Senior Strategist; Program Manager (Washington DC Area)

LINK•Washington, DC

20h•Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Strategist; Program Manager (PM) is responsible for overseeing the successful delivery of assigned government and commercial contracts, managing cross-functional teams, and maintaining strong client relationships. This role ensures projects meet quality standards, timelines, and budget objectives while driving strategic outcomes. Acting as a trusted consultant and advisor, the Program Manager leads comprehensive project strategies, identifies opportunities to create business value, and guides teams to deliver impactful, client-focused solutions.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Journalism, Communication, English, Business, or a related field
10+ years of experience in strategic communication, public affairs, program management, or strategy development
7+ years program/project management experience including familiarity with Agile methodologies and project delivery best practices
Excellent organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously, maintaining a strong focus on accuracy and attention to detail
Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to communicate in a clear, approachable, and knowledgeable manner
Government contracting experience
Minimum active Secret clearance required
Experience with human-centered design and design thinking principles
Demonstrated ability to manage multiple complex projects simultaneously

Nice To Haves

PMP certification preferred

Responsibilities

Partner directly with clients to understand challenges, capture requirements, and define missions, visions, goals, and KPIs/OKRs.
Collaborate with clients through well-designed meetings and workshops to co-create solutions and gather critical inputs.
Perform high-quality primary and secondary research to inform strategic direction.
Apply human-centered design and design-thinking principles to complex problem sets.
Work iteratively by proactively gathering feedback from clients and internal partners to refine solutions.
Identify opportunities to create tangible business value through current-state assessments and high-level requirement definition.
Develop and maintain strong client relationships, including managing external stakeholders and converting new requests into business opportunities.
Oversee multiple client engagements, ensuring alignment, clarity, and strategic impact across projects.
Elevate content quality and thought leadership in partnership with the Strategy Competency Manager, ensuring strong standards for deliverables.
Translate ideas into compelling strategic narratives, campaigns, and solutions.
Identify content structures, hierarchies, and visual concepts for storytelling products, including content maps and wireframes.
Collaborate with design teams to develop infographics, charts, diagrams, presentations, and other visual products that convey complex information clearly.
Manage multiple internal project teams, organizing assignments and tracking progress, deadlines, and deliverables from both operational and financial perspectives.
Lead end-to-end project management for assigned contracts, from strategic planning through delivery, developing comprehensive approaches that create tangible business value based on client requirements and stakeholder feedback.
Manage and report project budgets, timelines, risks, travel requirements, and deliverable quality to ensure successful outcomes.
Identify opportunities to extend current contracts and develop new business with related clients.
Serve as primary client relationship manager and trusted consultant, providing expert guidance.
Lead client engagements, including visioning sessions, discovery engagements, and review sessions.
Collaborate directly with clients and stakeholders to understand challenges and design solutions.
Facilitate regular stakeholder meetings, manage expectations and resolve conflicts.
Oversee project-specific onboarding and integration of new team members.
Supervise project teams, delegating work while maintaining the vision for deliverables.
Allocate tasks and time based on budget and team capacity.
Provide coaching and mentoring focused on delivery excellence and client satisfaction.
Conduct monthly performance evaluations to inform Competency Managers’ formal reviews.
Coordinate with Competency Managers on skill development, career growth, and project-specific resource allocation.
Track team utilization, profitability, and manage subcontractor performance.
Oversee team member transitions and off-boarding at project completion.
Run agile management cadence with project teams to ensure effective delegation of tasks, workload management, and on-time delivery.
Collaborate with cross-functional teams to translate ideas into compelling campaigns, solutions, strategies, and stories.
Oversee creation of infographics, charts, diagrams, presentations, and other visual products for print and digital formats.
Apply consulting, human-centered design, and design thinking principles to research and execution processes.
Ensure deliverable quality on projects through direct oversight and review processes.
Document lessons learned and best practices to enhance organizational knowledge.
Ensure timely delivery of contractual deliverables and monthly status reports.
Maintain compliance with contract requirements including security clearances, access control, required forms, travel requests and reports, and waivers.
Coordinate with Team Leads and business operations team to produce monthly invoicing and reporting.

Benefits

$100 monthly internet/cell phone stipend
LINK sponsored healthcare benefits including medical, dental, vision
Company-paid Short Term Disability Insurance
401K with employer contribution of up to 4%
11 Federal Holidays per year
15 days of Paid Time Off (PTO) per year
Paid Holiday Time Off (Christmas Eve through the New Year)
Annual bonus plan participation
Annual profit sharing participation
$2,000 Learning and Development program reimbursement
Technology package that includes a LINK-owned MacBook Pro, monitor, mouse and keyboard