direct and indirect oversight and 1:1s
• Identify process improvements, update, train staff, and implement
• Triaging new work that comes in and assigning team members
• Maintaining team at target utilization
• Escalation point for projects as risk
• Evaluating workload on a regular basis to avoid burnout or decrease in quality of work being performed
• Facilitating offboarding and transition of assignment planning
• This role will not only be leading a group of project managers, but will also support in managing their own set of projects
• Collaborate with Account Management and Team Leads to create a clear, easily understood project brief for clients outlining the business need, strategy, services the agency is providing and proposed solution
• Develop, confirm understanding of, and gain alignment by all agency and client stakeholders on written scope of work estimate based on project brief, which includes detailed assumptions, requirements, exceptions, milestone timing and the sum of hours required of each discipline involved on the agency team
• Communicate and confirm hours scoped for agency individuals assigned to the project at formal kick off, continue to monitor established budget on a weekly basis, flagging areas where the agency team may not be logging hours in a timely manner, or are tracking hot and working with the team to mitigate or eliminate the risk to the budget
• At onset of project, meet with account management to discuss, clarify and align on roles for moving forward, and team relationship, expectations, and dynamics
• Establish regular communication touch points with account and creative/development team leads to review in progress and upcoming projects, which includes current and next steps, financial status, resourcing, risks and internal/external dynamics which may affect the project
• Work collaboratively with Account Managers and Team Coordinators to identify, document, and communicate contract staff resource needs to third-party temporary staffing organization as appropriate
• Work with Resourcing Manager to manage creative resource needs on upcoming projects
• Have a clear understanding of the scope of work. Understanding and executing on creative or project brief
• Develop detailed timelines, gather team's hours, estimate creation, have a solid understanding in scope creep and managing to client's expectations on budgets and timelines
• When change of scope or scope creep occurs, understand when and how to professionally and tactfully address, document in internal meeting notes and discuss with account management to agree on approach that will be taken with clients
• Our Senior Program Managers operate at a higher capacity with the ability to tackle the more complex projects and manage situations head on
• Possess the ability to think strategically, pairing an understanding of the agency's capabilities to the needs indicated by our clients, and determining the best solution with input from the internal teams
• Identify potential opportunities for additional business based on knowledge of client and initiatives currently going on within the organization
• Manage sets of inter-related projects in an agile manner, considering order of review dates and time required for individual project execution
• Identify and understand the steps required for projects that must route through legal/medical/regulatory/business review processes
• Ensure that creative team members understand their tasks and accountabilities, and are properly executing their assignments by creating and running daily hot sheets
• Participate in weekly status meetings with creative and digital teams
• Function as the primary liaison between the client and the creative teams for our "Easy Track" projects
• Manage vendor relationships as they pertain to an assigned project
• May be called upon to work independently on special assignments when a client requests a need for project management
• Prepare bills, estimates, invoices, budgets, and progress reports
• Be stewards of our agency processes and procedures related to the approach and management of the service offerings
• Responsible for ensuring that Workfront project data is complete and up to date from opening to close out
• Manages status and communication in JIRA, Teams and Workfront; maintains files on server
• Work with Creative Ops/Resource Mgr.to align on creative resource needs on upcoming projects
• Ensure that project team members are adhering to appropriate client mandated processes and procedures
• Document and escalate any risks as they become visible and be as hands-on as necessary to help rescue at-risk projects

Requirements:

• BA/BS preferred
• 10+ years field experience in multi-channel project management
• 10+ years of experience in creative production
• Pharmaceutical agency experience
• Workfront and JIRA experience
• Fluent in Microsoft Office (PowerPoint, Word, Excel, Outlook) and Adobe Acrobat
• Demonstrated experience managing teams
• Possess excellent written and oral communication skills
• Must be able to develop budgets, track time, expenses and submit invoice for services in a timely manner
• Ability to apply strategic thinking to business challenges and opportunities
• Possess strong project management, organizational, administrative and time management skills; effectively manage and prioritize numerous projects with tight deadlines with little or no supervision, while maintaining a professional and appropriate demeanor
• Possess good interpersonal and team management skills
• Ability to create and maintain positive work environment for team
• Commitment to adhere to all Cella and client policies and procedures and the team objectives of customer service, operational excellence, teamwork, continuous process improvement, leading by example and exceptional character
• Must be detail oriented and able to apply quality control practices to all projects
• Ability to partner and negotiate with vendors
• Lead effectively and collaborate with internal teams, clients, interdepartmental colleagues, and high-level executives in a professional and pleasant manner
• Possess a seasoned understanding of the print process, website terminology and development processes
• Ability to provide coverage on various complexity project types for other PM team members or seamlessly take over when a project needs to be reassigned