Dir, Program Management

100 Horizon Healthcare Services, Inc; Newark (NJ); On-site; USD 138,000 - 188,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits + Wellness programs

Retirement plans

Generous PTO

Incentive plans

Tuition reimbursement

Job summary

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey is seeking an experienced Program Manager to lead large-scale, multi-year initiatives across our portfolio. You will partner with senior executives to drive delivery, manage budgets, and establish best practices for effective program governance.

This role requires strong leadership, strategic communication, and extensive experience with program and portfolio management in the healthcare industry.

Qualifications

• 7+ years leading large-scale programs or portfolios.
• Experience managing programs with budgets of $20M+.
• PMI PMP Certification required or must obtain within one year of hire.
• Healthcare experience preferred.
• Experience with project and portfolio management tools and financial support systems.

Responsibilities

• Develop and direct multi-year portfolio and/or program execution plans.
• Primary point of contact for program status and communications with senior leadership.
• Oversee program delivery on schedule and within budget.
• Develop and maintain integrated program plans and milestones.
• Establish standards for reporting and documentation; coordinate with steering committees.

Skills

Portfolio management

Program management

Leadership

Communication

Agile

Financial management

Stakeholder management

Healthcare industry experience

Education

Bachelor's degree preferred

High School Diploma/GED required

Tools

PM tools

Financial systems

Job description

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey empowers our members to achieve their best health. For over 90 years, we have been New Jersey’s health solutions leader driving innovations that improve health care quality, affordability, and member experience. Our members are our neighbors, our friends, and our families. It is this understanding that drives us to better serve and care for the 3.5 million people who place their trust in us. We pride ourselves on our best-in-class employees and strive to maintain an innovative and inclusive environment that allows them to thrive. When our employees bring their best and succeed, the Company succeeds.

About the Role

The role has overall responsibility for planning, directing, executing and coordinating activities required to successfully implement a large scale, multi-year, program OR a single business portfolio of medium to large programs. The role ensures that program goals are accomplished and its strategic objectives are achieved. The role is responsible for planning, controlling and monitoring all program and project activities to ensure the scope is delivered on budget, on schedule, with quality and ultimately achieves the desired business benefit. The role is also responsible for defining, developing and enhancing program management best practices, processes, and policy to ensure effective and efficient delivery (examples include reporting, forecasting, capacity planning and agile transformation.) The role is responsible for providing regular status updates to the senior executives. The role is responsible for managing an annual program budget of $20M+.

What You’ll Do

Program Leadership

• Develop and direct multi-year portfolio and/or program execution plans.
• Primary point of contact for Program status.
• Maintain effective communication with senior leadership (EVPs, SVPs and Steering committee members) making them aware status, critical issues and risks.
• Conduct regular reviews with steering committee(s), senior leadership (EVP/SVP) and core portfolio / program management team.
• Ensure Business Owners are appropriately engaged and informed.
• Ensure Program or Portfolio of programs is proceeding according to plan.

Portfolio and Program Management

• Program / Portfolio direction and oversight including definition, prioritization, planning, execution, monitoring and evaluation.
• Ensure programs have clear goals, objectives, and timelines with measurable milestones consistent with corporate strategy and goals.
• Ensure appropriate development and tracking of risks, issues, dependencies, contingency plans and allocation of available resources.
• Facilitate leadership reviews.
• Review status reports prepared by program and project personnel, and modify schedules and plans as required.
• Coordinate and respond to requests for changes from original specifications.
• Ensure strong financial management of project estimates, forecasts and actuals.
• Ensure all EPMO deliverables meet quality standards.
• Ensure proper project delivery methodology is utilized (e.g. waterfall, agile, iterative).

