Senior Program Manager, CO&P PMO

Senior Program Manager – CO&P PMO – Hybrid, Cary, North Carolina

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About the job

The Corporate Operations & Planning Program Management Organization (CO&P PMO) is looking for a Senior Program Manager to lead high-impact, cross-divisional initiatives and programs that drive strategic transformation and operational excellence across SAS. The CO&P addresses four critical challenges for SAS: ensuring the right strategy, enabling better decisions, improving operational effectiveness, and strengthening our competitive advantage. The CO&P PMO accelerates SAS’s strategic vision and addresses those four challenges by transforming prioritized initiatives into measurable results through program alignment, governance, and business impact. Through disciplined execution, we ensure strategic initiatives and programs are delivered on time, within scope, and with measurable value, fostering a culture of accountability and continuous improvement that drives long-term business success. This position is a critical part of the team working to secure SAS’s future.

Work Location: Cary, NC Headquarters

As a Senior Corporate Operations & Planning Program Manager, you will:

Collaborate with the PMO, executive sponsors, business leaders, and cross-functional teams to deliver initiatives and programs that advance SAS’s strategic goals and initiatives with the following guiding areas of focus:

• Initiative & Program Leadership: Manage and support the initiation, planning, execution, and closure of initiatives and programs to ensure they align with strategic goals and the CO&P PMO charter. Serve as the primary point of contact for all initiative- or program-related matters, liaising with interested parties throughout the company to ensure successful outcomes. Demonstrate strong analytical abilities to assess solutions for both program and business operation needs.
• Provide guidance and direction to teams to ensure alignment with established goals, objectives, and deadlines.
• Develop detailed initiative and program plans to effectively track and monitor progress, ensuring scope is aligned with broader business strategies.
• Orchestrate a consistent cadence of meetings and working sessions with colleagues and team members to manage deliverables and monitor progress.
• Stakeholder Engagement & Alignment: By cultivating and sustaining strong working relationships, you will translate high-level initiatives into executable programs by partnering with key stakeholders to define scope, identify objectives with measurable outcomes, and lead initiatives or programs that enhance the effectiveness of strategic goals. Collaborate with partner organizations responsible for shared success to identify and track key performance metrics related to stakeholder priorities, satisfaction, and achievement of objectives, ensuring collective initiative or program success.
• Governance & Reporting: Abide by the PMO methodology by developing and maintaining comprehensive initiative or program documentation including plans, schedules, and status updates; facilitate clear communication across teams to drive alignment, transparent reporting, and realization of intended benefits. Including preparing and delivering tailored reports for various stakeholder groups, outlining initiative or program status, challenges, and solutions.
• Program Delivery: Plan, prioritize, implement, and adjust delivery schedules, scope, resourcing, and program quality requirements as needed. Facilitate status meetings, coordinate cross-divisional resources, and facilitate clear communication among stakeholders to keep programs on track. Proactively manage action items, formulate mitigation strategies, and resolve issues in partnership with stakeholders to maintain initiative or program delivery within defined scope and timelines.
• Continuous Improvement: Foster a culture of innovation, agility, and adherence to program management best practices.
• Operational Excellence: Apply rigorous operational oversight to monitor, sustain, and continuously evolve initiatives and programs to secure ongoing success. Ensure continuous alignment between program scope and overarching organizational goals and objectives.
• Promote Innovation: Engage in ongoing professional development through educational opportunities, reading industry publications, networking, and actively participating in relevant organizations to ensure up-to-date expertise.
• Embrace curiosity, passion, authenticity and accountability. These are our values and influence everything we do.

