Senior Project Manager, Strategic Initiatives

Foot Locker; Utrecht; Hybrid; EUR 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid position (~3 days in office)

Job summary

Foot Locker in the Netherlands/EMEA Strategy Team seeks a Senior Project Manager to drive cross-functional strategic initiatives across EMEA, focusing on commercial, customer experience, store operations, and digital priorities.

Day to day, the role coordinates delivery and portfolio management by creating transparency on progress, dependencies and risks, and provides leadership with decision-ready insights to keep initiatives focused on impact.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in business or related field (MBA a plus).
• 5–7 years of experience in project or programme management, strategic initiatives, business transformation, or strategy delivery—ideally in retail or a similarly complex, customer-facing environment.
• Strong portfolio coordination capabilities - prioritisation support, dependency management, delivery governance, and benefits tracking across several initiatives running in parallel.
• Excellent stakeholder and communication skills - able to influence and work confidently with senior functional leaders, and produce crisp executive updates, clear narrative, and actionable reporting.
• A pragmatic delivery mindset - comfortable with ambiguity, able to impose structure quickly, anticipate what’s needed, make pragmatic trade-offs and elevate when required, and experienced running governance rhythms such as steering committees and delivery reviews.
• Strong analytical skills and the ability to interpret complex information.
• Proficiency with project and portfolio management tools, dashboarding, and Microsoft Office applications.

Responsibilities

• Drive day-to-day delivery of assigned strategic initiatives, setting clear expectations and holding workstream owners to agreed standards and milestones.
• Lead PMO rhythms: steering committees, programme boards, weekly delivery reviews, and reporting.
• Identify risks early, remove blockers, and elevate with clear options and recommendations.
• Drive consistent delivery methods across teams (standards, templates, tooling, ways of working).
• Build and run the integrated roadmap, managing cross-programme dependencies and critical path.
• Establish clear outcomes, KPIs, and benefits tracking across initiatives.

Skills

Portfolio coordination

Stakeholder management

Delivery governance

Analytical skills

Executive updates

Communication skills

Delivery mindset

Education

Bachelor’s degree in business or related field

MBA (preferred)

Tools

Microsoft Office

PM tools & dashboarding

Job description

Overview

The Senior Project Manager, Strategic Initiatives sits within the Strategy Team and drives the delivery of cross-functional strategic initiatives across EMEA. Working closely with the Sr. Director, Strategy and functional leaders, the role brings structure, pace and clarity to complex initiatives spanning functions and markets, with a focus on commercial, customer experience, store operations, and digital priorities.

Day to day, the role coordinates delivery and portfolio management by creating transparency on progress, dependencies, and risks. It keeps stakeholders aligned and provides leadership with clear, decision-ready insights to keep initiatives focused on impact. The role also supports the Sr. Director in translating strategy into plans and works with functional teams to adopt new ways of working and realise benefits.

The role has no direct reports and delivers through influence - mobilising and aligning teams across functions and markets, partnering with executive sponsors, functional leaders and workstream owners, and escalating where senior decisions are needed.

Responsibilities

Strategic Initiative Planning and Mobilisation

• Support the Sr. Director, Strategy in translating agreed strategic priorities into structured, executable plans - drafting objectives, milestones, owners, and success measures for review and sign-off.
• Support the scoping and shaping of initiatives with a direct impact on profitability, pulling together the analysis, options, and trade-offs that underpin the case for change and the leadership decision.

Programme delivery and pace-setting

• Drive day-to-day delivery of assigned strategic initiatives, setting clear expectations and holding workstream owners to agreed standards and milestones.
• Lead PMO rhythms: steering committees, programme boards, weekly delivery reviews, and reporting.
• Identify risks early, remove blockers, and elevate with clear options and recommendations.
• Drive consistent delivery methods across teams (standards, templates, tooling, ways of working).
• Build and run the integrated roadmap, managing cross-programme dependencies and critical path.
• Establish clear outcomes, KPIs, and benefits tracking across initiatives.

Stakeholder management and alignment

• Partner with executive sponsors, functional leaders and workstream owners - building the relationships that keep initiatives moving and translating complex delivery detail into messages that land with both senior leadership and delivery teams.
• Maintain the stakeholder map for each initiative, agreeing who is consulted, informed, and involved in decisions, and keeping engagement plans current as initiatives move through delivery.

Change And Benefits Realisation

• Coordinate change adoption activities across initiatives - readiness, communications, training, and field enablement - supporting functional and market teams as they embed new ways of working and flagging where additional support is needed.
• Capture lessons learned at initiative close and feed them back into delivery standards and ways of working.
• Track benefits realisation and ensure initiatives deliver the promised value.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in business or a related field (MBA a plus).
• 5-7 years of experience in project or programme management, strategic initiatives, business transformation, or strategy delivery - ideally in retail or a similarly complex, customer-facing environment - including delivery of multi-workstream initiatives in an international, matrixed organisation.
• Strong portfolio coordination capabilities - prioritisation support, dependency management, delivery governance, and benefits tracking across several initiatives running in parallel.
• Excellent stakeholder and communication skills - able to influence and work confidently with senior functional leaders, and produce crisp executive updates, clear narrative, and actionable reporting.
• A pragmatic delivery mindset - comfortable with ambiguity, able to impose structure quickly, anticipate what’s needed, make pragmatic trade-offs and elevate when required, and experienced running governance rhythms such as steering committees and delivery reviews.
• Strong analytical skills and the ability to interpret complex information.
• Proficiency with project and portfolio management tools, dashboarding, and Microsoft Office applications.

Benefits

• Recognition, inclusion and belonging in a diverse environment
• 25 holidays and flexible working (hybrid position, in office ~3 days p/w)
• Employee Discount on in-store and online products
• Casual Sneaker Culture
• Learning & Health/Wellbeing programs
• Career development and growth in an ambitious international team
• Travel reimbursement
• Access to premium wellness apps
• Bike plan and contribution to gym subscription
• Pension Plan
• Discounted Collective Health plans
• Activities organized by our Social Committee #