Engagement Manager

Ippon Technologies•Richmond, VA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Engagement Manager owns the long-term health, relationship, and growth trajectory of 1–2 assigned strategic accounts. The role sits at the intersection of client relationship stewardship, account revenue growth, and internal orchestration — accountable for extending existing work, originating new opportunities, and making sure the client experiences one coherent Ippon, not a set of disconnected project teams. The role carries two distinct sets of responsibilities. Billable work: acting as a hands-on project/program lead, applying deep subject matter expertise to the delivery of active engagements. Non-billable work: driving account growth through relationship building, need sensing, and opportunity development. The ideal candidate brings strong project/program management skills, executive presence, a passion for delivering innovative solutions, and the hunger to find and chase growth opportunities. Financial services domain experience is strongly preferred, along with a genuine curiosity to develop a deep understanding of the client's business.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.
5+ years of experience as a PM in a client-facing IT consulting role, with strong knowledge of project management methodologies and best practices.
3+ years of experience as a PM supporting technical product roadmaps and strategies.
Strong communication, leadership, and interpersonal skills; comfortable pivoting between business and technical audiences.
Experience working in or strong familiarity with the financial services domain (enterprise experience with a large financial services company preferred).
Familiarity with Salesforce and with Claude (Chat, Cowork, Design) or comparable AI tools for account planning and client prep.
Prior experience in Product Management, Project/Program Management, or IT Strategy.

Nice To Haves

Account management or change management certification a plus

Responsibilities

Own delivery by serving as a billable consultant, applying project, program, or product management expertise on assigned engagements — matched to what the client's engagement actually needs.
Develop and manage project/program plans, timelines, budgets, and resource allocation, or own product roadmap and backlog priorities when serving in a product management capacity.
Lead a regular cadence of client meetings to review status, action items, and deliverables.
Collaborate with cross-functional and technical teams to keep delivery on time and on budget.
Identify and mitigate project risks, and resolve issues before they escalate.
Work with the Technical Lead to assign responsibilities within the project team and set clear expectations.
Optimize and negotiate resource allocation to maximize project efficiency.
Ensure the Ippon delivery playbook is followed, and feed back ideas on process improvements.
Build and personally maintain relationships across multiple levels and functions of the client organization, backed by a live stakeholder/relationship map (role, influence, sentiment, last touchpoint) and a regular cadence of relationship-only touchpoints, separate from project status meetings.
Understand the client's business strategy, budget cycles, org structure, and competitive pressures well enough to connect Ippon's capability to what the client is actually trying to achieve, bringing outside market and industry perspective into client conversations.
Own a revenue target for the assigned account(s), delivered through a mix of extension of existing engagements and net-new opportunities; track every active SOW's end date and drive extension conversations 6–8 weeks ahead of expiration.
Co-draft SOW extensions and change orders with the AE and finance, and partner with the AE and pre-sales team to scope and draft proposals and SOWs for new opportunities.
Build structured account intelligence over time (org charts, budget cycles, technology roadmap, competitive pressures) and run a deliberate need-sensing cadence (skip-levels, delivery-lead debriefs, post-go-live retros to surface needs before they're formal projects).
Maintain the account's pipeline in Salesforce with realistic stages and a weighted forecast, and speak to coverage ratio against target at any point in the quarter.
Own the overall account health view, delivery quality, relationship strength, financial health, and growth trajectory and run or actively shape Quarterly Business Reviews with a clear agenda and honest scorecard.
Escalate internally with enough lead time that leadership hears about risk from the Engagement Manager first, not the client.
Align delivery leads, AE, practice leadership, staffing/talent, and finance around a single, current view of the account through a regular internal sync, and manage handoffs cleanly when a delivery lead rotates off.
Use Claude (Chat, Cowork, Design) and account health dashboards to prepare for meetings, synthesize account intelligence, and turn notes into account plan updates (a force multiplier, not a replacement for client time).