Organizational Development + Change Management Specialist

Overview
DRT Strategies delivers expert management consulting and information technology (IT) solutions to large federal agencies, state and local government and commercial clients in health care, technology, and financial services industries.

The three letters of our name, DRT, stand for Driving Resolution Together, which is the core philosophy on which the company was founded. That is, we collaborate with our clients to solve their most pressing challenges - together.

We are problem solvers dedicated to your success, combining Fortune 500 experience with small business responsiveness. We have established a reputation with our clients as a forward-thinking consulting firm with demonstrated success in implementing solutions that lead to meaningful results. Our world-class consultants unite people to work collaboratively to achieve project goals and make vision a reality.

Project Description:
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for protecting and advancing the public health. Within FDA, the Office of Global Policy and Strategy (OGPS) and the Office of Policy, Legislation, and International Affairs (OPLIA) support the Agency's mission through global policy and strategy, policy development, legislative affairs, international engagement, organizational coordination, and related mission-support activities.

Section I will be performed first as a six-month OGPS Organizational Redesign and Leadership Succession Planning effort. The project will support OGPS with a current-state organizational and workload assessment; FTE and capacity analysis and federal benchmarking; roles, responsibilities, and decision-rights assessment; future-state organizational design alternatives; process and operating improvements; an implementation roadmap; leadership capability requirements; succession risk assessment; and a practical succession planning framework. The work must maintain a clear analytical thread from current-state evidence through future-state design, implementation, and leadership continuity.

Upon completion of Section I, the core project team will transition to Section II to provide OPLIA Mission Execution Support Services. Section II will support OPLIA with workload assessment and mission prioritization; cross-organizational FTE/capacity analysis and benchmarking; functional mapping and roles-and-responsibilities clarification with FDA Centers and other Office of the Commissioner components; coordination protocols; stakeholder communications and mission positioning; implementation roadmap recommendations; and workforce planning analysis. The work includes leadership retreats, cross-collaborative sessions, R&R clarity engagements, and internal stakeholder engagement. The team is expected to carry forward relevant methods, lessons learned, and delivery discipline from Section I, with the potential to add one additional staff member based on Section II needs.

The two sections are sequential rather than concurrent, but both are outcome-oriented, leadership-facing, and advisory in nature. Federal officials retain decision-making authority over organizational structure, workforce matters, personnel actions, priorities, and other inherently governmental functions. Each phase requires disciplined program management, careful stakeholder engagement, rigorous quality control, and deliberate transition planning. Because the work is performed under a firm-fixed-price model, proactive scope management, resource planning, quality assurance, and early risk escalation are critical to successful delivery.

Job Summary:
DRT is seeking a Senior Consultant to serve as an Organizational Development and Change Management Specialist supporting a two-phase, sequential Mission and Organizational Support engagement. The successful candidate will be a hands-on organizational development practitioner who can assess organizational structures and operating models, translate findings into practical future-state and implementation recommendations, and help leadership and staff navigate organizational change with sensitivity, credibility, and discipline. This role will support Section I organizational redesign and leadership continuity activities and then transition with the core team into Section II mission execution, functional alignment, workforce planning, and implementation support.

Responsibilities:

