Senior Program Manager

Title

Senior Program Manager

18 months

Mettawa, IL (Onsite)

• Multi-workstream program management (building/owning integrated program plans, milestones, dependencies, cadences, risk/issue management, escalation).
• Cross-functional stakeholder leadership & accountability (driving alignment across IT, Analytics, Marketing, Medical, Omnichannel, agencies; following up and escalating constructively).
• Jira + Agile delivery management (managing epics/stories, sprint planning, backlog hygiene, requirements tracking across technical and non-technical teams).
• Process + governance documentation in regulated environments (version-controlled SOPs/workflows, approval/change management, auditable decision trails).
• Pharma commercial/HCP omnichannel marketing domain knowledge (content metadata/tagging strategy, journey orchestration concepts, CRM/content platforms like Veeva/Salesforce, and analytics/data literacy).

The client is seeking a Senior Program Manager to lead the delivery of a large-scale, multi-workstream pharmaceutical marketing platform initiative within the Commercial HCP Marketing organization. This role reports directly to the Commercial Lead responsible for developing our Content Tagging/Metadata Strategy and the Workstation that will allow the marketing platform to function. The role serves as the operational program management for one of these two work streams.

This is a senior-level, independent contract role designed for an experienced program manager who can contribute immediately with minimal ramp time. The ideal candidate excels at managing complex, cross-functional programs in a regulated pharmaceutical environment - driving accountability, accelerating decision velocity, and ensuring every workstream moves forward with precision and documented rationale.

The Senior Program Manager will own milestone tracking, cross-functional stakeholder coordination, deliverable accountability, process documentation, and the development of scalable documentation frameworks that protect program momentum and organizational knowledge.

• Own end-to-end program management across all active and future work streams, maintaining a master program plan with clearly defined milestones, owners, interdependencies, decision gates, and escalation triggers.
• Run structured workstream cadences - facilitating working sessions, driving agendas, capturing actions, and ensuring accountability across all program participants.
• Maintain a centralized program dashboard providing real-time visibility into workstream health, milestone status, open items, and upcoming decision gates for senior leadership and key stakeholders.
• Manage Jira program board - coordinating Epic and User Story progression, sprint planning, backlog hygiene, and requirements documentation in partnership with technical and non-technical teams.
• Proactively identify risks, blockers, and dependency conflicts across work streams and surface them to the program lead with clearly documented recommended resolution paths.

• Maintain a comprehensive deliverable tracker across all work streams - logging committed deliverables, owners, due dates, completion status, and any delays with documented rationale.
• Actively track and follow up on deliverables and decisions owed by cross-functional colleagues - including IT, Analytics APEX, and Functional Leads across the organization - ensuring no workstream is stalled without a documented explanation.
• When delays occur, formally document the source of the delay, the rationale provided by the responsible party, the impact on downstream work streams, and the agreed path forward - creating a clear, auditable record of program accountability.
• Escalate unresolved delays to the program lead with full documentation of the delay history, stakeholder responses, and recommended escalation options.
• Coordinate open item resolution - scheduling working sessions with the appropriate decision owners, tracking response timelines, and ensuring decisions are made, documented, and communicated to all affected parties.

• Serve as the primary coordination point across a broad cross-functional stakeholder group - including IT, Analytics, Marketing, Medical Affairs, Omnichannel Strategy, and external agency partners.
• Capture, organize, and distribute stakeholder feedback from working sessions, reviews, and decision meetings - ensuring all inputs are documented, attributed, and version-controlled.
• Maintain a formal feedback and decision log across all work streams - recording what feedback was provided, by whom, when, and how it was resolved or incorporated into program direction.
• Ensure that cross-functional colleagues' requirements, concerns, and constraints are formally documented so that program design decisions reflect a complete and auditable picture of…