Senior Manager, Strategic Initiatives

Cencora; Philadelphia (Philadelphia County); On-site; USD 95,000 - 148,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical benefits

Dental benefits

Vision benefits

Parental leave

Backup dependent care

Adoption assistance

Infertility coverage

Training programs

Mentorship

Employee resource groups

Volunteer opportunities

Job summary

Cencora seeks a Senior Manager, Strategic Initiatives to drive a portfolio of high-visibility projects across USPAH. You will partner with senior leaders to define scope, milestones, and ownership, and translate complex data into clear leadership updates.

You will prepare executive materials, surface risks, and facilitate cross-functional sessions, building credible relationships with stakeholders and ensuring consistent reporting across programs.

Qualifications

• Six or more years of experience in strategic planning, program management, or a related field.
• Experience supporting senior leaders on enterprise-wide or cross-functional initiatives.
• Ability to work with a high degree of confidentiality and discretion.
• Bachelor's degree in business, strategy, organizational development, or related field (MBA preferred).
• Experience in corporate strategy, chief of staff, or PMO.
• Background in healthcare, pharmaceutical distribution, or a similarly complex regulated industry.

Responsibilities

• Support senior leadership in managing a portfolio of USPAH-wide strategic initiatives, ensuring clarity on scope, ownership, milestones, and progress.
• Prepare high-quality materials for leadership reviews, executive briefings, and cross-functional forums, translating complex information into clear and actionable formats.
• Track the status of strategic initiatives and proactively surface risks, blockers, and interdependencies to leadership.
• Facilitate working sessions and cross-functional meetings, ensuring outcomes are documented and action items are followed through.
• Conduct research and analysis to inform strategic decisions, synthesizing inputs from multiple stakeholders and data sources.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with project owners, business unit leaders, and functional partners to ensure alignment and forward momentum.
• Develop and maintain frameworks, templates, and tools that bring consistency and rigor to how strategic initiatives are managed and reported.
• Formalize and manage an intake process for cross-cutting issues, ensuring consistent capture, prioritization, ownership assignment, and escalation of items requiring cross-functional coordination.
• Manage and support a USPAH-wide governing body designed to identify, triage, and drive resolution of issues that impact multiple businesses, functions, or stakeholder groups.
• Stand up and operationalize new cross-business forums or routines to provide visibility into key programs, projects, changes, and emerging issues impacting teams across US businesses.
• Partner with cross-functional stakeholders to identify interdependencies and establish ways of working that support ongoing connection, coordination, and collaboration across teams.
• Measure the impact of supported initiatives and resolved issues by defining meaningful success metrics and developing dashboards that demonstrate the team's value, outcomes, and progress against key priorities.
• Support the development of enterprise-level communication and narrative materials tied to strategic priorities.
• Serve as a thought partner to senior leadership, contributing perspective and recommendations on how to advance complex organizational priorities.
• This role may require occasional travel for leadership offsites, cross-functional engagements, or enterprise planning sessions.
• Other duties as assigned

Skills

Strategic thinking

Executive communication

Influence leadership

Organizational skills

Adaptability

MS Office

Stakeholder management

Education

Bachelor's degree in business/strategy/organizational development

MBA preferred

Tools

Microsoft Office (PowerPoint, Excel, Teams)

Job description

Job Details

The Senior Manager, Strategic Initiatives provides dedicated program and governance support to senior leadership responsible for U.S. Pharmaceuticals and Animal Health (USPAH)-wide strategic priorities. This role sits at the intersection of strategy, execution, and cross-functional issue resolution, helping to manage, coordinate, and advance a portfolio of high-visibility initiatives that span functions and business units. The Senior Manager brings structured thinking, strong relationship skills, and a bias toward action, enabling senior leaders to move faster and maintain clarity across a complex set of concurrent priorities. This role requires a broad enterprise perspective and the ability to engage credibly with leaders and stakeholders across the organization.

