Change Management Manager

Northgate Gonzalez Markets•Anaheim, CA

4d•Onsite

About The Position

The Change Management Manager will lead the people side of transformation across Northgate, ensuring new processes, systems, and ways of working are embraced by associates and sustained over time. This role partners closely with associates, leaders, and cross-functional teams to understand impact realities, build trusted relationships, and translate change into clear, practical actions for associates. With a strong foundation in emotional intelligence, the Change Management Manager anticipates reactions to change, addresses concerns with empathy, and inspires commitment through authentic communication and influence. This role sits within the Learning & Talent team and leads the end-to-end delivery of people-focused change initiatives ensuring that desired business outcomes are achieved. Effective development and delivery of change management programs including learning, training needs, leadership capabilities, talent processes, HR and organizational system rollouts impacting adoption. The role drives adoption by aligning stakeholders around a shared purpose, equipping leaders to lead change locally, and creating an environment where associates feel heard, supported, and motivated to perform through transition. This role blends strong project management discipline with structured change management methodology to drive stakeholder management and alignment, readiness, impact analysis, adoption, and measurable outcomes, partnering closely with HR COEs, Communications, IT, and business leaders. (Change + project management integration is a known best practice.)

Requirements

Bachelor’s Degree or related experience
Values Driven, culturally aligned and motivated.
Bilingual proficiency in English and Spanish, including the ability to accurately translate written and verbal communications between both languages.
Collaborative & high teamwork mentality
Courage to challenge norms yet knows when to say when
Inspirational leader with strong cross-functional influence
Natural developer and teacher of people
Adaptive mindset and ability to change course and plans based on needs of the project
Deep experience with driving change successfully through an organization
Demonstrated conflict resolution through root cause analysis.
This role resides on-site in the corporate offices in Anaheim, California.
5+ years leading cross-functional projects, including people/process change (HR, Talent, Learning, OD, or enterprise transformation).
Demonstrated experience building and executing change plans that drive adoption (communications, stakeholder engagement, manager enablement, training coordination).
Strong project management fundamentals (workplans, dependencies, RAID, status reporting).
Excellent executive-level communication, facilitation, and influence skills.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree preferred or related experience.
Industry experience preferred: Advertising/Marketing, Brand, Financial, Restaurant/Food, Agency
Prosci certification (or equivalent) and hands-on application of ADKAR or similar methodology.
PMP, CAPM, or similar PM credential.
Experience supporting multi-site, frontline/operations-heavy environments and scaling change communications.
Comfort with HR/talent systems and learning platforms (HRIS/LMS), and data-driven measurement.

Responsibilities

Lead the People Side of Change
Own change strategies for enterprise and operational initiatives, ensuring smooth adoption across stores, distribution, and support teams.
Build and execute cross-functional change plans aligned to project plans (communications, sponsor engagement, leader enablement, training, impacts, dependencies, resistance management, risks and sustainment).
Apply an industry-recognized change framework (e.g., Prosci ADKAR or other change methodology) to diagnose readiness, anticipate adoption gaps, and drive reinforcement
Build Frontline Readiness
Translate change impacts into practical actions for leaders and associates; ensure tools and messaging resonate with frontline realities.
Coach leaders at all levels to role-model change, address resistance, and lead with empathy during transitions.
Drive adoption and sustainment through the design of reinforcement plans, feedback loops, and recognition to ensure new processes stick with associates.
Stakeholder Engagement
Develop strong relationships with operations, HR, IT, and business leaders to align on goals, timing, and impacts of change.
Map stakeholders and impacts; develop engagement strategies for executives, HR, and frontline audiences.
Emotionally Intelligent Communication
Craft and deliver communication at all levels that acknowledges concerns, reinforces purpose, and builds trust with the audience.
Create clear, audience-specific communications and toolkits (FAQs, talking points, timelines, “what’s changing/what’s not,” leader scripts).
Measure Success
Conduct change impact and readiness assessments; adjust strategies based on associate feedback and adoption metrics.
Identify and address resistance by proactively surfacing barriers, listening deeply, and working with leaders to resolve concerns constructively.
Track adoption, engagement, and performance indicators to demonstrate value and continuously improve change approaches.
Learning & enablement execution (in partnership with L&D)
Coordinate learning design/delivery plans.
Ensure learning solutions and change activities align to business goals and are measured for effectiveness.
Design, develop, coordinate and deliver training courses required to support change initiatives (curriculum, job aids, train-the-trainer, reinforcement); incorporate specified L&D methodologies and delivery channels to ensure high levels of learner engagement
Embed Change Capability (in partnership with L&D)
Build change leadership skills across the organization to strengthen long-term change maturity and grow leadership capability for future organizational change.