• Serve as the overall delivery lead across two sequential phases: first, the OGPS Organizational Redesign and Leadership Succession Planning effort; then, the OPLIA Mission Execution Support Services effort. Maintain continuity of leadership, methods, lessons learned, and team performance as the engagement transitions from Section I to Section II.
• Act as a trusted advisor and primary senior-level interface with FDA leadership and the COR; anticipate stakeholder concerns, navigate competing priorities and organizational dynamics, and communicate issues, tradeoffs, and decisions with discretion and professionalism.
• Mobilize Section I rapidly and• Support current-state organizational assessments through document review, structured interviews, surveys, workload/capacity analysis, functional analysis, and synthesis of qualitative and quantitative findings.
• Develop and evaluate future-state organizational design concepts, including functional alignment, reporting relationships, management layers, spans of control, roles, decision rights, organizational capabilities, and operating-model considerations.
• Apply organizational development and change management methods to assess change impacts, stakeholder readiness, adoption risks, communication needs, and implementation dependencies associated with proposed organizational changes.
• Develop practical change and implementation approaches that help leadership move from assessment findings to action, including sequencing, milestones, dependencies, risk mitigation, success measures, and sustainment considerations.
• Support leadership succession and workforce planning activities by assessing organizational capabilities, continuity risks, knowledge dependencies, role alignment, development needs, and opportunities for cross-training or role realignment.
• Facilitate or co-facilitate leadership sessions, working sessions, organizational design discussions, and roles-and-responsibilities engagements that build shared understanding and support constructive decision-making.
• Support Section II mission execution activities, including workload and mission prioritization, functional mapping, R&R clarification, coordination mechanisms, workforce planning, and implementation roadmap development.
• Ensure assessment and change products are balanced, evidence-based, and constructive, recognizing organizational strengths and employee concerns while clearly distinguishing analysis and recommendations from federal personnel decisions.
• Develop and quality-review leadership-ready reports, frameworks, organizational models, roadmaps, briefing materials, and other deliverables; maintain traceability from evidence to findings and recommendations.
• Coordinate closely with the Leadership/Succession Planning + Mission Support SME and other team members to manage assigned workstreams, dependencies, risks, schedules, and quality within firm-fixed-price delivery constraints.
  establish the delivery approach, staffing model, governance cadence, master schedule, quality process, communications plan, risk registry, and clear ownership of deliverables and dependencies. Prepare the team for an efficient transition into Section II without loss of momentum or institutional knowledge.
• Manage a dense portfolio of tightly sequenced deliverables within each phase, maintaining traceability from current-state evidence to recommendations and ensuring that downstream products are built on validated findings. Balance near-term delivery demands with preparation for the next phase of work.
• Lead and oversee organizational assessment activities, including document review, structured interviews, surveys, workload analysis, FTE/capacity analysis, federal benchmarking, organizational structure review, functional mapping, decision-rights analysis, and identification of organizational strengths, gaps, duplication, fragmentation, and misalignment.
• Design and facilitate sensitive interviews, leadership retreats, cross-organizational working sessions, and roles-and-responsibilities clarity engagements in a manner that builds trust, reduces defensiveness, surfaces candid information, and recognizes that staff may be concerned about how assessment findings could affect their roles.
• Ensure assessment products are balanced, evidence-based, and constructive—clearly distinguishing facts, observations, risks, and recommendations; identifying strengths and capabilities to preserve as well as opportunities to improve; and avoiding unsupported, overly categorical, or unnecessarily harsh conclusions.
• Lead development and quality review of future-state organizational alternatives, organizational design principles and evaluation criteria, process and operating improvement recommendations, implementation roadmaps, leadership capability requirements, succession planning frameworks, workforce planning analyses, coordination protocols, and mission-positioning communications.
• Maintain strict boundaries between contractor advisory support and federal decision-making. Ensure the team does not conduct formal performance appraisals, determine personnel actions, direct federal staff, make workforce or organizational decisions, or otherwise perform inherently governmental functions.
• Own FFP delivery discipline by managing scope, level of effort, staffing, schedule, and quality against the agreed requirements; identify scope creep and resource pressure early; evaluate the feasibility of ad hoc requests; and elevate recommended tradeoffs before commitments create delivery risk.
• Oversee preparation and timely submission of the Program Management Plan, Monthly Status Reports, meeting agendas and minutes, action-item trackers, risk updates, executive briefings, and other required or ad hoc deliverables; manage Government review comments, revisions, and acceptance.
• Provide hands-on leadership and quality assurance to a compact, multidisciplinary team of approximately five staff during Section I, spanning organizational development, workforce/human capital, research/data analysis, facilitation, communications, and project management capabilities. Plan and execute the team's transition into Section II and support onboarding or integration of an additional team member if the staffing model expands.
• Ensure sensitive organizational, personnel, staffing, and PII-related information is handled appropriately and that all project activities comply with applicable FDA/HHS privacy, security, records-management, and confidentiality requirements.
• Support remote, hybrid, and on-site project activities at FDA facilities as required, including leadership sessions, interviews, organizational assessment activities, and cross-organizational engagements.

Required Experience:

• Minimum 7+ years of progressively responsible experience in organizational development, change management, management consulting, organizational transformation, human capital, or a related discipline.
• Demonstrated experience supporting organizational assessments, organizational redesign, operating-model changes, workforce planning, or enterprise transformation initiatives for U.S. Federal Government clients.
• Strong knowledge of organizational design concepts, including functional alignment, organizational capabilities, role clarity, decision rights, management layers and spans of control, process handoffs, and implementation sequencing.
• Practical experience applying change management methods to stakeholder readiness, change impact, adoption, communications, resistance, transition, and sustainment activities.
• Experience conducting structured interviews, surveys, workshops, or other qualitative research and synthesizing findings into clear, defensible organizational recommendations.
• Demonstrated ability to facilitate sensitive organizational discussions with leaders and staff in a neutral, respectful, and trust-preserving manner.
• Excellent analytical, writing, briefing, and presentation skills, with experience producing decision-ready reports, frameworks, roadmaps, and executive-level materials.
• Working knowledge of contractor advisory boundaries and inherently governmental functions, particularly for workforce, personnel, organizational, and leadership matters.
• Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced, high-visibility environment with compressed schedules, interdependent deliverables, and evolving stakeholder priorities.

Preferred Experience:

• Direct experience supporting FDA, HHS, or another federal headquarters or regulatory organization.
• Experience supporting leadership succession planning, organizational capability assessment, knowledge continuity, workforce alignment, or human capital planning.
• Experience developing organizational design alternatives, RACI/decision-rights frameworks, implementation roadmaps, change impact assessments, or operating-model recommendations.
• Experience supporting federal benchmarking, FTE/capacity analysis, workload analysis, or mission prioritization efforts.
• Change management or organizational development certification or credential (e.g., Prosci, CCMP, SHRM, HRCI, or comparable) is a plus.
• Experience transitioning organizational transformation work from assessment/design into implementation and sustainment.

Education & Training:

• Bachelor's degree in Organizational Development, Business Administration, Public Administration, Management, Human Capital/Human Resources, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, or a related field.
• Master's degree in a related discipline is preferred.

Work Authorization, Clearance Requirement, & Additional Information:

• This position requires the ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government Public Trust clearance. Due to contract requirements, candidates must be U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents (green card holders) to be eligible.
• No agencies, third parties, or Corp-to-Corp submissions.

Salary Range:

• $120,000 - $150,000
• Salary commensurate with experience.

DRT Strategies, Inc. (DRT) follows the guidelines outlined by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to provide all employees and qualified applicants employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related conditions, transgender status, and sexual orientation), national origin, age, genetic information, disability, protected veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under federal, state, or local law.

Reasonable accommodations for applicants and employees with disabilities will be provided. If a reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact Human Resources by emailing [email protected], or by dialing 571-482-2517.

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