Strategic Initiatives Program Manager

Mars Incorporated; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 108,000 - 149,000; Full time

Job summary

Mars Incorporated in Chicago, IL is seeking a Project Manager, Strategic Initiatives & Performance to translate strategic priorities into actionable plans, drive cross-functional execution, and provide leaders with transparent progress, risks, and value.

This role emphasizes governance, analytics, and continuous improvement, with opportunities to build executive dashboards, partner across functions, and contribute to Mars' strategic initiatives.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in supply chain, Engineering, Business, Information Systems, Analytics, Project Management, or related field.
• 3 years experience in project management or business experience, PMO, program coordination.
• Experience supporting complex, cross-functional initiatives in a matrixed organization.
• Demonstrated experience developing project plans, governance materials, status reports, RAID logs, and executive presentations.
• Experience with Microsoft Office tools, Power BI or Power Sheets, etc.

Responsibilities

• Project delivery: Define scope, outcomes, workplans, timelines, governance, and ways of working for assigned initiatives; coordinate execution from initiation through closure.
• Governance and controls: Prepare agendas and materials, facilitate reviews, document decisions, maintain action logs, and ensure agreed actions are completed.
• Risk and dependency management: Maintain RAID logs, identify critical-path impacts, coordinate mitigations, and escalate issues as needed.
• Performance analytics and dashboarding: Build and maintain project and portfolio dashboards, executive scorecards, risk heat maps, and performance views.
• Reporting and insight: Translate complex delivery and performance data into concise narratives, trends, implications, and management actions.
• Data quality: Define measures with data owners, validate inputs, resolve inconsistencies, and maintain confidence in reported information.
• Process improvement: Standardize and automate recurring reporting, status collection, governance, and workflow activities.
• Stakeholder partnership: Build relationships across a matrixed organization, clarify ownership, surface trade-offs, and promote timely decisions.

Skills

Project management

Cross-functional collaboration

Governance

Performance analytics

Stakeholder management

Education

PMP, Agile, Lean certifications

Tools

Power BI

Power Sheets

Excel

PowerPoint

Word

Job description

Mars Incorporated in Chicago, IL is seeking a Project Manager, Strategic Initiatives & Performance to translate strategic priorities into actionable plans, drive cross-functional execution, and provide leaders with transparent progress, risks, and value.

This role emphasizes governance, analytics, and continuous improvement, with opportunities to build executive dashboards, partner across functions, and contribute to Mars' strategic initiatives.