Discovery Education
Senior Program Manager Specialist
🇺🇸 Charlotte, NC
🕑 Full-Time
💰 TBD
💻 Product Development
🗓️ April 11th, 2024
Asana PMPDiscovery Education is looking for a Senior Program Manager Specialist to join our Corporate Education Partnerships team. You will support a portfolio of partner program deliverables, working closely with PMO leaders, the Partner Impact team, CEP clients and internal production hubs including production, creative, curriculum, engineering, marketing and research. In this role, you will be responsible for the timely execution of contracted deliverables, project budgets, program quality, and matrixed timelines to ensure on-time delivery. You will collaborate daily with external, partner-facing leads on the Partner Impact team, to understand and drive positive project outcomes. You will help support our ability to exceed our CEP partners’ expectations in support of renewal, retention, and upsell objectives. It is critical to have a multi-dimensional skill set that will enable you to thrive working within a shared investment model at the highest of levels.
You have a reputation for flawless program management in a matrixed environment with a fanatical level of discipline and attention to detail. Your background in program management spans across multiple disciplines, resulting in your ability to proactively plan, trouble-shoot, problem-solve and strategically support teams in the build and on-time delivery of highly successful initiatives with measurable outcomes. Your career trajectory reflects the ability to work with a degree of autonomy and increasing levels of responsibility over time. Because you operate with a growth mindset, you can speak to the process improvements you’ve led and possess stellar written and verbal communication skills with the ability to effectively engage clients and internal management in your work. You also work with a high degree of urgency and inspire your colleagues in the pursuit of shared objectives.
About the Role
Adaptability - the ability to communicate effectively with others to accomplish tasks, the ability to be adaptable to teams and collaborate to deliver results and be respected by colleagues, the willingness to learn PMO strategy and operations to get projects complete on time and of the highest quality.
Communication - strong speaking and writing skills and responsible for communicating frequently in PMO tools like Asana and Slack, on the phone, and in person with various teams to ensure projects are on time, at or under budget, and are of the highest quality. Key to effective communication is being able to comprehend project deliverables and collaborative discussion and be able to communicate in a clear and succinct way ensuring that all others understand what needs to be accomplished. The ability to establish a fluid cadence of communications that ensures all parties are always up-to-speed with the information needed about the project is crucial.
Time Management - ability to prioritize in a fluid manner throughout the day and week to ensure all details of the project are on time and on or under budget, assist in the development and oversight for project deliver schedules in Asana and the daily and weekly review of these schedules. Successful time management includes making sure the most important tasks are accomplished in a timely fashion. This also requires agenda setting, managing meeting time, taking notes, and clarifying meeting objectives and keeping others on task.
Risk Management - insight to proactively identify critical path elements and flag potential schedule conflicts to resolve in advance to allow the project to stay on time and at or under budget. Risk management includes identifying dependencies and what could potentially go wrong and working with PMO leaders to provide quality options for solutions to prevent risks and mitigate effectively for risks when something does go wrong.
Proactive Planning - skill at developing a plan that identifies and organizes all the detailed tasks in the right order that need to be completed in order for the project to be completed on time, at or under budget, and be of the highest quality. Scheduling and monitoring progress are keys to proactive planning. This area includes resource planning, scheduling, writing project plans, understanding efficiency strategies, and always looking into the future to ensure the project stays on track.
Negotiation - a Senior Program manager Specialist is responsible for proactively bringing people together to accomplish a project, so the ability to listen, pull together individuals with various perspectives, and ensure all involved are on the same page and moving forward efficiently is a critical skill. Must be able to consistently demonstrate problem-solving skills and a seek to learn mentality to work through complex challenges with the support of PMO leadership.
Requirements
- Passionate about Discovery Education's vision to transform teaching and learning; experience working in program management.
- At least 4-6 years in a related role in which flawless project management skills were non-negotiable in your work.
- Ability to work with high degree of autonomy to fluidly manage multiple projects with multiple partners, often with competing deadlines and interdependent workstreams.
- Organizational skills that enable you to strategically guide delivery and implementation procedures from our product portfolio.
- Stellar problem-solving skills with a track record of supporting in complex conversations in a highly matrixed environment.
- Bachelor’s Degree required in business, marketing, communications, or another related field. Advanced degree’s preferred or equivalent work experience.
- Standard project management skills as noted above. PMP or other Project Management certification is a plus, previous work experience in project management is required.
- Excellent, client-ready written and oral communication as well as strong interpersonal skills and the ability to collaborate effectively both internally and externally.
- The ability to do what needs to be done without being micromanaged.
- Ability to work as part of a team in a fast-paced, high-energy environment.
- Proficiency in Asana or other similar project management software, proficiency in presentation design PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Outlook and Office Suite.
- Candidates must be willing to participate in a high volume of meetings, primarily on zoom, and travel 5% of the time to meet with partners, customers, or internal meetings.
- Legal right to work in the United States.
Benefits
We are proud to offer employees and their families a comprehensive benefits package:
- Medical-Dental-Vision
- Health Care Dependent Care
- Short & Long Term Disability
- Life Insurance
- 401(k)
- FSA/HSA
- Paid Time Off
- Volunteer Time
- Employee Assistance Program
- 7 Paid Holidays + Annual Winter Holiday Break (Typically the last week of December)
Discovery Education is an equal opportunity employer. Discovery Education is committed to being an employer of choice, not just a good place to work, but a great and inclusive place to work. To that end, we strive to recruit and maintain a workforce that meaningfully represents the diverse and culturally rich communities that we serve. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to their race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, protected veteran status or disabled status or, genetic information.
