Investment Ecosystem Program Manager Lead, CFPMO at MassMutual

The Opportunity

The Corporate Function Program Management Office (CFPMO) is seeking an experienced program manager to influence the development of a strategy and lead the project management execution for critical investment operations and accounting programs. In this highly visible role as a Program Management Lead within the Investment Operations and Accounting Ecosystem effort, you will be responsible for leading part of and influencing the strategy of one of the largest and most transformative programs at MassMutual.

This is a multi-year, significant effort with a deep investment of attention and resources. It aims to enhance the operations that deliver complete, timely, and accurate data to enable informed investment decisions and high-quality financial reporting, which contributes to our financial strength for the benefit of our policyowners.

Using your deep program management expertise and experience managing programs similar in scale and impact, you will work with stakeholders throughout the enterprise, especially in our Investment Management, Finance and Technology organizations as well as subsidiary and third parties. The ideal candidate will have a proven track record managing transformational, enterprise-wide, complex projects with significant budgets and effectively coordinating and aligning a cross-functional team.

The Team

This role reports to the Portfolio lead within the Corporate Function Program Management Office (CFPMO). The CFPMO was established to oversee the execution of projects across Corporate Finance, Enterprise Risk, Investment Management, Law, and HR & Employee Experience, as well as define and own project management standards across the company. The team is focused on creating more visibility into this work, while enabling better prioritization, collaboration, and execution.

This role will leverage and champion the project management standards and practices and partner with their CFPMO teammates, especially the Portfolio Managers aligned to each Corporate Function to ensure coordination and address interdependencies between their portfolios and the Investment Operations & Accounting Ecosystem Program.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Program Planning and Strategy: Lead the identification of a specific program’s vision and strategy to govern, design, develop and implement the required capability. Partner with the Program Sponsors to establish timelines, set milestones and identify and acquire the resources required.
2. Stakeholder Management: Understand the needs and expectations of stakeholders throughout the Program Governance Structure, up to and including the senior leadership team, managing concerns and feedback promptly. Adhere to the established framework and oversee collaboration by driving discussions and decision-making, instilling consistency, and promoting discipline in defining and managing the delivery of the program. Act as a trusted strategic advisor to all stakeholders, ensuring the program achieves the expected outcomes and goals.
3. Process Integration: Ensure program execution strategy is aligned with business strategies, company policies and program expected outcomes and delivered upon consistently for value. Analyze, understand and communicate the trade-offs involved with project and program prioritization decisions.
4. Change Management: Build relationships and work closely with key stakeholders to identify areas of focus, anticipate change impacts, and assess change readiness. Develop and deliver change management strategies to support a smooth transition, including effective communication, training, and ongoing support. Support this program through unexpected events, ambiguous information or changes in scope, timeline or stakeholder needs.
5. Program Governance: Define success metrics and monitor against established goals and milestones. Provide centralized and regular visibility via status reporting and demand capacity monitoring. Communicate risks, issues and dependencies and drive collaborative, coordinated decision-making and resolution efforts amongst stakeholders. Enable and ensure consistent implementation of people, process and technology improvements and plans to sustain them.
6. Team Leadership: Provide clear direction, support, motivation and development opportunities to team members. Role model an agile mindset through change and ambiguity; inspire others and drive a culture of continuous improvement.

The Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree and/or 10+ years of experience managing large-scale programs and effective change management.
• 7+ years managing people/teams.
• Proficient experience with Project Management tools including but not limited to: Atlassian Jira, Zephyr for Jira, Smartsheets as well as MS Office Suite (Project, Teams, Excel, PowerPoint and Word).
• Certified in Scrum Alliance (CSM/CSPO), Scrum.org (PSM/PSPO/PSD), SAFe Scaled Agilist, PMI-ACP, PMP is desired, but not required.
• Executive presence with ability to quickly build rapport and cultivate relationships; high-level of emotional intelligence.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills; track record of developing and delivering high-impact presentations; effective public speaking.
• Astute business judgment, analytic, creative, and problem-solving skills, with experience applying these skills to acquire and develop strategic partnerships.
• Strong understanding of project management methodologies and software.
• Experience with investment operations and accounting transformations at scale.
• Knowledge of insurance carriers' investment strategies, organization models and targeted outcomes.

The Ideal Qualifications:

• Knowledge of MassMutual’s business strategy, capabilities, organizational structure and structure to quickly enable effective cross-functional collaboration.
• Experience leading project management with a focus on large scale technology and process reengineering projects.
• Robust knowledge and experience with program management best practices, especially related to communications, reporting, prioritization, capacity and resource planning, forecasting, financial planning, change management, and performance measurement.
• Excellent communication, negotiation, and interpersonal skills.
• Project Management Professional (PMP) certification or equivalent.

What to Expect as Part of MassMutual and the Team:

• Regular meetings with the CFPMO.
• Focused one-on-one meetings with your manager.
• Access to mentorship opportunities.
• Networking opportunities including access to Asian, Hispanic/Latinx, African American, women, LGBTQIA+, veteran and disability-focused Business Resource Groups.
• Access to learning content on Degreed and other informational platforms.
• Your ethics and integrity will be valued by a company with a strong and stable ethical business with industry leading pay and benefits.

#LI-IZ1

MassMutual is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer Minority/Female/Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity/Individual with Disability/Protected Veteran. We welcome all persons to apply. Note: Veterans are welcome to apply, regardless of their discharge status.

If you need an accommodation to complete the application process, please contact us and share the specifics of the assistance you need.