Description
Syneos Health is seeking an Associate Director, Strategic Initiatives to lead complex, enterprise-level initiatives that deliver sustained business value. The successful candidate will be accountable for directing high-impact programs, including post-M&A integrations, strategic partnerships, and large-scale business transformations.
Core Responsibilities
- Provide leadership and direction for complex, cross-functional programs, ensuring alignment with enterprise and functional strategies and business priorities.
- Lead and oversee matrixed teams, including senior professionals and subordinate project leaders, establishing clear accountability, governance, and performance expectations across programs.
- Own end-to-end program execution, including development and oversight of program charters, integrated delivery roadmaps, dependency management, resource strategies, and governance frameworks.
- Drive execution excellence by monitoring progress against milestones, KPIs, and value realization targets, proactively addressing risks to ensure successful delivery of outcomes.
- Identify, evaluate, and resolve complex, cross-functional risks and issues, escalating strategic decisions to executive sponsors and governance bodies as appropriate.
- Provide oversight of scope, budget, and resource planning, ensuring initiatives are delivered within approved financial and operational parameters.
- Influence and validate financial forecasts, monitor program-level spend, and partner with finance leaders to ensure reconciliation of resources and expenditures across initiatives.
- Lead enterprise-level change management and business readiness efforts, ensuring adoption, sustainability, and realization of intended benefits across impacted functions.
- Serve as a primary liaison to executive sponsors and steering committees, delivering concise, insight-driven updates and framing decisions that impact multiple functions or business units.
- Represent strategic initiatives in governance, portfolio, and cross-enterprise forums, influencing prioritization, sequencing, and investment decisions.
- Coach and mentor project managers and senior team members, building organizational capability and reinforcing best practices in program delivery.
- Drive continuous improvement by capturing lessons learned and contributing to the evolution of strategic initiative methodologies, tools, and standards.
- Partner with functional leaders to identify opportunities for process optimization and operational improvements that support long-term business objectives.
Qualifications
- Minimum Education Requirement: 4 Year / Bachelors Degree
- At least 8 years' experience in project management
- Preferred Education Requirement: Graduate Degree
Additional Qualifications
- Demonstrated expertise in leading large, complex programs that span multiple functions or business units, with accountability for outcomes and value realization.
- Proven ability to lead through influence, including managing senior stakeholders and directing work through matrixed teams and subordinate leaders.
- Strong strategic thinking and problem-solving skills, with experience resolving complex operational, technical, and organizational challenges beyond a single team.
- Experience coaching and developing experienced professionals or project leaders, fostering high performance and professional growth.
- Exceptional executive-level communication and presentation skills, with the ability to frame issues, decisions, and recommendations for senior leadership.
- Advanced proficiency in project and program management methodologies and tools, with the ability to adapt approaches to fit enterprise-scale initiatives.
- High degree of adaptability, initiative, and judgment in dynamic, fast-paced environments involving ambiguity and competing priorities.