Director Project Management

MRM//McCann is seeking a Director, Program Management. This role is responsible for driving complex portfolio across marketing and customer service functions. This candidate will partner with business leaders and Clients alike toward common goals and business inroads. This individual is expected to lead their designated PM team and partner with leaders within various departments toward initiating and successfully achieving business objectives.

The successful Director, Project Management will gain a seasoned team/business management responsibilities, a specialization in project management experience and the ability to liaison between IT and business teams. This function will also as an adviser to the client to help guide the coordination and implementation of projects that cross departments and silos, but require integration between shared systems and platforms and third party vendors. This position requires strong communication skills, the ability to organize complex global initiatives across, business and IT groups, and the ability to think and act both strategically and tactically.

• Responsibilities:

• Responsible for a portfolio of large businesses program.
• Achieve business objectives by leading the project team, cross-functional teams and clients.
• Lead the development and implementation of new processes/procedures to achieve new business objectives and/or continually improve, streamline or automate existing processes.
• Lead or direct projects with cross-functional teams including: Creative, Product Technology, QA, User Experience & Design, Performance & Analytics and Third Party vendors
• Expertly perform all aspects of project delivery from project scoping and definition through successful execution.
• Lead, mentor and manage teams and direct reports; including all levels of the Project Management team.
• Foster client relationships and build inroads for new opportunities for MRM//McCann (new business).
• Partner with client, agency and teams leveraging excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Manage and maintain project standards and business management systems.
• Has the ability to understand the business objectives as well as strategic goals in order to properly plan and execute against the program.
• Collaborate closely with Product owner to define a backlog for execution based on project scope and integration/system availability and dependencies. Define gaps, barriers and opportunities.
• Must be able to understand and communicate over program vision and objectives but also be able to go very deep into the project details to connect dots across that portfolio.

Requirements:

• In depth understanding and experience running programs in Agile/Scrum methodology.
• Participate and lead the PM team in the development cycle (grooming sessions, collaboration, UAT, etc.) by supporting the client team.
• Has the ability to understand the business objectives as well as strategic goals in order to properly plan and execute against the program. Willingness to learn and adapt to CX design process.
• Ability to understand the full portfolio of projects in order to plan projects with the clients and internal team. This includes planning to determine where projects connect and where efficiencies can be gained.
• Must be able to understand and communicate over program vision and objectives but also be able to go very deep into the project details to connect dots across that portfolio.
• Have a detailed understanding of current and upcoming releases in order to communicate MRM deliverables, responsibilities and clarify any questions.
• Lead in resource allocation reviews with the project management team to ensure proper resource leveling across all team capabilities.
• Own JIRA task management where needed and configure board as necessary
• Provide leadership to the project management team for all active and upcoming initiatives. Conduct weekly health checks with the team to provide guidance, understand roadblocks, etc.
• Lead the team in process improvements both internally and externally (with our client team). Communicate and be an advocate for process adherence and improvements
• Partner with the Account team in order to achieve key business objectives, drive the client roadmap forward and deliver against all milestone dates
• Help to define a global rollout model to support the global expansion of the client business
• Collaborate with other partner agencies to drive the implementation of feature roadmaps.
• Be a problem solver displaying a high sense of tenacity to help generate solutions for our clients

• Qualifications:

• Mastered ability to shift approach between the big picture and critical details; then possess strong judgement to know when to focus on each.
• Exceptional interpersonal skills demonstrated with clients, agency teams and individuals.
• Problem/solution leader with an ability to drive collaboration, persuasion and negotiation toward solutions.
• Demonstrates outstanding resiliency while working under pressure, in a dynamic environment, with shifting deadlines and deliverables.
• Exceptional communication skills - written, verbal, text, etc.
• Exhibits excellent leadership traits including managerial courage and an ability to motivate/influence team members.
• Mastered project management skills and experience including:

o Schedule development, management, monitoring and oversight

o Resource management and forecasting

o Task and delivery management

o Risk identification and management

o Issue identification and management

o Delegation to support teams

Education & Experience Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent relevant experience desired.
• Master's degree in related is a plus.
• 10+ years total project management experience in one or more of the following fields: operations, digital technology or web development firm, IT consulting firm or strategy consulting firm.
• 10+ years of PM experience spent working with digital campaigns including: site launches, digital experiences, email, campaign launches projects.
• Minimum of 5 years of PM experience spent managing project teams or direct reports.
• Experience in an agency environment, or equivalent client-side experience.
• Excellent knowledge of the web and related technologies including (user experience, web development, web services, integration, application management and hosting).
• Advanced skills in MS Office including: Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
• Advanced skills in MS Project or other project plan software (i.e. Smartsheet).
• Strong capability with production tools and proprietary software (Egnyte, JIRA, Outlook).
• Deep knowledge of content management systems (i.e. CMS).
• PMP or other operational/organizational certification (ITIL, Sig Sigma, ISO) preferred.