Transformation Program Manager

Our client is seeking a hands-on transformation operator who will establish control quickly, coordinate execution across the program, and leave behind management mechanisms that continue to work after go-live.

Our client is implementing a new operating model for Lifecycle Services to clarify accountability for customer delivery, service strategy, organizational capability, support functions, and business performance. The Transformation Program Manager will lead day-to-day execution, coordinate six interdependent workstreams, maintain the integrated plan, drive decisions and deliverables to closure, and protect the fixed April 1, 2027 go-live date. This is an execution role, not a passive PMO or strategy-only assignment. The successful candidate will combine transformation experience, business judgment, and personal ownership with the ability to create discipline without unnecessary bureaucracy. Client leadership retains design authority and final business decisions.

Initial Assignment and Longer-Term Opportunity: The initial engagement is a full-time contract through March 31, 2027.

Following successful delivery, Our client intends to evaluate the candidate for a permanent leadership position beginning in the new fiscal year. No future position is guaranteed or predetermined. Potential pathways include continued transformation leadership, post-go-live stabilization, performance management, continuous improvement, Phase II delivery, or another role aligned with organizational need, demonstrated capability, and mutual fit.

Key Responsibilities

Integrated program control

• Convert the approved transformation direction into a clear, executable plan with milestones, dependencies, critical-path activities, owners, decisions, risks, and acceptance criteria.
• Identify slippage early, drive recovery actions, and escalate while meaningful intervention remains possible.
• Keep leadership focused on delivery, decisions, and readiness rather than reporting volume.

Cross-workstream execution

• Coordinate People & Organization Design; Process & Procedure; Tools & Information; Operating Rhythm & Data; Change & Communications; and Transition & Cutover.
• Translate workstream objectives into deliverables, accountable owners, review dates, and completion criteria.
• Manage dependencies across Lifecycle Services, HR, Finance, Organization Transformation and IT, Marketing and Communications, and other stakeholders.

Program operating rhythm

• Lead two-week planning and closeout cycles.
• Maintain practical RAID, decision, action, dependency, and deliverable registers.
• Prepare concise steering materials centered on risks, trade-offs, decisions, and required intervention.
• Ensure meetings conclude with recorded decisions, owners, and follow-through.

Day 1 readiness and cutover

• Maintain an integrated readiness view against April 1.
• Separate Day 1 essentials from first-90-day and later-phase work.
• Coordinate readiness scoring, contingency planning, cutover preparation, and escalation.
• Ensure deferred work has a named owner, destination, and completion mechanism.

Sustainable operating mechanisms

• Help establish practical KPIs, dashboards, governance, decision logs, and management routines.
• Ensure documentation, knowledge, and ownership remain with the client
• Structure stabilization and Phase II work for transfer into the new organization.

Change adoption

• Identify stakeholder dependencies, change impacts, and adoption risks.
• Maintain clear communication on program progress, decisions, and upcoming changes.
• Distinguish schedule problems from underlying capacity, alignment, decision, or adoption issues.

Required Experience and Capabilities

• Demonstrated success managing a significant organization, operating-model, service, integration, business-process, or enterprise transformation.
• Strong capability in integrated planning, governance, dependency and risk management, readiness, and executive reporting.
• Experience coordinating concurrent workstreams whose contributors do not report directly to the Program Manager.
• Ability to turn ambiguity into decisions, accountable actions, and completed deliverables.
• Strong facilitation skills and credibility with senior leaders.
• Willingness to work directly in plans, registers, meeting materials, and deliverables.
• Clear executive communication and sound business judgment.

Preferred Background

• Industrial services, engineering, field service, process automation, manufacturing, energy, chemicals, or another technically complex B2B environment.
• Operating rhythms, KPI structures, performance reviews, or business-management systems.
• Process architecture, Lean, continuous improvement, operational excellence, or organizational design.
• Implementation, cutover, and stabilization experience, not only strategy or design.
• Practical use of digital collaboration, data visualization, workflow automation, and AI-enabled productivity tools.
• Relevant certification is helpful, but demonstrated execution is more important.

Leadership Profile

• Structured, not bureaucratic: Creates enough control to make commitments real without allowing governance to become the work.
• Persistent without formal authority: Challenges drift and earns cooperation across functional boundaries.
• Business-minded: Connects deliverables to customer, operational, and financial outcomes.
• Comfortable with ambiguity: Moves responsibly before every answer is known and identifies the decisions needed.
• Direct and constructive: Surfaces bad news early and explains the required intervention.
• Hands-on: Works personally in the detail rather than relying on an analyst team.
• Technology-forward: Uses automation and AI appropriately while preserving human review and accountability.

Success in the Initial Assignment

• Leadership can immediately see what is complete, next, late, at risk, and awaiting decision.
• Workstream leaders understand their deliverables, deadlines, dependencies, and acceptance criteria.
• Problems surface while corrective action remains possible.
• Program forums produce decisions and movement rather than status narration.
• The Director can focus on design decisions, stakeholders, and people rather than program administration.
• The organization reaches go-live with clear ownership, working Tier 1 processes, an operating rhythm, and controlled follow-through for deferred work. Candidate Submission Guidance For each candidate, please summarize:
• The most comparable transformation personally managed and the outcome achieved.
• How the candidate established control in a program already in motion.
• An example of influencing contributors who did not report to them.
• Experience with readiness, go-live, cutover, and stabilization.
• The permanent leadership roles into which the candidate could credibly grow. Profiles to avoid Do not prioritize status-reporting coordinators, scheduler-only profiles, large-consulting-team supervisors, or advisors who leave implementation to others. The selected person must personally drive execution through cutover.