Senior Program Manager - M&A

Senior Program Manager - M&A1

Key Responsibilities

Program Leadership and Delivery

• Lead end-to-end delivery of large-scale infrastructure, operations, Finance technology, and Lead to Cash business application programs, from planning through implementation and stabilization.
• Manage initiatives spanning servers, cloud, networking, storage, virtualization, databases, endpoint management, data center technologies, and financial and commercial systems.
• Support modernization efforts including cloud migration, automation, disaster recovery, and platform upgrades.
• Lead multiple large-scale programs concurrently, ensuring scope, schedule, budget, and quality objectives are met.

Agile and SAFe Delivery

• Establish and maintain Sprint and Program Increment (PI) calendars and communicate key milestones.
• Facilitate and drive Agile ceremonies, including Feature Planning, PI Planning, Release Commit, Sprint Planning, Sprint Demos, Retrospectives, Go-Live activities, and Release Readiness Reviews.
• Champion Agile principles, empowering teams to continuously improve processes and fostering a transparent, collaborative working environment.
• Apply Scrum, SAFe, Waterfall, or hybrid methodologies as appropriate, with a focus on delivery speed and program flexibility, including across distributed teams.

PMO Governance and Operating Model

• Establish and manage program governance, operating models, project standards, milestones, and reporting mechanisms.
• Develop and maintain integrated program plans, dependencies, critical paths, resource plans, and delivery roadmaps.
• Establish effective RAID (Risks, Assumptions, Issues, Dependencies) management and ensure timely resolution of critical items.
• Facilitate steering committees and executive governance forums, ensuring clear decisions, actions, and accountability.
• Drive continuous improvement of PMO processes, tools, standards, and governance practices.

ServiceNow, ITSM, and Release Management

• Use ServiceNow for project tracking and ITSM processes, including Change, Incident, Problem, Asset Management, and CMDB.
• Coordinate infrastructure and release changes through CAB, ensuring adherence to ITIL best practices.
• Support release and change management activities, ensuring smooth go-lives and successful user adoption of delivered solutions.
• Build executive dashboards that give leadership real-time visibility into program health.

Financial and Vendor Management

• Manage program financials, including budgets, forecasts, resource costs, vendor spend, and variance analysis.
• Manage vendor relationships, system integrators, and consulting partners, including procurement activities and contract deliverables.

Stakeholder Engagement and Change Management

• Build and maintain strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders across Finance, Accounting, FP&A, Treasury, Procurement, Sales, IT, Infrastructure, Security, Application, Cloud, Data, and business teams.
• Proactively address stakeholder concerns and communicate program progress, risks, and mitigation strategies in a timely manner.
• Provide executive-level reporting on status, risks, issues, dependencies, financials, and key decisions.
• Ensure change management, communication, training, and organizational readiness are built into every program.

Metrics and Compliance

• Establish KPIs to measure program health, delivery performance, benefits realization, and business outcomes.
• Identify delivery risks early and develop mitigation and contingency plans.
• Ensure compliance with organizational policies, security, audit, regulatory, and Finance governance requirements.

M&A Requirements

• Lead M&A integration programs from pre-close planning through Day 1 readiness and post-merger stabilization, including Day 1 / Day 100 roadmaps and synergy tracking.
• Coordinate system, data, and ERP / Lead to Cash integration, including application rationalization and onboarding acquired environments into ServiceNow (ITSM, CMDB).
• Partner with Corporate Development, Legal, Finance, and the IMO on due diligence findings, TSAs, integration budgets, and compliance (including SOX).
• Drive change management, communications, and readiness for acquired and acquiring teams; report integration KPIs and synergy realization to executives.

M&A Preferred Qualifications

• Buy-side and sell-side experience, including carve-outs and separations.
• Experience with synergy tracking tools, IMO frameworks, and SOX or purchase accounting impacts on systems.
• PMP, PgMP, or an M&A integration credential; MBA or advanced degree in Finance or Business Administration.

Required Skills

• Extensive experience implementing Agile methodologies, particularly Scrum and SAFe, and facilitating Agile ceremonies across distributed teams.
• Proven experience as a Program Manager for Lead to Cash business applications, Finance transformation, or enterprise IT programs.
• Strong experience managing cross-functional teams and senior stakeholders.
• Expertise in risk assessment, mitigation, and proactive management of program risks and issues.
• Excellent stakeholder management, decision-making, and negotiation skills, particularly with complex requirements and expectations.
• Strong problem-solving, conflict resolution, and interpersonal communication skills.
• Hands-on knowledge of Agile and program management tools.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, Finance, Business Administration, or a related field.
• 12+ years of experience in program or project management, PMO leadership, IT infrastructure operations, or Finance transformation.
• 5+ years leading large, complex, cross-functional enterprise programs, including at least 2 years managing large IT programs with Agile methodology.
• 3+ years of hands-on experience managing ServiceNow-based initiatives (ITSM, Change, CMDB, Asset Management).
• Strong understanding of IT infrastructure, including cloud, networking, storage, virtualization, and data center environments.
• Working knowledge of Finance and Lead to Cash processes such as General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Financial Close, FP&A, Revenue, Order Management, Billing, Procurement, and Management Reporting.
• Proven track record of leading successful programs using Agile and SAFe methodologies.
• Excellent leadership, communication, and executive stakeholder management skills.
• Strong governance, financial management, and risk management skills.

M&A Required Qualifications

• 5+ years in M&A integration, post-merger integration, or carve-out program management.
• Led at least two full integration or separation programs through Day 1 and post-close stabilization.
• Experience integrating Finance and Lead to Cash systems (GL, AP/AR, billing, revenue) and managing TSAs, vendor transitions, and integration budgets.
• Proven ability to work with executive sponsors and deal teams under compressed timelines and confidentiality constraints.

Certification

• Required: Certified SAFe Agilist, or Scrum Master.
• Preferred: PMP, PgMP, ITIL 4, or ServiceNow certifications.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with ERP, CPQ, or financial system implementations (e.g., SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, Workday).
• BS, MBA or other advanced degree.