Director, Program Management

WPP Media•New York, NY

7d•$100,000 - $230,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Director, Program Management leads complex media engagement, data strategy, client analytics, and technology initiatives across one or several accounts and special projects. The role aligns cross-functional teams, clients, and third parties around clear plans, accountable execution, proactive risk management, and high-quality delivery on time and within budget. The Director applies WPP Media and PMO service-delivery processes, including DPAM for campaigns and ID5 for non-campaign work, to guide teams through the full delivery lifecycle: Plan, Track, Manage, Collaborate, Report, and Optimize. Based in the New York City office, the position works across global divisions and markets and oversees junior project managers while supporting their career growth.

Requirements

Bring 8 to 10+ years of project or program management experience in a media agency, marketing, advertising or marketing technology, software development, creative agency, or consulting environment.
Demonstrate strong organization, documentation, prioritization, problem-solving, workload-balancing, communication, and escalation skills in fast-moving, structured and unstructured environments.
Collaborate professionally and authoritatively with diverse stakeholders, bring clarity to ambiguity, and drive measurable progress.
Communicate effectively through verbal updates, email, long-form documents, presentations, and collaboration platforms.
Demonstrate knowledge of Media, Data Strategy, Client Analytics, first-party data enablement, audience prioritization and segmentation, sources of growth, campaign performance, and request management.
Work effectively with enterprise data applications and platforms such as clean rooms, customer data platforms, data warehouses, Google Cloud Platform, audience platforms, measurement data lakes, data sourcing, and data integration.
Understand media and analytics technologies and systems such as Prisma, AdForm, Sizmek, Google Campaign Manager, Innovid, Facebook Business Manager, Twitter Analytics, MOAT, Google Analytics, and Omniture.
Use core project and collaboration tools such as Microsoft Project, Smartsheet, Trello, JIRA, SharePoint, Box, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Google Workspace, and AI-enabled productivity tools.
Demonstrate advanced Microsoft Office skills, especially Excel.
Apply strong knowledge across process management, scope and change management, budget management, stakeholder and engagement management, and risk management.

Nice To Haves

Media agency experience is preferred.
Experience or strong interest in domestic and global consumer packaged goods and in media and agency operations across digital and offline channels.

Responsibilities

Serve as the primary cross-functional program management lead across global Colgate-Palmolive Media Engagement delivery, divisions, and markets.
Establish and enhance process maps, RACIs, workflow documentation, governance standards, and escalation paths.
Conduct detailed project planning for phases, stages, tasks, milestones, deliverables, dependencies, parallel workstreams, and critical paths.
Maintain current information about activities and deliverables, track progress and risk, and ensure stakeholders take appropriate action.
Resolve and escalate cross-divisional risks and blockers affecting delivery across internal teams, third parties, and clients.
Facilitate collaboration using appropriate channels, working modes, collaboration tools, document-storage structures, RACIs, and file-naming conventions.
Use available data to track project development velocity, delivery progress, risk, and overall program or campaign health.
Report, forecast, analyze, and recommend action through status reports, quarterly business reviews, retrospectives, and post-mortems tailored to teams, clients, and executives.
Support resource planning and capacity management, revenue pacing, budget tracking, license management, and development of statements and scopes of work.
Plan, organize, and lead meetings, workstreams, and cross-functional teams across application development, data, reporting, and analytics.
Motivate, manage, inspire, and influence others, including overseeing junior project managers with appropriate guidance and autonomy to support career growth.
Manage work across waterfall and agile methodologies.