PROGRAM MANAGER ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR

RESPONSIBILITIES: 

A senior professional with a proven track record in program management, demonstrating the ability to achieve demanding goals in an automotive supplier environment through exceptional leadership, strategic oversight, and the effective organization of work. This role requires maintaining focus on multiple new model platform launches while ensuring program timing, cost, profitability, and quality targets are met or exceeded. In addition to managing complex programs, the Associate Director will provide direct leadership to Program Managers, fostering team development, performance management, and cross-functional collaboration across global teams. 

• The Associate Director, Program Management, is accountable for providing strategic direction, leadership, and oversight to a team of Program Managers while also directly managing select high-priority programs. This includes coordinating and leading global, cross-functional project teams to meet or exceed project objectives and customer deliverables in relation to quality, profitability, cost, timing, and resource planning. Additionally, the Associate Director manages project scope, risk, communication, and reporting activities from project inception through launch. 

• Establish and maintain strong customer relationships, including the OEM Purchasing, Program Management, Engineering and Quality departments. 

• Serve as the executive escalation point and single point of contact for key customer accounts, ensuring alignment between customer expectations and Company deliverables. Responsible for implementation and communication of action plans to meet the OEM’s cascaded objectives. 

• VPDS/VBOS - Lead internal operating system processes and procedures for project teams. Oversee and coach Program Managers in leading gate reviews, including pre-reviews and executive gate reviews. Ensure projects are complete and approved prior to review. 

• Project Scope Management – Lead development, management, and confirmation of customer requirements including Statement of Work and Design Change Requests. Communicate to customers through customer warning/impact letters when customer-related decisions jeopardize the Company’s ability to deliver on project objectives. 

• Project Timing Management – Ensure project/customer timing is met. Communicate status to customers and internal team members. Monitor program timing performance across the entire team and take corrective action when necessary. 

• Program Cost Management – Ensure project meets profitability targets established during gate 2 program commitment targets. Establish profitability roadmaps to meet objectives. Provide oversight into cost management strategies for all programs within the portfolio. 

• Program Risk Management – Establish Risk Mitigation Plans and ensure risk assessments are regularly updated across the program portfolio. 

• Deliver VAVE (cost reduction) budget commitments for product line. 

• Support quoting activities. 

• Bill all project tooling in less than 30 days past PPAP. 

• Provide program status reports to the customer and to senior company leadership on portfolio-level performance. 

• Lead cross-functional engineering/manufacturing/purchasing team meetings and coordinate efforts. Ensure Program Managers are effectively driving cross-functional alignment.   

• Serve as the single point of contact with customers for program issues, timing, and change control at an executive level. 

• Lead change control. 

• Ensure EnterProj system compliance and daily usage across all managed programs.. 

EDUCATION REQUIREMENT(S): 

• Bachelors in engineering, business or finance or related discipline. Master’s degree preferred. 

EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENT(S): 

• 8+ years of progressive experience in program management, preferably within the automotive supplier industry. 

• Prior people leadership experience with proven ability to mentor, develop, and evaluate team performance. 

• Strong written and verbal communication skills. 

• Strong presentation and negotiation skills. 

• Ability to function in a fast-paced, team-oriented environment and handle multiple priorities. 

• Strong project management, organizational skills, business acumen, and process improvement skills, including lean business process development and value stream mapping. 

• Demonstrated ability to plan projects and motivate and lead teams to meet planned dates for cost, quality, and timely delivery. 

• Experience leading cross-functional and international teams. 

• Launch experience and/or manufacturing experience is highly desired. 

• Experience interfacing with product development and customers, including demonstrated ability to manage customer expectations at a senior level. 

• Ability to review, understand, and convert functional requirements into valid technical specifications and documentation. 

• Ability to propose and develop technical specifications. 

• Familiarity with Company’s existing IT tools, such as vBuyer, enterProj, GBC, and legacy systems such as WIPS, GSDB, CMMS, SAP, and QAD is a plus. 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: 

• Some travel may be required; overtime expected, including several evening meetings with global teams. Flexibility to manage teams across multiple time zones.