Senior Program Manager (Contractor)

Role Title: Senior Program Manager (Contractor)

Role Summary: The Senior Program Manager leads the planning and delivery of complex, integrated communication and event marketing programs from inception through completion. As the central execution lead, this role aligns cross-functional teams and stakeholders, drives accountability, anticipates risks, and ensures high-quality delivery on time, within scope and budget.

This role brings the experience and judgment needed to lead with a proactive approach to navigating ambiguity, anticipating challenges, and keeping teams and clients aligned.

Responsibilities Include:

Leadership

• Lead cross-functional teams and client stakeholders, manage expectations, and provide strategic guidance throughout the engagement.
• Define program objectives and success metrics; align stakeholders on scope, budgets, timelines, and deliverables.
• Anticipate risks, manage scope changes, and advise clients and internal teams on recommended solutions.
• Delegate responsibilities, establish clear ownership, and drive accountability across teams.
• Provide thoughtful management and practical structure so teams can work efficiently, collaborate effectively, and focus on producing exceptional work.

Planning and Organization

• Structure projects with evolving requirements, incomplete information, or shifting priorities, translating available information into a clear path forward.
• Consult with agency leads on resourcing of vendors and partners as well as internal resources.
• Build and maintain project plans covering workback schedules, milestones, dependencies, budgets, ownership, and deliverables.
• Align teams at kickoff on objectives, scope, timing, budget, decision-making, workflows, communications, and success metrics.
• Document decisions, action items, and project records; adjust plans as risks, resources, scope, or priorities change.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with the Account Director to align client expectations, priorities, budgets, resourcing, contractual commitments, and deadlines with the broader project team.
• Coordinate across Strategy, Creative, Production, specialty teams, and external partners on dependencies, handoffs, and realistic timelines for development, review, and approval.
• Translate client context and feedback into actionable direction, ensuring teams understand how strategy, creative, production requirements, and client objectives connect.
• Optimize cross-functional workflows, handoffs, and tools to strengthen accountability and support team efficiency and scalability.

Timeline, Scope, and Delivery

• Drive project execution against approved scope, milestones, budgets, and deliverables; reprioritize work to maintain progress.
• Manage scope changes and change orders; partner with the Account Director to communicate impacts on budgets, timing, resources, and deliverables.
• Manage project financial health, monitoring budgets and up-to-date tracking of time utilization to provide regular accounting updates to the internal teams and clients and proactively escalating risks or variances to the appropriate stakeholders.
• Coordinate review and approval cycles, ensuring feedback is consolidated, actionable, and delivered in time to protect the schedule.
• Ensure quality and delivery standards across all deliverables, maintaining brand integrity and technical accuracy.

Closeout and Optimization

• Facilitate program debriefs and post-program reporting, evaluating outcomes, metrics, insights, and recommendations.
• Apply learnings to improve future program strategy, planning, budgets, workflows, and client opportunities.
• Oversee financial reconciliation, final documentation, and asset archiving.

What Success Looks Like

• Projects run smoothly and are delivered on time, within approved scope and budget, and at a consistently high level of quality.
• Teams, clients and partners/vendors have clear visibility into upcoming work, priorities, ownership, deadlines, and expectations.
• Risks are identified early and addressed proactively before they materially impact delivery, budget, or client expectations.
• Clients and Account leadership have confidence in execution, financial health, and recommendations.

Skills, Knowledge and Abilities

• Experience managing complex, integrated programs across experiential, campaign, live event, strategy, creative, and digital work.
• Fluency in strategy and creative development workflows, including work planning, resourcing and managing client expectations.
• Strong project and financial management skills in scope, budgets, forecasting, resource planning, and financial tracking.
• Excellent organizational, analytical, and problem-solving skills to synthesize complex information, navigate ambiguity, anticipate risks, and recommend solutions.
• Ability to lead cross-functional teams and drive accountability without direct authority.
• Exceptional client and executive communication skills, with demonstrated ability to build trust, manage expectations, and guide decisions.

Other Requirements: Must be available during Eastern Standard working hours. Contract runs through May 2027. There is no travel associated with this temporary position. The contractor should have 7 to 10 years of experience in marketing communications, campaign development, and production experience; experiential agency experience required.