Sr. Initiative Delivery Manager

Pacific Life • Newport Beach, CA

4d • 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.

Benefits

• Medical
• Dental
• Vision
• Wellbeing Reimbursement Account
• Paid Time Off
• Holiday Schedules
• Financial Planning Time Off
• Paid Parental Leave
• Adoption Assistance Program
• Competitive 401k savings plan with company match and an additional contribution regardless of participation

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior