Project Manager, Strategic Initiatives - CMU Office of the President

Carnegie Mellon University•Pittsburgh, PA

12d•Onsite

About The Position

The CMU Office of the President seeks a Project Manager, Strategic Initiatives to lead the day-to-day planning and execution of assigned university priorities, translating strategic direction into structured, trackable programs. The position connects teams and stakeholders and helps ensure that initiatives have clear scope, workplans, ownership, decision paths, and routes to delivery. Working under the direction of the Assistant Vice President for Strategic Initiatives, the Project Manager coordinates complex work across academic and administrative units; maintains plans, governance routines, and reporting; anticipates risks and dependencies; and drives follow-through. The role makes strategy executable but does not set institutional strategy or independently own executive decisions. The successful candidate will be organized and collaborative, comfortable with ambiguity, able to influence without formal authority, and skilled in both detailed project management and concise executive-level communication. The role involves highly visible or confidential initiatives and requires sound judgment, political acumen, and discretion. Candidates must be willing to travel.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree required, or an equivalent combination of education and experience; comparable knowledge gained through education and meaningful experience may be considered.
At least 8 years of progressively responsible experience managing complex, cross-functional programs, strategic initiatives, organizational change efforts, or enterprise projects.
Demonstrated success coordinating highly visible work involving multiple stakeholders, senior leaders, and interdependent workstreams.
Strong project-management discipline, including experience with workplans, governance routines, executive reporting, risk management, and performance tracking.
Willingness to travel.
Exceptional written, verbal, and interpersonal communication skills, including the ability to prepare clear materials for senior leaders and varied university constituencies.
Ability to influence without direct authority and operate effectively in a complex, decentralized environment.
AI proficiency and the ability to learn new capabilities as these tools develop.

Nice To Haves

Master's degree.
Experience in higher education, government, consulting, or another complex mission-driven organization.
PMP, Prosci, Lean, Six Sigma, or a comparable project or change-management credential.
Proficiency with project-management, collaboration, and data-tracking tools such as Smartsheet, Asana, Microsoft Project, Power BI, or Excel.

Responsibilities

Manage assigned strategic initiatives from planning through implementation, developing scopes, workplans, timelines, milestones, deliverables, and measures of success.
Translate high-level or evolving direction into practical execution plans with defined owners, dependencies, decision points, and deadlines.
Maintain integrated project plans, tracking tools, dashboards, and documentation across multiple concurrent workstreams.
Monitor progress and follow-through, identify slippage or gaps, and work with accountable owners to restore momentum or escalate issues appropriately.
Support resource planning by identifying capacity, budget, technology, procurement, and other implementation needs, and surface constraints to initiative leadership.
Establish and maintain governance routines, meeting cadences, decision logs, accountability mechanisms, and project standards.
Coordinate across academic units, university functions, and external partners.
Manage cross-functional dependencies and ensure teams understand their responsibilities, deadlines, and the implications of decisions for other workstreams.
Plan and facilitate working sessions, steering meetings, and decision forums; prepare agendas, materials, decisions, and follow-up actions.
Serve as a central source for initiative status, documentation, decisions, and next steps.
Identify risks, interdependencies, stakeholder concerns, and emerging issues early; develop mitigation options and elevate matters requiring senior judgment.
Support stakeholder engagement, communications, training, and other change-readiness activities for successful implementation and adoption.
Track feedback and implementation experience, identify process or plan improvements, and recommend adjustments to initiative leadership.
Update plans and communicate implications clearly as priorities or circumstances change.
Prepare status reports, dashboards, presentations, briefings, and decision materials for senior leaders and governance groups.
Synthesize information from workstreams into clear views of progress, risks, decisions required, and recommended next steps.
Establish and track milestones, performance measures, and indicators of implementation progress and impact.
Handle sensitive information and high-visibility assignments with discretion, accuracy, and sound judgment.