Project Management Oversight

• Oversee program(s) from inception to successful implementation.
• Develop project plans specifying goals, strategy, staffing, scheduling, risks, contingency plans, and allocation of available resources.
• Develop and maintain integrated program plan(s) encompassing all critical project tasks and milestones.
• Assign duties, responsibilities and scope of authority to project personnel.
• Direct and coordinate activities of project team personnel to ensure program progresses on schedule and within budget.
• Establish standards and procedures for project reporting and documentation.
• Review status reports prepared by program and project personnel and modify plans as required.
• Prepare and communicate program status reports.
• Confer with project personnel to provide program management advice and resolve problems.
• Coordinate and respond to requests for changes from original specifications.
• Monitor project results against technical and business specifications.
• Develop and maintain program-level documentation.
• Ensure that quality assurance test plans are created and executed.
• Identify/recommend the methods and tools required for projects.
• Communicate plans, status and issues to senior leadership.
• Provide thought leadership to problem solving to support Business needs.

Personnel Management

• Responsible for recruiting, on-boarding, developing and directing program and project management professionals to ensure the portfolio progresses according to plan.
• Confer with project personnel to provide technical advice and creatively resolve problems.
• Plan team resource needs; allocate, supervise and review work.
• Promote development and diffusion of program management culture with portfolio stakeholders.
• Ensure team training requirements are identified and addressed.
• Lead a team of 5-25 project management professionals.

What You Bring

Education / Experience

• High School Diploma/GED required.
• Bachelor degree preferred or relevant experience in lieu of degree.
• Minimum of 7 years of experience leading large scale broad-based programs/projects.
• Must have managed multi-year Programs/portfolios with budgets in excess of $20M.
• Experience with project and portfolio management tools and financial support systems strongly preferred.
• Healthcare experience preferred.

Additional licensing, certifications, registrations

• Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification required or must obtain within one (1) year of hire
• Agile Certified Practitioner (ACP) Certification preferred

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities: Strong portfolio and program management skills. Ability to collaborate and respectfully challenge. Ability to ask right questions and anticipate needs. Strong leadership skills with a results orientation. Effective oral and written communication skills; ability to convey messages and information that is commensurate with the audience’s level of understanding. Demonstrated understanding of the software development process, including requirements gathering, analysis/design, development tools/technologies, release/version control, contemporary testing methodologies and deployment management. Strong analysis, design and implementation experience. Knowledge of project financial management best practices in the areas of estimating, forecasting, and tracking of actuals. Ability to navigate conflict and manage political issues in a highly matrixed environment. Management understanding of hardware and systems software. Ability to conceptualize, document and articulate creative solutions to executive leadership. Ability to establish and maintain a high level of customer trust and confidence. Ability to communicate needs and schedules to IT and business owners, as well as ensure that plans are in place and standards are adhered to. Strong program and project management skills with ability to multitask and manage multiple small to large projects in a cross-functional environment. Demonstrated ability to lead, develop and motivate staff to apply skills and techniques to solve dynamic problems. Strong partnering, teamwork and interpersonal skills at all management levels.

Why Horizon?

At Horizon, you’ll do meaningful work that directly improves lives—while being supported by a mission‑driven organization that values expertise, collaboration, and growth. We believe that when our people thrive, our communities do too. If you are passionate about making an impact, we’d love to hear from you!

Salary and Benefits

Salary Range: $138,000 - $188,370. This compensation range is specific to the job level and takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions, including but not limited to: education, experience, licensure, certifications, geographic location, and internal equity. This range has been created in good faith based on information known to Horizon at the time of posting. Compensation decisions are dependent on the circumstances of each case.

• Comprehensive health benefits (Medical/Dental/Vision)
• Retirement Plans
• Generous PTO
• Incentive Plans
• Wellness Programs
• Paid Volunteer Time Off
• Tuition Reimbursement

Disclaimer: Horizon BCBSNJ employees must live in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut or Delaware.

This job summary has been designed to indicate the general nature and level of work performed by colleagues within this classification. It is not designed to contain or be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all duties, responsibilities, and qualifications required of colleagues assigned to this job.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity or status as an individual with a disability and any other protected class as required by federal, state or local law. Horizon will consider reasonable accommodation requests as part of the recruiting and hiring process.

About Us

We are the leading health insurer in New Jersey, trusted by generations of families and businesses. We are dedicated to enriching the lives and health of our members and the New Jersey communities we serve, because we live and work here too.

Our Mission

We empower our members to achieve their best health.

Our Vision

We are New Jersey’s health solutions leader driving innovations that improve health care quality, affordability and member experience in the markets we serve.