Sr. Initiative Delivery Manager

Pacific Life•Newport Beach, CA

6d•$118,800 - $145,200•Hybrid

About The Position

Providing for loved ones, planning rewarding retirements, saving enough for whatever lies ahead – our policyholders count on us to be there when it matters most. It’s a big ask, but it’s one that we have the power to deliver when we work together. We collaborate and innovate – pushing one another to transform not just Pacific Life, but the entire industry for the better. Why? Because it’s the right thing to do. Pacific Life is more than a job, it’s a career with purpose. It’s a career where you have the support, balance, and resources to make a positive impact on the future – including your own. We’re actively seeking a talented Sr. Initiative Delivery Manager to join our Portfolio & Delivery team in Newport Beach, CA or Omaha, NE. As a Sr. Initiative Delivery Manager, you’ll move Pacific Life, and your career, forward by turning complex, high-priority initiatives into clear, actionable delivery plans that drive business outcomes. You will partner across business, technology, operations, and leadership teams to create alignment, manage trade-offs, and keep strategic work moving forward. You will fill an existing role that sits on a team of 5 people in the Institutional division. Your colleagues will include fellow project and portfolio management professionals.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in an analytical field, business, computer science, or equivalent experience.
Minimum 5+ years of project management, program management, delivery management, business analysis, or related experience.
Experience leading cross-functional initiatives using traditional, agile, hybrid, or right-sized delivery approaches.
Demonstrated ability to manage complex work independently, solve problems, escalate appropriately, and operate with minimal guidance.
Strong communication, facilitation, stakeholder management, organizational, analytical, and problem-solving skills.
Ability to translate complex information into clear business language and tailor messages for different audiences.

Nice To Haves

Project management certification or equivalent delivery discipline preferred.
Financial services, insurance, product development, operations, technology, or regulated-industry experience preferred.
Brings structure and momentum to ambiguous or undefined work.
Creates executive-ready communications that move from status to decisions, trade-offs, and outcomes.
Constructively challenges scope, timelines, assumptions, and ownership while preserving strong relationships.
Balances speed, value, risk, quality, capacity, and operational readiness.
Influences without authority and aligns stakeholders across a matrixed environment.
Demonstrates curiosity, resilience, sound judgment, partnership, and a bias for action.

Responsibilities

Lead planning, execution, monitoring, and closure of strategic, operational, and cross-functional initiatives.
Define, track, and measure expected business outcomes, benefits, and success metrics throughout the initiative lifecycle.
Create and maintain core delivery artifacts, including project plans, schedules, milestones, RAID logs, decision logs, resource plans, charters, status updates, and dependency maps.
Drive clarity around scope, success criteria, ownership, roles, decision rights, dependencies, capacity, budget considerations, and escalation paths.
Coordinate work across business, technology, operations, product, finance, risk, legal, compliance, actuarial, vendor, and other stakeholder groups.
Drive alignment and decision-making through credibility, influence, stakeholder partnership, and data-driven recommendations.
Monitor initiative budgets, forecasts, and financial assumptions to identify risks, trade-off opportunities, and decision points that may impact scope, timing, value, or capacity.
Proactively identify and manage risks, issues, assumptions, constraints, dependencies, and delivery health concerns.
Frame escalations as clear decision requests with context, impact, options, recommendation, owner, and timing.
Support governance and stage gate readiness, including sponsor engagement, SteerCo discipline, SLT/DRMC preparation, operational readiness, and value realization activities.
Provide concise, transparent, decision-oriented communications tailored to project teams, sponsors, senior leaders, and enterprise partners.
Promote accountability, urgency, collaboration, and respectful challenge while maintaining trust and partnership across teams.
Contribute to delivery practice maturity through use of playbooks, templates, retrospectives, process improvements, and repeatable ways of working.