Strategic Initiatives - Business Change Management Lead

Kestra Financial; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Kestra Financial seeks a Change Management Lead to build and lead Bluespring Wealth Partners' enterprise change management capability from the ground up. The role supports major transformations, technology migrations, and operating-model changes while protecting the client and advisor experience.

You will influence senior leaders, coordinate adoption across partner firms, and drive measurable value with governance, playbooks, and reusable tools.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.
• 7+ years of progressive change management/transformation experience.
• Experience creating enterprise change strategies, governance and reusable tools.
• Ability to translate impact/readiness insights into actionable delivery plans.
• Strong executive communication and stakeholder-management skills.

Responsibilities

• Build and lead a pragmatic enterprise change management capability.
• Develop and execute change strategies for major transformations and technology initiatives.
• Assess stakeholder impact, readiness, risk, and adoption needs; define actions and owners.
• Create integrated plans for communications, training, and manager enablement.
• Advise leaders on sponsorship actions, messaging, and decision-ready updates.
• Maintain visibility into major initiatives, audiences, timing, dependencies, and capacity.
• Tailor adoption approaches for partner firms while distinguishing enterprise standards.
• Develop a Change Champion network and enable champions with tools and training.
• Define readiness, proficiency, utilization, and sentiment metrics to drive improvement.
• Coach sponsors, managers, and teams; capture lessons learned for enterprise standards.

Skills

Change management

Stakeholder management

Executive communication

Facilitation

Coaching

Influencing

Education

Bachelor's degree in a relevant field

Job description

Lead with Purpose. Partner with Impact.

The Change Management Lead will build and lead Bluespring Wealth Partners' enterprise change management capability. This hands‑on role will establish practical standards, tools, governance, communications, training, and adoption measures that help corporate teams and partner firms implement change successfully. The role supports enterprise transformation, technology commonality, integrations, operating model changes, and process improvements while protecting the advisor, employee, and client experience.

The ideal candidate can create a scalable capability from the ground up, influence without direct authority, and balance enterprise consistency with the operating realities of independent partner firms.

What you'll Do:

• Build the change management function: Establish a pragmatic organizational change management methodology, governance model, service approach, playbooks, templates, intake criteria, and reusable tools.
• Lead change delivery: Develop and execute change strategies for major transformations, technology implementations, integrations, commonality programs, and process or operating model changes.
• Assess impact and readiness: Conduct stakeholder, change impact, readiness, capacity, and risk assessments; translate findings into clear actions, owners, milestones, and escalation needs.
• Enable adoption: Create integrated plans for communications, engagement, training, manager enablement, resistance management, go‑live readiness, reinforcement, and sustainment.
• Advise leaders and sponsors: Align leaders on the case for change, decisions, messages, expected behaviors, and sponsorship actions; provide concise briefings and decision‑ready updates.
• Manage the change portfolio: Maintain visibility into major initiatives, affected audiences, timing, dependencies, organizational capacity, and change saturation; recommend sequencing and mitigation actions.
• Engage partner firms and advisors: Tailor adoption approaches by stakeholder needs, business model, geography, technology environment, and readiness while clearly distinguishing enterprise standards from areas of flexibility.
• Build and support a Change Champion network: Equip champions across partner firms and corporate functions with messaging, tools, training, feedback channels, and escalation paths.
• Measure adoption and value: Define a focused set of readiness, proficiency, utilization, compliance, sentiment, sustainability, and outcome measures; use results to identify corrective actions and improve future delivery.
• Build organizational capability: Coach sponsors, managers, project teams, and change practitioners; maintain reusable assets and incorporate lessons learned into the enterprise approach.

KEY WORKING RELATIONSHIPS

Executive sponsors; Business Operations & Integrations; partner‑firm leaders and advisors; Platform Innovation & Operations; Technology; Compliance; Human Resources; Finance; Marketing and Communications; project and program leaders; external consultants; and Kestra Holdings shared‑service partners.

What You Bring:

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant field or equivalent experience.
• 7+ years of progressive experience in organizational change management, business transformation, organizational effectiveness, program management, consulting, or a related discipline.
• Demonstrated experience creating enterprise change strategies, governance, standards, and reusable tools, and applying them to large‑scale technology, integration, operating model, or process initiatives.
• Ability to assess stakeholder impacts, readiness, resistance, adoption risks, and sustainment needs and convert findings into practical delivery plans.
• Strong executive communication, facilitation, coaching, influencing, and stakeholder‑management skills, including the ability to influence without direct authority.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities, work across corporate and field‑based teams, and connect adoption measures to business outcomes.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Prosci Change Management Practitioner, CCMP, or equivalent credential; complementary program or process improvement certification is a plus.
• Experience in wealth management, registered investment advisory, financial services, FinTech, or professional services.
• Experience supporting mergers, acquisitions, post‑acquisition integrations, technology migrations, organization redesign, or operational commonality programs.
• Experience building a change management function, Center of Excellence, or enterprise change portfolio from inception.
• Familiarity with advisor technology, CRM, client portals, portfolio and trading platforms, or data transformation.

SUCCESS IN THIS ROLE

• A repeatable, right‑sized Bluespring change framework is used consistently across priority initiatives.
• Leaders and initiative teams have timely visibility into readiness, capacity, resistance, adoption risk, and required interventions.
• Communications, training, and engagement are targeted to stakeholder needs and support measurable proficiency and adoption.
• Partner‑firm and advisor feedback is gathered, themes are addressed transparently, and disruption is actively managed.
• Post‑implementation insights, reusable assets, and adoption results improve the speed and quality of future change efforts.