Senior Program Manager, Leadership Programs

Constructive Dialogue Institute•New York, NY

4d•Remote

About The Position

The Constructive Dialogue Institute (CDI) is seeking an experienced and highly organized Senior Program Manager to be the operational backbone of the Leadership Institute (LI). The LI program equips senior higher education leaders with the strategy, tools, and peer network to advance cultures of inquiry and dialogue on their campuses. This full-time, remote role involves working closely with the Vice President of Leadership Programs to manage the LI's year-long program, including the fall Summit, monthly institutional coaching, quarterly Peer Learning Communities, and each cohort's measurement and reporting cycle. The role requires strong execution, an instinct for spotting opportunities and process improvements, and good judgment. The Senior Program Manager reports to the Vice President of Leadership Programs.

Requirements

5+ years of program or project management experience, ideally spanning cross-functional or partner-facing work in education, consulting, or nonprofit settings.
Comfortable managing a complex, multi-institution portfolio and tracking multiple workstreams at once.
Track record of independently identifying and proposing improvements, not just executing what's handed to you.
Comfortable liaising directly with external partners on defined pieces of work, with good judgment about what to resolve independently versus escalate.
Ability to pull information from multiple sources (surveys, interviews, documents) into a clear, decision-ready narrative.
Excellent written and verbal communication, calibrated for both internal teams and senior higher-ed leadership.
Enthusiastic about CDI's mission and comfortable operating in an environment of continuous improvement as the LI program evolves year to year.
Must be based in the U.S.

Nice To Haves

Comfort with project management systems and CRMs (e.g., Asana, HubSpot).

Responsibilities

Own the schedule and tracking systems for the full LI cohort's year-long arc, including summit prep with institution teams, monthly coaching, and quarterly Peer Learning Community sessions.
Keep the Vice President and broader team ahead of deadlines across all concurrent workstreams, within and across cohort years.
Track each institution's strategic priorities throughout the year and escalate stalled progress or risks.
Identify and design improvements to LI's operating systems and templates (discovery process, communications cadence, reporting formats) in partnership with the VP.
Serve as the primary point of contact for institutional teams on scheduling, onboarding, pre-work, and follow-up across the full year.
Field routine questions and troubleshoot logistics directly.
Spot opportunities raised by campus partners and elevate them to the VP.
Manage meeting cadence and information flow among the VP, consulting, partnerships, and impact teams.
Maintain and organize program materials, including discovery reports, session decks, PLC, and coaching resources.
Model clear, professional communication in every touchpoint with institutional partners.
Track Pillar-specific progress and coaching-call reflections across the cohort.
Synthesize cohort-wide data into formats leaders can act on, including progress dashboards, insights reports, and summaries.