Program Leader, Strategic Portfolio Enablement

Guardian is seeking an experienced Program Leader, Strategic Portfolio Enablement to lead large scale strategic initiatives within Guardian’s Group Benefits Business. This is a newly created position that will be responsible for driving progress and business ownership, supporting all aspects of business case development, defining portfolio and initiative-level financial and operational success metrics, and engaging with internal and external stakeholders to ensure execution and sound change management. Group Benefits initiatives will encompass multiple product domains and customer segments, cross-functional teams, and third-party strategic partners. As a utility player, you will also lead ad hoc business initiatives and be the single point of accountability for the business on initiative progress, providing regular monthly and quarterly report outs to Group Benefits Senior Leadership.

You Will:

• Drive the successful management for Group Benefits’ strategic investment portfolio
• Support leadership in leading business investments across multiple product and sales domains
• Define effective portfolio/program management processes for the successful execution and delivery of business objectives and key results.
• Proactively identify best practices and support business teams through capability development and maturity.
• Drive portfolio executive briefing materials, including weekly, monthly, and quarterly business reviews, and portfolio review meetings
• Ability to work autonomously and organize your work so the business can achieve high quality, repeatable, consistent results.
• Establish and maintain long standing, trusted relationships with stakeholders and business partners.
• Balance business needs with technical constraints and offer creative solutions to negotiate tradeoffs as needed.
• Lead business and IT executives in business case scope alignment and definition sessions, identify critical success factors, and drive mitigation of significant issues and risks.
• Implement and coach others in industry leading practices in charter development, communications planning, stakeholder engagement, portfolio metrics tracking and management.
• Effectively remove blockers and mitigate risks maximizing team productivity and ensuring delivery.
• Communicate people, process, and technology innovations across business, technology, and various leadership teams.
• Rally the cross functional teams throughout the enterprise and hold teams and individuals accountable for timelines and deliverables
• Leverage business knowledge and expertise to drive results
• Freely contributes unique thoughts and opinions based on individual experience and learnings while actively seeking the same exchange from others

You Are:

A seasoned professional with exceptional communication, presentation, content creation, analytical and change management skills as you will work closely with our business leaders, senior leadership, Enterprise Solution Delivery, and IT teams, amongst other internal groups. Strategic thought leadership, an optimistic solutions-oriented attitude, and a drive for achieving superior business results is a must.

You Have:

• 4-year bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience with minimum of 3 years of insurance industry experience
• 3+ plus years of portfolio management, management consulting, product, or operations experience
• Successfully led at least 3+ division-level, cross-functional strategic investment programs
• Can work in a highly ambiguous and fast-paced environment.
• Self-starter, highly motivated, strategic thinker who can lead independent stakeholder conversations and provide thought leadership
• Can drive portfolio-aligned business results across Business and technology disciplines
• Strong, proven communications, collaboration, and consensus building skills, along with active listening skills
• Ability to adjust communication style and content to different levels and audiences
• Experience synthesizing conceptual strategies into defendable investment proposals and leading complex programs
• Comfortable with data analysis and presenting data
• Highly organized and energetic with an entrepreneurial mindset
• Communicates a clear, vivid, inspiring, and relevant description or picture of project benefits/value to the customer
• Strong business acumen and familiarity with broad range of business processes beyond those impacted projects
• Able to effectively interact with various levels of an organization both technical and non-technical to discuss comprehensive portfolio investments performance

Preferred Qualifications

• Management consulting experience (tier 2 or better)
• Finance experience within office of CFO or financial planning and analysis
• Experience in content creation and presentation (C suite -1 and below)
• Active Project Management Professional (PMP) certification or equivalent
• Prior Product Management experience a plus
• Group Insurance experience

Reporting Relationships:

As a Strategic Program Leader, you will report to the head of the Group Benefits Portfolio, who reports to the head of Transformation & Business Modernization.

Location and Work Arrangement:

This position is hybrid with work from home flexibility. You will need to be within a commutable distance for onsite participation at least three days per week in one of the following locations:

• New York, NY
• Holmdel NJ
• Bethlehem PA
• Boston, MA

Travel:

Up to 10% travel within U.S.

Salary Range:

$101,180.00 - $166,220.00

The salary range reflected above is a good faith estimate of base pay for the primary location of the position. The salary for this position ultimately will be determined based on the education, experience, knowledge, and abilities of the successful candidate. In addition to salary, this role may also be eligible for annual, sales, or other incentive compensation.

Our Promise

At Guardian, you’ll have the support and flexibility to achieve your professional and personal goals.  Through skill-building, leadership development and philanthropic opportunities, we provide opportunities to build communities and grow your career, surrounded by diverse colleagues with high ethical standards.

Inspire Well-Being

As part of Guardian’s Purpose – to inspire well-being – we are committed to offering contemporary, supportive, flexible, and inclusive benefits and resources to our colleagues. Explore our company benefits at www.guardianlife.com/careers/corporate/benefits. Benefits apply to full-time eligible employees. Interns are not eligible for most Company benefits.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Guardian is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to age, race, color, creed, religion, sex, affectional or sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, marital status, disability, military or veteran status, or any other classification protected by applicable law.

Accommodations

Guardian is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, its services, programs, and activities. Guardian also provides reasonable accommodations to qualified job applicants (and employees) to accommodate the individual's known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless doing so would create an undue hardship. If 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 [email protected].

Current Guardian Colleagues: Please apply through the internal Jobs Hub in Workday.