Required qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Program or Project Management, or related field
• Minimum 8 years of experience in program or project management, preferably in a cross-divisional or enterprise environment.
• Proven ability to work independently, with guidance in only the most complex situations. Manage multiple programs or a portfolio with cross-functional impact. Perform effectively under pressure, manage shifting priorities, prioritize changing deadlines, and maintain performance standards.
• Proven excellent organizational and problem-solving capabilities; meticulous attention to detail and accuracy.
• Demonstrated exceptional interpersonal, written, oral, and visual communication abilities, with experience engaging audiences including executives.
• Proven ability to lead program teams and build consensus among senior stakeholders.
• Proven ability to apply change management methodologies to effectively manage people, processes, and technology transitions systematically, minimizing disruption, scope creep, timeline delays, stakeholder resistance, and misalignment.
• Demonstrated understanding of business and technical concepts to evaluate strategic initiatives and their impacts.
• Proven experience in designing and supporting process improvements aligned with a PMO’s frameworks and methodologies.
• Demonstrated ability to apply innovative and creative thinking to design tailored solutions for complex and unique challenges.
• Proven significant experience with program management tools (e.g., MS Project, Jira) and extensive knowledge of Microsoft Office 365.
• Proven experience working in technology or at a data, analytics or AI software/service provider.
• Willingness and flexibility to travel 15%, when necessary.
• Equivalent combination of related education, training and experience may be considered in place of the above qualifications.

Additional competencies, knowledge and skills

• Communication: Conveying information and ideas clearly and concisely to individuals or groups in an engaging manner that helps them understand and retain the message; listening actively to others.
• Decision Making: Identifying and understanding problems and opportunities by gathering, analyzing, and interpreting quantitative and qualitative information; choosing the best course of action by establishing clear decision criteria, generating and evaluating alternatives, making timely decision; taking action that is consistent with available facts and constraints and optimizes probable consequences.
• Planning and Organizing: Establishing an action plan for self and others to complete work efficiently and on time by setting priorities, establishing timelines, and leveraging resources.
• Driving Execution: Translating strategic priorities into operational reality; aligning communication, accountabilities, resource capabilities, internal processes, and ongoing measurement systems to ensure that strategic priorities yield measurable and sustainable results.
• Influencing: Using effective involvement and persuasion strategies to gain acceptance of ideas and commitment to actions that support specific work outcomes.
• Global Perspective: Demonstrating an awareness of, and sensitivity to, the international market, cultural, technological, political, and legal factors that impact individual work group priorities and results; leveraging own understanding of the organization’s global strategy, global business trends, and regional differences to enhance individual and work group results.
• Project Management Professional (PMP), Program Management Professional (PgMP) or Agile certification or equivalent, demonstrable professional development and working toward certification.
• Proven experience in strategic planning, governance, or enterprise transformation.
• Demonstrated familiarity with SAS software, analytics, or cloud technologies.

World-class benefits

Highlights include...

• Comprehensive medical, prescription, dental and vision plans.

• Medical plan options include:
  • PPO with low annual deductible and copays.
  • HDHP combined with a health savings account with a contribution from SAS (no access to on-site health care center).

• Onsite Health Care Center (HQ) that’s free to employees and family members enrolled in the PPO plan. There’s a pharmacy too! Not local to HQ? The pharmacy will ship prescriptions for no additional charge!

• An industry-leading 401k plan.

• Tuition Assistance Program and programs and resources to support your development

• Generous time away including vacation time, a variety of paid holidays, and our much-loved U.S. Winter Wellness Break between December 25 and January 1.

• Volunteer Time Off, parental leave and unlimited paid sick days.

• Generous childcare benefits for all full-time employees.

You are welcome here.

At SAS, it’s not about fitting into our culture – it’s about adding to it. We believe our people make the difference. Our inclusive workforce brings together unique talents and inspires teams to create amazing software that reflects the diversity of our users and customers.

Additional Information

To qualify, applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States, and should not require, now or in the future, sponsorship for employment visa status. SAS is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants are considered for employment without regard to any characteristic protected by law. Read more: Know Your Rights.

Resumes may be considered in the order they are received. SAS employees performing certain job functions may require access to technology or software subject to export or import regulations. To comply with these regulations, SAS may obtain nationality or citizenship information from applicants for employment. SAS collects this information solely for trade law compliance purposes and does not use it to discriminate unfairly in the hiring process.

SAS only sends emails from verified “sas.com” email addresses and never asks for sensitive, personal information or money. If you have any doubts about the authenticity of any type of communication from, or on behalf of SAS, please contact [email protected].

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