Program Manager, PMO

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Job description

Overview:
If you're looking for a purpose and not just a job, join the Smoothie King team and turn your purpose into a fulfilling passion!

Since pioneering the first nutritional Smoothie franchise in 1973, our mission has always been to inspire people to live a healthy and active lifestyle. Now, with over 1300 stores and counting, we have been ranked as the Fastest-Growing concept in its category and on Entrepreneur Magazine's "Franchise 500" list in 2024! We've grown to become the largest nutritional Smoothie bar in the nation, with a simple recipe for success: Hire the best people, use the best ingredients and blend with a purpose!

General Overview:
As a dynamic, rapidly growing brand, we are looking for a purpose-driven and dedicated talent to join our team.The Program Manager will oversee the planning, execution, and delivery of critical cross-departmental projects that drive growth and innovation at Smoothie King. This role is critical in coordinating efforts across multiple teams and managing stakeholders, ensuring projects align with brand objectives, and driving timely completion of deliverables. Additionally, the Program Manager will be responsible for the development and improvement of program management frameworks to enhance our project management capabilities at Smoothie King. By managing these key initiatives, the Program Manager will contribute to seamless project execution supporting our mission of inspiring people to live healthy and active lifestyles.

Essential Functions:
Program and Project Management Framework Development: Collaborate with the team to develop, own, and enhance project management frameworks and methodologies within Smoothie King.

Stakeholder Management: Foster strong relationships with stakeholders by understanding their needs, addressing concerns, and delivering exceptional service. Act as the main point of contact for stakeholders throughout the project lifecycle.

Team Leadership: Build cross functional relationships that enable you to gather information, influence processes, and propose changes. Lead project teams, assigning tasks and responsibilities to team members. Foster a collaborative and high-performance work environment, motivating team members to meet project objectives.

Project Planning: Develop comprehensive project plans for all major projects, including defining project scopes and success criteria, goals, timelines, and budgets. Identify and allocate resources, create project schedules, and establish clear milestones and deliverables.

Scope Management: Define project scope and objectives, ensuring they are clearly understood by all stakeholders. Continuously monitor and manage scope changes, assessing their impact on project timelines and budgets.

Vendor Management: Develop and maintain strong relationships with external vendors to ensure timely delivery of services and products aligned with project requirements. Negotiate contracts, monitor vendor performance, and address any issues or concerns to ensure vendors meet their obligations and project expectations.

Risk Assessment and Mitigation: Proactively identify and address potential risks and issues early in the project lifecycle. Develop risk mitigation strategies and contingency plans to address challenges and keep projects on track.

Documentation: Establish, monitor, and maintain data collection and reporting processes on program progress to capture key metrics and accurate project documentation, including project plans, reports, risk registers, and lessons learned. Ensure all project information is organized and accessible for future reference and periodic reporting.

Communication: Maintain open and effective communication channels with stakeholders by providing regular project status updates, progress reports, and performance metrics. Take full ownership of meeting cadences and lead discussions to drive productive outcomes.

Budget Management: Partner with Finance to monitor project budgets and expenditures, ensuring adherence to financial constraints.

Major Responsibilities / Specific Requirements:
Strong strategic thinking skills with the ability to deeply understand business goals, explain them clearly to cross functional partners, develop frameworks for success, and cases for investment.

Excellent organizational, communication, and interpersonal skills, including the ability to succinctly communicate complex problems to executive audiences, quantify issues and impact, and develop well thought-through resource asks and potential solutions.

Strong ability to command meetings to steer conversations and achieve actionable and productive outcomes.

Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to identify opportunities, form recommendations through analysis, and build consensus for actionable solutions.

Manage fast-moving portfolio of requests and ever-changing priorities; swiftly managing change.

Demonstrated ability to seamlessly collaborate with cross-functional teams, at all levels within a brand. Able to quickly adapt to evolving roles, from program manager to product owner, and take charge as a project leader to drive initiatives to completion.

Promote the culture, values, and mission of Smoothie King.

Education and Experience Requirements:
Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in Business Management, Project Management, or a related field. PMP or equivalent certification preferred, or demonstrated experience in managing complex projects effectively.

Minimum of 5 years of experience in project or program management, preferably in the food and beverage industry, retail, or franchised environments.

Proven success in owning and managing large, complex projects with cross-functional teams, from initiation to completion.

Experience using data and metrics to determine and drive improvements.

Advanced experience with MS Office (Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel).

Familiarity with project management methodologies (Agile, Waterfall) and project management software tools (e.g., Microsoft Project, Smartsheet, Wrike, etc.).

Personal passion for health and fitness is a plus.

What We Offer:
Join our team and enjoy an unusually fun work environment with an upbeat atmosphere and great team members. It is our purpose to maintain an environment our team members can brag about, where our focus and belief are built on our core values: We Are Better Together, We Keep Evolving, We Live Our Mission, We Do the Right Thing, and We Focus and Finish. With our core values at the forefront of every decision we make, it allows for collaboration, passion, and a no-limits mindset when it comes to your future! We keep our team happy with our great benefits package, free smoothies, flexible work schedules, office lunches and parties, monthly fitness challenges, free gym access, and more fun activities to make Smoothie King a happy and healthy place to work.

Our Mission

Inspire people to live a healthy and active lifestyle.

Our Vision

To be an integral part of every health and fitness journey.

At Smoothie King, when we say inspire people, we mean everyone. We champion a diverse and inclusive workforce that is representative of the guests we serve. We blend the unique members of our organization, celebrating what is both common and different to grow better together and Rule the Day. The foundation of our diversity efforts is closely tied to our core values, which includes "We Are Better Together" and "We Do the Right Thing". We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and consider all qualified candidates, without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, age, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or family status, veteran status, or medical condition or disability. If you are a person with a disability and you need assistance in applying for a position with Smoothie King, please call our Human Resources Department at (phone number removed) and direct assistance will be provided.

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