Director, Program Management - Strategic Programs

American Water • Camden, NJ

8h

About The Position

People are the heart of our business. As an American Water employee, you will be offered a competitive salary and health benefits package, along with opportunities to develop, grow, and evolve your career. Our benefits packages focus on key areas such as health & wellness, emotional & well-being, and savings for current & future goals. We are Beautifully Different . We strongly believe having diversity across our company makes us more successful and helps us provide essential services to our customers. We are stronger because we embrace different ideas, viewpoints, experiences, and backgrounds. American Water is the best choice for your next role! Click here for more information on our inclusion, diversity, and equity journey. About American Water American Water (NYSE: AWK) is the largest regulated water and wastewater utility company in the United States. With a history dating back to 1886 and celebrating 140 years in 2026, We Keep Life Flowing® by providing safe, clean, reliable and affordable drinking water and wastewater services to approximately 14 million people with regulated operations in 14 states and on 18 military installations. American Water’s approximately 7,000 talented professionals leverage their significant expertise and the company’s national size and scale to achieve excellent outcomes for the benefit of customers, employees, investors and other stakeholders. For more information, visit amwater.com and join American Water on LinkedIn , Facebook , X and Instagram .
This position is responsible for overseeing multiple complex, multi-disciplinary programs by driving cross functional execution for the organization’s critical business initiatives. They coordinate activities between multiple projects without directly managing them. They manage the main program, giving detailed attention to program strategy, project delegation, and program implementation. The role is focused on coordinating projects across an organization. This individual is responsible for formulating, organizing, and monitoring interconnected projects. They will assist in the tracking and monitoring of all milestones and deliverables and identifying and managing project dependencies and critical path. They provide strategic guidance to teams and project managers in ways that promote project success while adhering to project governance, standards, and established processes. They will leverage their experience, knowledge, and sphere of influence to ensure all functions and subsidiaries within the organization understand and align activities in support of company strategies and initiatives as they relate to business and/or technology activities. This individual will lead collaboration with internal and external resources to ensure that the delivery team(s) identify and resolve issues and conflicts within and between various project teams. They promote consistent team execution. They will serve as the primary liaison between program sponsor and program execution teams.

Requirements

• Confident leader with dotted-line relationships
• Strong cross-functional leader
• Understands the American Water business and its processes and systems
• Can summaries and synthesize issues, risks, and potential solutions
• Confident in presenting to senior leadership and the ELT
• Ability to address complex issues and topics directly and with tact
• Strong knowledge in end-to-end Program and Project Management
• Self-Management
• Proven success in a business management role
• Experience with executive-level advising and interdepartmental collaboration
• Positive approach to doing what’s best for the organization
• Can build engagement and alignment across functional areas as well as hold team members accountable
• Strong partnership across the organization with key peers
• 10+ years’ overall experience in business or technology management / operations
• 5+ years’ experience with American Water specific operations, processes, and systems
• 2+ years of Project/Product management experience
• Experience with working in a dynamic and rapidly changing / ambiguous work environment
• Bachelor’s preferably in Business Administration or related field and or equivalent years’ experience
• Strong capabilities related to: Leadership
• Decision-making
• Organizing and directing multiple teams and departments
• Planning and leading large strategic initiatives
• Multi-tasking and managing fast moving teams and environments
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills and proven ability to work effectively at all levels in the organization
• Attention to detail and strong organizational skills necessary to manage multiple phases of a program and project plan(s)
• Strong strategic skills to develop long term visions and the ability to translate them into actionable roadmaps that are broadly accepted
• Good presentation skills engaging a variety of audiences from the frontlines to the ELT
• Ability to articulate vision of transformation efforts and a sense of mission
• Willingness to take charge and provide direction
• Results orientation, willingness to commit to a direction and drive actions to completion
• Demonstrated ability to manage adversity and challenging situations
• Ability to manage senior relationships across all the Business and Functional areas
• Collaborative team player orientation towards work relationships, strong culture awareness
• Effectiveness in building trust, respect, and cooperation among teams
• Proven success in a project coordination role
• Nimble business mind, focused on develop creative solutions

Nice To Haves

• PMP Certification is a plus
• Masters or MBA is a plus
• As necessary

Responsibilities

• Supports program strategic objectives as determined by the program sponsor
• Oversees daily program activities in collaboration with program managers and program teams, and performs administrative tasks such as driving schedule, generating correspondences, maintain document repositories, planning and coordinating meetings
• Acts as liaison between program sponsor and the other teams to coordinate the delivery of information and overall direction as set by the program sponsor
• Oversees strategic business and/or technology initiatives, from current state through successful execution, under the guidance of senior leadership
• Assist and communicate with executives in decision-making, program management, and initiative implementation
• Serve as a program subject-matter expert, handing inquires, developing action plans, and aiding with preparation and dissemination of communications
• Ensures program tasks/activities run smoothly as they relate to business and/or technology activities
• Leads teams, eases communication, and unites people across the organization to keep the program moving forward
• Partners with the change management and communication resources to enable successful rollout and adoption of program changes
• Ensures business value realization and optimization, from value plans through consultancy, business case development, financial awareness, managing expectations, and identifying business opportunities to add value

Benefits

• health benefits package
• 401(k)
• Defined Contribution Plan
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan
• medical, prescription, dental and vision coverage
• disability
• paid time off
• life insurance
• voluntary benefits
• health and wellness programs
• learning opportunities
• work experiences to grow professionally

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Number of Employees: 1,001-5,000 employees