Senior Manager - Real Estate Strategy and Planning

Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company; Chicago (IL); Remote; USD 126,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual bonus plan

Health benefits

401(k)

Paid time off

Job summary

The Cigna Group is seeking aSenior Manager, Portfolio Strategy & Planning to align workplace portfolio with enterprise priorities. You will lead long-range planning, occupancy strategies, and analytics to improve employee experience and real estate efficiency.

Collaborate with HR, IT, Finance, and business leaders to translate priorities into scalable workplace standards. Strong communication and change leadership are essential for guiding cross-functional teams through transformations.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience in a related field.
• Experience leading workplace strategy, occupancy planning, or portfolio planning.
• Ability to translate requirements into long-range workplace strategies.
• Strong data-driven decision making and cross-functional collaboration.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain a 5- to 10-year workplace and real estate portfolio strategy.
• Collaborate on global occupancy and space planning capability and governance.
• Translate growth, change, and attendance forecasts into occupancy plans.
• Advise leaders on portfolio utilization, investments, and sequencing decisions.
• Lead cross-functional planning across GWP functions and analytics teams.

Skills

Executive communication

Data analysis

Stakeholder management

Leadership

Change leadership

Space planning

Occupancy planning

Portfolio planning

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree in business, real estate, architecture, planning, operations management, analytics, or related field

Master's degree preferred

Job description

Position Overview: The Cigna Group is seeking an experienced transformational leader to serve as Senior Manager, Portfolio Strategy & Planning within Global Workplace Programs (GWP). This leader will align the company's workplace portfolio, workforce requirements, technology, and business priorities to improve employee experience, portfolio performance, and real estate efficiency. The Senior Manager will lead workplace and occupancy strategies, including space planning, utilization analytics, workplace solutions, and change leadership. Working across GWP, Human Resources, Enterprise Technology, Finance, and business leadership, this role will translate enterprise priorities into scalable workplace strategies, consistent standards, and actionable portfolio decisions across offices and other workplace environments. The ideal candidate combines strategic judgment, analytical problem-solving, broad functional knowledge, and strong execution discipline. The role requires an enterprise mindset, excellent communication skills, and the emotional intelligence to build alignment across diverse stakeholders while leading teams through complex change.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain a 5- to 10-year workplace and real estate portfolio strategy aligned with enterprise, workforce, talent, and financial priorities.
• Collaborate on the global occupancy and space planning capability, establishing consistent demand-planning processes, space standards, governance, and service delivery expectations.
• Evaluate portfolio, workforce, and utilization data to recommend optimal square footage, employee-to-desk ratios, collaboration capacity, adjacencies, workplace zoning, and site-level solutions.
• Translate business growth, organizational change, workforce forecasts, and attendance expectations into actionable occupancy plans and real estate requirements.
• Advise senior leaders on portfolio utilization, workplace investments, sequencing decisions, trade-offs, risks, and actions required to align the physical footprint with enterprise strategy.
• Facilitate cross-functional planning and prioritization across GWP functions, including portfolio strategy, transactions, design, workplace experience, facilities operations, capital project delivery, analytics, governance, and change leadership.
• Establish enterprise workplace principles and standards that balance employee experience, business purpose, operational resilience, cost, and flexibility.
• Build change leadership and stakeholder-engagement roadmaps that prepare leaders and employees for workplace, occupancy, and portfolio changes and support successful adoption.
• Identify and implement leading practices, tools, benchmarks, and process improvements that strengthen workplace strategy and occupancy management performance.
• Measure outcomes through clearly defined portfolio, utilization, employee experience, financial, and delivery metrics, and communicate progress to senior leadership.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in business, real estate, architecture, planning, operations management, analytics, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
• Demonstrated experience leading workplace strategy, occupancy planning, space planning, portfolio planning, or a closely related corporate real estate function.
• Experience translating business and workforce requirements into long-range portfolio and workplace strategies.
• Strong analytical capability and demonstrated success using data to solve complex problems, evaluate alternatives, and support executive decisions.
• Proven ability to build trusted relationships and collaborate across business, HR, Technology, Finance, and real estate stakeholders.
• Strong executive communication and presentation skills, with the ability to make complex concepts clear, concise, and actionable.
• Ability to lead challenging conversations calmly, objectively, and with a solutions-oriented approach.
• Strong organizational, prioritization, and time-management skills, with the ability to move between strategic direction and execution detail.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's degree in business, real estate, architecture, planning, organizational change, or a related discipline.
• Experience leading enterprise-wide business integration, workplace transformation, portfolio optimization, or technology-enabled operating model initiatives.
• Experience with workplace and portfolio technology platforms, utilization analytics, scenario modeling, and performance reporting.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and influence within a highly collaborative, multidisciplinary, and matrixed organization.
• Results-oriented leadership style with the ability to engage deeply in critical details while motivating teams and maintaining an enterprise perspective.
• Broad understanding of corporate real estate, workplace experience, change leadership, design, project delivery, facilities operations, finance, and the interdependencies among these functions.
• Exceptional written, verbal, and listening skills, with the ability to communicate effectively with technical and non-technical audiences.

If you will be working at home occasionally or permanently, the internet connection must be obtained through a cable broadband or fiber optic internet service provider with speeds of at least 10Mbps download/5Mbps upload.

For this position, we anticipate offering an annual salary of 125,800 - 209,600 USD / yearly, depending on relevant factors, including experience and geographic location.

This role is also anticipated to be eligible to participate in an annual bonus plan.

At The Cigna Group, you’ll enjoy a comprehensive range of benefits, with a focus on supporting your whole health. Starting on day one of your employment, you’ll be offered several health-related benefits including medical, vision, dental, and well-being and behavioral health programs. We also offer 401(k), company paid life insurance, tuition reimbursement, a minimum of 18 days of paid time off per year, paid holidays, and leaves of absence. For more details on our employee benefits programs, click here.

About The Cigna Group

Doing something meaningful starts with a simple decision, a commitment to changing lives. At The Cigna Group, we’re dedicated to improving the health and vitality of those we serve. Through our divisions Cigna Healthcare and Evernorth Health Services, we are committed to enhancing the lives of our clients, customers and patients. Join us in driving growth and improving lives.

Qualified applicants will be considered without regard to race, color, age, disability, sex, childbirth (including pregnancy) or related medical conditions including but not limited to lactation, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran or military status, religion, national origin, ancestry, marital or familial status, genetic information, status with regard to public assistance, citizenship status or any other characteristic protected by applicable equal employment opportunity laws.

If you need a reasonable accommodation to complete the online application process, please email [e-mail] for assistance. Please note that this email inbox is dedicated to accommodation requests only and cannot provide application updates or accept resumes.

The Cigna Group has a tobacco-free policy and reserves the right not to hire tobacco/nicotine users in states where that is legally permissible. Candidates in such states who use tobacco/nicotine will not be considered for employment unless they enter a qualifying smoking cessation program prior to the start of their employment. These states include: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Washington State.

Qualified applicants with criminal histories will be considered for employment in a manner consistent with all federal, state and local ordinances.

Doing something meaningful starts with a simple decision, a commitment to changing lives. At The Cigna Group, we’re dedicated to improving the health and vitality of those we serve. Through our divisions Cigna Healthcare and Evernorth Health Services, we are committed to enhancing the lives of our clients, customers and patients. Join us in driving growth and improving lives.