Program Manager

Location:

Indianapolis, IN

Schedule:

Standard business hours, supporting U.S. time zones with occasional global collaboration Company Description

BCforward is one of the nation’s largest Black-owned workforce management and consulting firms, headquartered in Indianapolis, IN, and serving Fortune 500 organizations worldwide. We deliver technology, business, and project delivery solutions that help our clients accelerate outcomes and scale with confidence.

The Program Manager provides leadership for large, complex programs and multi-workstream initiatives – whether launching new efforts or stepping into existing ones. This client-facing role blends structured project management (charters, governance, schedules, budgets) with strong service management discipline to deliver measurable business value and sustainable operational outcomes.

In addition to driving program execution, the Program Manager ensures operational readiness, service transition, and long-term service stability. The role partners closely with client leadership, stakeholders, delivery teams, and service operations to align programs to strategic objectives, manage scope, mitigate risk, and enable effective service lifecycle management from design through steady-state operations.

• Align program objectives with client business strategy; define measurable outcomes, service-level targets, and success criteria.
• Establish governance, decision rights, and escalation paths across both delivery and operational service functions.
• Facilitate steering routines, operational reviews, and client leadership updates.
• Select and tailor delivery approaches (Waterfall or Hybrid) based on organizational context and maturity.
• Ensure service strategy alignment, including service portfolio positioning and lifecycle planning.

• Manage scope, schedule, budget, and quality baselines; manage change control and ensure benefits realization.
• Lead service transition activities including operational documentation, knowledge transfer, support model definition, and go‑live readiness assessments.
• Ensure supportability, maintainability, and service continuity considerations are embedded in program design.
• Drive data‑driven insights through tools and reporting to improve predictability and execution performance.
• Foster collaboration, accountability, and operational excellence across delivery and service teams.

• Define and oversee Service Level Agreements (SLAs), Operational Level Agreements (OLAs), and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
• Partner with service owners, support teams, and stakeholders to ensure incident, problem, change, and release management processes are effective and compliant.
• Monitor service performance metrics, conduct service reviews, and drive corrective actions where necessary.
• Establish and maintain service documentation including service catalogs, runbooks, knowledge articles, and support models.
• Ensure alignment with IT Service Management (ITSM) frameworks and best practices.
• Drive continual service improvement initiatives based on performance trends, root cause analysis, and stakeholder feedback.
• Support audit, compliance, and risk management requirements related to service delivery.

• Proactively manage risks, assumptions, issues, and dependencies across both project and operational environments.
• Incorporate business continuity, disaster recovery, and service resilience planning into program strategy.
• Run scenario planning, risk‑adjusted forecasting, and contingency strategies to protect service stability.

• Build trusted relationships across client leadership, technology teams, and operational support organizations.
• Deliver executive‑ready communications including dashboards, service performance reporting, narratives, and insights tailored to audience needs.
• Facilitate cross‑functional alignment between delivery, operations, and business stakeholders.

• Lead high‑performing cross‑functional teams with clarity and accountability.
• Provide guidance and mentorship to project…