Strategic Program Delivery Director

Assurant

About The Position

This role serves as the strategy to execution engine for the function, providing end-to-end oversight and disciplined delivery of a portfolio of multi-year, high impact strategic initiatives. Reporting to a member of the People Org senior leadership team, the role is accountable for orchestrating execution at scale—establishing effective governance, driving cross-functional delivery, ensuring operational standards are elevated, enabling adoption, and ensuring measurable value realization across priorities that advance the organization’s long-term transformation and performance. In addition to the strategic portfolio, the Strategic Program Delivery Director manages a rotating set of targeted, timebound priorities that evolve annually to reflect organizational, enterprise, and functional strategic needs, requiring strong execution capability, change management, and sound judgment. This role designs and implements a standardized framework for managing and governing strategic initiatives, ensuring alignment to business priorities, transparency of progress, risks and opportunities are mitigated / optimized and disciplined execution across regions, functions, and workstreams. As a force multiplier, trusted partner and problem solver to leadership, the Strategic Program Delivery Director brings structure, clarity, and momentum to complex, multiyear initiatives, translating strategy into actionable roadmaps and operating practices so strategic goals are achieved and value is optimized. The role also leads structured change management efforts, including communication, stakeholder engagement, and capability building, to embed sustainable change into operating models. This role is a member of the Strategic Programs & Technology team within the People Organization and will primarily focus on Big Bets portfolio and other global initiatives. In addition to the change portfolio, the role will be accountable for a set of targeted, time-bound priorities / workstreams, these will evolve year-to-year alignment with the functional strategy, the wider PO and Enterprise strategy and organizational needs.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience, in Business, Human Resources, Organizational Development, Strategy, Project/Program Management, or a related field.
Minimum 10 years of experience in strategy execution, portfolio/program management, transformation leadership, or a similar role supporting strategic initiatives.
Proven success leading large, multi‑year, cross‑functional initiatives in complex, matrixed organizations.
Demonstrated experience designing and managing governance frameworks, including prioritization, sequencing, dependency management, and portfolio reporting.
Experience driving change management, including stakeholder engagement, communications, and adoption activities.
Strong analytical capability to assess risks, interdependencies, capacity constraints, and value realization.
Strategic problem solver, ability to identify execution gaps and drive cross‑functional solutions.
Exceptional executive communication skills and strategic storytelling—able to simplify complexity, influence decision making, and present concise, high‑impact insights.
Strategic Agility: Anticipates needs, connects work to enterprise strategy, and adjusts plans as priorities evolve.
Execution Excellence: Drives disciplined delivery, holds workstreams accountable, and maintains momentum in ambiguous environments.
Systems Thinking: Understands enterprise interdependencies, upstream/downstream impacts, and cross‑functional implications.
Change Leadership: Guides organizations through transformation with empathetic, structured approaches.
Decision Quality: Uses data and insight to inform decisions, escalation paths, and trade‑off recommendations.
Influence & Relationship Management: Secures alignment and partnership from diverse stakeholder groups.
Communication Impact: Communicates with clarity, consistency, and executive polish.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree (MBA, MHRM, or equivalent) with emphasis on strategy, organizational effectiveness, or transformation
Professional certifications in relevant disciplines, such as: Project/Portfolio Management: PMP, PgMP, PfMP

Responsibilities

Portfolio Leadership, Oversight & Value Delivery Lead the end-to-end delivery of assigned strategic priorities and workstream, either as coleader or with full accountability, ensuring measurable value realization and clear, sustainable outcomes.
Own or co-own delivery of high impact, timebound initiatives, applying strong execution judgment and removing obstacles to maintain momentum.
Translate enterprise and functional strategies into actionable execution roadmaps, including milestones, timelines, integrated plans, and defined success measures.
Develop and manage comprehensive timelines and roadmaps for change, sequencing initiatives to optimize adoption, resourcing, and business impact.
Provide end-to-end visibility into portfolio performance, including progress tracking, risk identification, tradeoff analysis, and timely escalation of issues.
Act as a strategic problem solver, proactively identify execution gaps, organizational friction, emerging risks, and interdependencies, mobilizing cross functional solutions to sustain progress.
Ensure sustainable adoption and value realization, defining success metrics and monitoring outcomes to confirm intended benefits are achieved.
Governance, Structure & Operating Practices Design, implement, and continuously evolve a standardized governance and delivery framework for strategic initiatives, ensuring clear intake, prioritization, sequencing, and dependency management.
Establish consistent operating practices and accountability models to support disciplined execution across regions, functions, and workstreams.
Ensure alignment of initiatives with enterprise, functional, and organizational strategies, capacity, and intended outcomes.
Cross-functional Partnership & Stakeholder Engagement Serve as a trusted partner to leadership, collaborating closely with cross functional stakeholders (e.g., Technology, Analytics, Operations, Finance, IT) to embed initiatives into operating models.
Partner with leaders to ensure strategic initiatives are effectively integrated into ways of working across all impacted teams and geographies.
Executive Communication & Strategic Storytelling Deliver clear, concise, executive ready updates, insights, and recommendations to leadership.
Translate complex data, risks, and progress into compelling, decision-oriented narratives that enable alignment and informed decision making.
Lead communications and engagement efforts that support transparency, progress visibility, and organizational readiness.
Change Management & Adoption Lead structured change management efforts—including communications, stakeholder engagement, and required training—to drive awareness, understanding, and adoption of new processes, systems, and behaviors.
Define and monitor success metrics and adoption indicators, ensuring outcomes are achieved and sustained over time.