Responsibilities

• Support senior leadership in managing a portfolio of USPAH-wide strategic initiatives, ensuring clarity on scope, ownership, milestones, and progress

• Prepare high-quality materials for leadership reviews, executive briefings, and cross-functional forums, translating complex information into clear and actionable formats

• Track the status of strategic initiatives and proactively surface risks, blockers, and interdependencies to leadership

• Facilitate working sessions and cross-functional meetings, ensuring outcomes are documented and action items are followed through

• Conduct research and analysis to inform strategic decisions, synthesizing inputs from multiple stakeholders and data sources

• Build and maintain strong relationships with project owners, business unit leaders, and functional partners to ensure alignment and forward momentum

• Develop and maintain frameworks, templates, and tools that bring consistency and rigor to how strategic initiatives are managed and reported

• Formalize and manage an intake process for cross-cutting issues, ensuring consistent capture, prioritization, ownership assignment, and escalation of items requiring cross-functional coordination

• Manage and support a USPAH-wide governing body designed to identify, triage, and drive resolution of issues that impact multiple businesses, functions, or stakeholder groups

• Stand up and operationalize new cross-business forums or routines to provide visibility into key programs, projects, changes, and emerging issues impacting teams across US businesses

• Partner with cross-functional stakeholders to identify interdependencies and establish ways of working that support ongoing connection, coordination, and collaboration across teams

• Measure the impact of supported initiatives and resolved issues by defining meaningful success metrics and developing dashboards that demonstrate the team's value, outcomes, and progress against key priorities

• Support the development of enterprise-level communication and narrative materials tied to strategic priorities

• Serve as a thought partner to senior leadership, contributing perspective and recommendations on how to advance complex organizational priorities

• This role may require occasional travel for leadership offsites, cross-functional engagements, or enterprise planning sessions.

• Other duties as assigned

Education and Work Experience

• Six or more years of experience in strategic planning, program management, management consulting, or a related field

• Demonstrated experience supporting senior leaders on enterprise-wide or cross-functional initiatives

• The ability to work with a high degree of confidentiality and discretion is essential given the nature of the initiatives supported

• Bachelor's degree in business, strategy, organizational development, or a related field (Master's degree or MBA preferred)

• Experience in a corporate strategy, chief of staff, or PMO function

• Background in healthcare, pharmaceutical distribution, or a similarly complex regulated industry

Skills and Knowledge

• Strong strategic thinking and analytical skills, with the ability to connect the dots across a complex portfolio of initiatives

• Executive-level written and verbal communication skills, with experience preparing materials for senior and C-suite audiences

• Ability to build credibility and influence with leaders across functions and business units without direct authority

• Highly organized and detail-oriented, with the ability to manage competing priorities and deliver high-quality work under tight timelines

• Intellectually curious and comfortable operating in ambiguity, with a proactive approach to problem solving

• Proficiency in Microsoft Office suite including PowerPoint, Excel, and Teams

• Strong interpersonal skills and demonstrated ability to navigate complex stakeholder environments with professionalism and discretion

What Cencora offers

We provide compensation, benefits, and resources that enable a highly inclusive culture and support our team members' ability to live with purpose every day. In addition to traditional offerings like medical, dental, and vision care, we also provide a comprehensive suite of benefits that focus on the physical, emotional, financial, and social aspects of wellness. This encompasses support for working families, which may include backup dependent care, adoption assistance, infertility coverage, family building support, behavioral health solutions, paid parental leave, and paid caregiver leave. To encourage your personal growth, we also offer a variety of training programs, professional development resources, and opportunities to participate in mentorship programs, employee resource groups, volunteer activities, and much more. For details, visit https://www.virtualfairhub.com/cencora

Full time

Salary Range*

$94,500 - 148,060

*This Salary Range reflects a National Average for this job. The actual range may vary based on your locale. Ranges in Colorado/California/Washington/New York/Hawaii/Vermont/Minnesota/Massachusetts/Illinois State-specific locations may be up to 10% lower than the minimum salary range, and 12% higher than the maximum salary range.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Cencora is committed to providing equal employment opportunity without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, age, disability, veteran status or membership in any other class protected by federal, state or local law.

The company's continued success depends on the full and effective utilization of qualified individuals. Therefore, harassment is prohibited and all matters related to recruiting, training, compensation, benefits, promotions and transfers comply with equal opportunity principles and are non-discriminatory.

Cencora is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities during the employment process which are consistent with legal requirements. If you wish to request an accommodation while seeking employment, please call 888.692.2272 or email [e-mail]. We will make accommodation determinations on a request-by-request basis. Messages and emails regarding anything other than accommodations requests will not be returned

Affiliated Companies: AmerisourceBergen Services Corporation